Season of the witches - Hollywood's new villains meet match in 'Hansel and Gretel'
The sorceress is cinema's latest villain of choice, as seen in a novel update of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, writes James Mottram
Even before the Twilight franchise drew its last breath, Hollywood was already stirring the ingredients into its cauldron for this year's follow-up fantasy film trend. Vampires are dead - and now it's the witching hour.
Beautiful Creatures, a supernatural tale based on Kami Garcia's novel and starring Alice Englert as a "caster" whose powers will either be used for good or evil come her 16th birthday, is due for a February release in the US and around the world. Then there's Oz the Great and Powerful, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, in which James Franco plays a magician who travels to the land of Munchkins, flying monkeys and that yellow brick road and encounters three witches played by Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis.
Before those movies hit the screens, though, Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton will be seen as brother and sister in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a twist on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Plunder those dim childhood memories, and you may recall their story deals with two young siblings left to fend for themselves in a dark forest, where they encounter a witch living in a house made of confectionery.
Renner admits it's been a long time since he read the tale. "Until the movie came around, I thought fairy tales were things you read to your kids when you go to bed," he says. "This is a terrifying story - brother and sister left in the woods to die and they find a candy house and the witch tries to eat them and they end up killing the witch. The end!"
That, of course, is the Grimm version. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is set 15 years on, with the siblings now grown up, dressing in fashions that seem inspired by the leather-fetish scene and, as the title suggests, hunting vigilante-style any witch that comes their way. With The Avengers star Renner, 42, playing Hansel and 27-year-old British actress Arterton as Gretel, their chief target is Muriel, an "evil to the core" witch, according to Dutch actress Famke Janssen, who plays the arch-villainess. "They seem to have a bigger problem with me than I have with them," she cackles.
No wonder: Janssen's witch is plotting to sacrifice many children at a witches' gathering during the upcoming "Blood Moon" night. "The idea of playing a witch was appealing and different," says the 48-year-old Janssen. "I hadn't done anything like it. Right away, they showed me some sketches of what the character was going to look like, so there was no surprise there - I was going to be hideously ugly."