Hansel & Gretel (2013)

Fairytales have been bringing in some big bucks over the past few years. Or they've been trying to, at least. TV shows and movies based, sometimes very loosely, on the classic stories that entertained many of us as children have been doing pretty well with teens and older viewers. Stuff like Grimm, Once Upon A Time, Snow White & The Huntsman, and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. So it was only a matter of time until the Asylum got involved. And here is their contribution.

Be warned, some minor spoilers may follow, for those who like to view a movie without knowing ANY of the details beforehand.

Brent Lydic and Stephanie Greco play the brother and sister, with the both of them in great danger from a witch (Lilith, played by Dee Wallace) who already has a number of potential victims in her basement, ready to make into meals. Will Hansel & Gretel be able to escape?

Directed by Anthony C. Ferrante, this is pretty solid stuff. The reasons I warned of minor spoilers above is because I wasn't sure whether or not to mention that the witch was played by Dee Wallace, but it would be hard to review the movie without mentioning it, especially as she's the most recognisable name in the cast list. But I'll get back to the acting later. Anyway, Ferrante does a decent, if unspectacular, job in the director's chair. Some more spit and polish could have really made this into a little gem, but the final product is passable anyway, not exactly great but not bad either.

The script by Jose Prendes has a few good ideas sprinkled throughout, including the different effects of the magic treats created by the witch. Unfortunately, there are also many moments, especially in the first half, that just reek of cliche, and then there's a second half that suffers a bit of an identity crisis, trying to spin the fairytale plates while it also attempts to make everything feel a bit like a Wrong Turn movie.

Lydic and Greco do okay, and Sara Fletcher and Clark Perry stand out from the small selection of other people trying to avoid being put into the oven. Steve Hanks, Trish Coren and M. Steven Felty are a few of the adults who may be able to help the witch's victims, or may now. And then there's Wallace, who has some fun as Lilith. It's actually not the wild and over the top performance that viewers might expect, but that just makes the occasional outbursts all the more enjoyable.

I'd advise any fans of this kind of movie to go for any of the other recent versions of the tale ahead of this one. Although, having said that, this isn't as bad as it could have been.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Hansel-Gretel-Dee-Wallace/dp/B009X484OS/ref=sr_1_11?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1399926186&sr=1-11&keywords=hansel+and+gretel

The Haunting Of Whaley House (2012)

The Asylum reappear once more on this blog (and I'm sure that they'll continue to grace this little corner of the internet with their presence) and this time it's with another one of their haunted house movies. Now, as much as many people seem to have an aversion to The Asylum and their working model, many people are most probably aware of how much I tend to enjoy their output. Some of their movies are awful, some of their movies are entertainingly awful and some of their movies, as hard as others find it to believe, are properly enjoyable. The haunted house movies that they've released (including the Paranormal Entity films and A Haunting In Salem) have been very entertaining, which is why I had high hopes for The Haunting Of Whaley House.

It's a step down from their other haunted house movies but still fun nonetheless. The premise is wonderfully simple - a young woman (Penny, played by Stephanie Greco) gets a job showing people around a haunted house. She doesn't believe it's actually haunted but that doesn't matter, the other woman taking the tours round (Bethany Romero, played by the lovely Lynn Lowry)  does and she advises Penny not to take things lightly. So you know that trouble is coming when Penny's friends convince her to let them all go around on their own private tour.

Written and directed by Jose Prendes, The Haunting Of Whaley House provides what you'd expect it to provide. There are some dumb teens, there's one moment of fleeting nudity and there are ghosts. Sadly none of these things are treated in the best possible way. The dumb teens are bland and interchangeable, the fleeting nudity is too fleeting (oh, everyone knows how shallow I can be so don't act all surprised now) and the ghosts don't show themselves enough to provide the easy jumps that a film this low on tension could benefit from.

Thankfully, there are some good moments that manage to entertain and the presence of Lynn Lowry in a cameo role makes everything a bit easier to endure for horror fans but the movie is, ultimately, something that you can all too easily miss out on with no regrets.

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share