5) Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
As fairy tales go, Hansel And Gretel is perhaps one of the darkest and most horrific ever conceived. With a father who abandons his two children in a forest at the behest of his new wife – in order to save themselves from starvation – and a blind, cannibalistic witch who plays on their vulnerability and lures them into her lair, it doesn’t get more disturbing than a caged child using one of the bones of a previous captive to delay his culinary-based demise. Not surprising, then, that a continuation of that story might take the form of action-horror.
Written and directed by Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow), and starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as the titular siblings, the story sees our heroes as adults, who have made a career for themselves as professional witch hunters – using their hard-won expertise to make ends meet. They find themselves pitted against Muriel (Famke Janssen) – an evil witch whose intimate knowledge of Hansel and Gretel’s past makes her a deadly adversary.
This update is a glorious thing. Filled with action, drama and well-placed comedy, it strikes exactly the tone needed for a fairy tale adaptation that is effectively a modernisation, while staying in the fantastical, historical realm. With the siblings both demonstrating their well-developed bad-assery, the film is a shining example of how to extract hope from the bleakest of places. Hansel and Gretel, as characters, are among the saddest, most pitiful creatures in literature – but everything turned out fine, because they grew up to be Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton.