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A classic tale... horrifyingly real

Hansel & Gretel is a 2013 Horror film produced by The Asylum.

Hansel and Gretel are twins who lost their mother in a car accident some years back. Gretel works at a pie and candy shop named The Gingerbread House under her boss, Lilith. After learning that his father will be remarrying a girl only a few years older than the twins, Hansel runs off into the forest and runs afoul of a beartrap. Gretel finds and frees him, and brings him to a nearby house, where her boss, Lilith, works. Unfortunately for the twins, the situation is more sinister than it seems and they're soon fighting for their life.

No points guessing why this was released the same year as Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Followed by a 2015 sequel, Hansel vs. Gretel, also by The Asylum.


This movie contain examples of the following tropes:

  • Annoying Arrows: Kevin is felled by an arrow. As soon as the villain turns away, he gets up and starts running off, seemingly unbothered by it.
  • Big Damn Heroes: The sheriff on the trail of a woman who killed a kid he accidentally runs over stops the Killer's son from taking out our heroes with a bear trap bolo. Keep in mind he didn't even know who the guy was, but he knew Hansel and Gretel and knew who was the good guy.
  • Blood Oath: After Gretel agrees to inherit the Gingerbread House from Lilith, Lilith pulls the paperwork away in a way that inflicts a papercut on Gretel, with a drop of blood on the signature line, which Lilith views with delight.
  • Burn the Witch!: Just guess how Lilith dies in her own oven. "Know what they do with witches? They burn them alive."
  • Cannibalism Superpower: Lilith claims that "It's not meat. It's youth!" in her explanation that eating the meat of children has kept her young for centuries.
  • Child Eater: Lilith's preference.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Film ends with Gretel enjoying Lilith's remaining meat pie and reopening the Gingerbread House with a sinister smile on her face, implying she's going to continue the cannibalism tradition.
  • Fattening the Victim: The children held under the house are given vast quantities of pastries in an effort to fatten them up.
  • Faux Action Girl: Gretel. We are told she can handle herself and she has her moments but her brother, who suffers a bear trap wound on his leg for the entire film does more than she does.
  • Gorn: The camera loves to linger on compound fractures and horrendous wounds.
  • Idiot Ball: Deputy Carter, it's admirable you are one of the .0001 percent of horror movie police officers with a brain, who recognizes something is clearly wrong in the house and calls the sheriff. It is less admirable to turn your back on the suspected psychopath and give her reason to suspect you are on to her.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Lilith and her clan.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Lilith claims to be hundreds of years old, but all of her tricks involve drugging people, so it's never certain whether she's telling the truth.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: Lilith claims that Gretel is just like her. The ending suggests that this is true.
  • The Secret of Long Pork Pies: Lilith's "world-famous meat pies" are implied to be made out of the victims.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Kevin manages to escape, even after being shot by an arrow. Unfortunately, he runs into the road and is hit by the sheriff's car. Turns that annoying arrow into straight up impalement, too.
  • Taught by Television: Played with. How does Hansel know how to pick locks and set sling traps? He watches too much TV.

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