Jeremy Renner’s forgotten horror film & Gemma Arterton is a streaming success 12 years later

The fairy tales of the Grimm-Pend brothers were transmitted by generations as a way to transmit life lessons through folklore. These stories were often dark and twisted reflections of horrors preparing under the magic brilliance through which you saw the world at a young age. Many of their most rough edges were smoothed after being translated into feature films. Disney has practically built a brand empire on its disinfected adaptations, in particular with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty”, avoiding the darker implications of their source equipment. However, there was a moment in the early 2010s, when the films surrounding the fairy tales Grimm began to look towards older demography.

The thing with films like “Red Riding Hood” and “Snow White and the Huntsman” is that their attempts to capture in a darker tone were barely going beyond the surface level. They favored more troubled color pallets and violent action sequences above digging in thematic horrors in Grimm stories. One of the most notorious examples of this is the horror action film Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Despite a largely negative aggregate of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, the 2013 film was a massive success at the box office, causing $ 226 million on a budget of $ 50 million.

The legacy of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” was confirmed in the following years, with a little cult hit, but it seems that the film has found a new life in streaming. According to the website of streaming data, Flix Patrol, “Witch Hunters” worked well in the audience numbers on the Top 10 of Paramount + in the last eight days in the United States. As this article is published, the film has increased from the sixth most popular film on fifth service.

What is funny about “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is that part of the film technically adapts the beloved story, because it opens with the pair of brothers and sisters approaching a house in articulated gingerbread of candies belonging to a playful witch. After realizing that she intended to devour them, the children throw her into the oven. Rather than going back to their broken house with its wealth, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) rather devote their lives to become witch exterminators. Their battles often lead to a bloody carnage through turret pistols and loaded crossbows. When it seems that the wicked Grande Grande Witch Muriel (Famke Janssen) plots to use the arrival of the blood moon to sacrifice children from a local village, witch hunters do everything they can to prevent flammable immunity from their enemies before it is too late.

“Witch Hunters” comes from the spirit of director Tommy Wirkola, of the Norwegian filmmaker behind the films “Dead Snow” “, everything that happened on Monday”, and the bone breeze on the theme of the “Night” Yelétide. Its gender rate tends to involve a more humorous vision of current violence. There is a moment in this film, for example, which sees two witches roll on their brooms through the forest at maximum speed, only to be cut into the bitty pieces by flying directly in a razor wire trap. It is also the kind of film where Hansel needs to take insulin following diabetes induced by magic which stems from its consumption of young candies, as well as a Gatling pistol used to mow an evil clan. In a way, you have to roll with the absurdity of the whole premise.

In addition to addressing gender monsters like me, the 2013 actuator ended up being a successful gambit, because it is both published in January and 3D. It could simply exist like insane stuffed animals that will not remember as something special, but will accomplish you with enough sorcerer carnage for having made the entry price. Renner and Arterton are both good actors who can make something as silly as the work of “witch hunters”. It could have become another franchise to revive in the wake of “The Avengers”, but a bit like “The Bourne Legacy”, all the potential following plans could simply manage due to a lack of interest behind the scenes to move forward.

“Gretel & Hansel” underestimated by Oz Perkins, would really be based on the elements of what makes the story of Grimm so haunting, with themes of abuse and negligence. But if you are looking for an action film adjacent to horror with funny gore effects and witch exterminators that look cool in front of the explosions, you now know where to find it.

“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is currently broadcast on Paramount +.