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

Hold Your Breath (2012)

Over in America, this horror movie was touted as the first theatrical release from The Asylum. Most people who know me, and my dubious taste, will know that I have quite a love-hate relationship with The Asylum. They made Transmorphers, the first movie I ever gave a lowly 1/10 rating, but they also gave me dumb fun such as Mega Piranha and the infamous Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. I keep defending them, despite their business model built around "mockbusters" and SyFy Channel movies, and people keep telling me off for it. Well, it's not going to change, especially now that they're starting to take some more risks and put out some more original product (which, contrary to popular belief, they have been doing for some time - it's just that the mockbusters get the press, so to speak).

Hold Your Breath isn't really that good, but it has one or two decent death scenes and might be okay for a rental if you have enough beers beside you. Part of me knows that this film just isn't good enough while another part of me wants it to do okay, just well enough to encourage the company to keep trying. Perhaps if they keep trying, they'll make something good enough to surprise us all.

The plot is standard horror 101. A prologue shows viewers a nasty murderer being put to death and then things move forward to a bunch of pretty young things all heading away for a weekend trip. Apparently, there's an urban myth that while passing a cemetery you have to hold your breath. If you don't do it then any evil, restless spirit can enter you and make you do bad things. Can you guess what happens as the group drives past a cemetery?

Directed by Jared Cohn, and written by Geoff Meed (who himself directed the absolutely awful The Amityville Haunting), this starts off badly, picks up slightly after the main titles and then proceeds to slide, slowly and surely, back down to the bottom of the pile. The concept of the evil spirit taking people over and turning them into evil killers isn't that bad, it was done well in the likes of Shocker and Fallen, but in between numerous average scenes The Asylum end up shoehorning in a lot of poor, and unnecessary, CGI.

The cast is a real mixed bag and I'm not going to pretend that I cared enough about everyone onscreen to stop them from blurring into one big potential murder victim. Katrina Bowden is the best thing onscreen by a country mile, though Steve Hanks also does well with his role. As for the others, Seth Cassell may stand out slightly from the others, but Lisa Younger, Jordan Pratt-Thatcher, Brad Slaughter and Randy Wayne could all get together and rob me at gunpoint and I wouldn't be able to remember a thing about them. It's not that they are terrible or completely nondescript, it's just that they're not given any material to help differentiate themselves from one another. ANY of the men and women onscreen, for the most part, could play any of the other men or women.

I'm not bothered by the fact that the film doesn't supply the horror genre with a memorable new villain, I don't care that the script is pretty clunky and preposterous and I don't even mind that the characters aren't all that likable. What stops me from rating this film as even an average horror are the many moments that just feel lazy and careless. It's not THAT hard to make a generic, uninventive horror movie. To make one that doesn't even stand up well alongside OTHER generic and uninventive horror movies is never good. And that bothers me.

4/10

http://www.amazon.com/Hold-Breath-Blu-ray-Katrina-Bowden/dp/B009T43QC2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1365214997&sr=8-2&keywords=hold+your+breath