HANSEL AND GRETEL GET BAKED

In Pasadena, there is an old woman who lives in a large villa. The local youths know she keeps a secret, a wonderful secret: the elderly woman is a marijuana dealer. But not just any marijuana, a special quality cultivated by her called "Black Forest" that seems to get you high like no other drug on the market. One day, Ashton, Gretel's boyfriend, disappears without a trace after going to resupply from the old woman. The girl, with the help of her brother Hansel and a group of stoners from the town, begins the search for her boyfriend. All the evidence leads right to the old woman's house, where they will find terrifying surprises. How many times have we found ourselves in front of a horror movie trailer and heard a phrase like "Quentin Tarantino presents" or "More terrifying than The Exorcist" or even "It's been since The Shining that we've seen a film like this"? Experience has taught us that, most of the time, a phrase like that has only one meaning: the movie we are about to see is a piece of junk. A kind of decoy to attract people to the theaters. But at least in the cases mentioned above, the names and titles mentioned were respectable. In recent years, after the Edward&Bella mania, a new promotional message of dubious artistic quality but with the gift of drawing crowds to cinemas has begun to spread. "From the producers of Twilight" It is precisely in this new category that "Hansel & Gretel Get Baked" falls, translated for Italy as "Hansel and Gretel and the Witch of the Black Forest," which has nothing to do with the "Twilight Saga," starting with the genre. "Hansel and Gretel... etc." promises to be a horror-comedy, a mix of genres very popular in recent years. This is clear from the movie poster that depicts a gingerbread man (identical to the character from Shrek) with a marijuana cigarette in his mouth and a broken leg from which blood flows. The first idea is therefore that of a silly film, in the style of "Scary Movie." It is not so. The movie begins, and we see who will be the true protagonist of the story: marijuana. A special variety of cannabis that grows in the home of an old woman who deals drugs. Normally, in a movie where the subject is marijuana, there is a coming and going of characters made from a mold, stoned people who laugh at every foolishness and who should make you laugh. The stoned people are there, but they do not make you laugh. On the contrary, they ridicule themselves by improvising as detectives, all searching for Gretel's stoned boyfriend. We never understand if we are watching a comedy or a horror. The movie is always balancing between the two genres, managing to be perfectly neither. It never scares, it never makes you smile, and if at the beginning there are at least some splatter premises (the tasting of an eye), this aspect is also lost as the minutes pass. Moreover, the story is a real mess, and when zombies also appear, we can do nothing but put our hands in our hair. The only thing that saves the movie are the references to the original story, let's call them "quotes." Seeing the gingerbread house (in miniature) or the path marked with Smarties instead of breadcrumbs partly relieves the embarrassment of the fairy tale enthusiasts. For the rest, nothing is saved. The characters are so poorly described that it is hard to find the words to talk about them. Hansel walks around with his camera and takes pictures of anything. The reason? We don't know. Gretel is a dedicated marijuana smoker, and that's the only information we have about her. We know nothing about their past, present, or future. Then there are the supporting characters, one more useless than the other, from the dealer to the stupid girlfriend of the dealer to the neighborhood boss, all linked to the drug world and all played by actors who should find another job. Finally, there is the witch, played by Lara Flynn Boyle, whom we remember in the role of Donna in "Twin Peaks," who at least tries to play the hag but handles herself poorly between the sensual and the cruel, penalized not only by the insipid film but also by a bad makeup. To conclude, we report a scene that sums up all the stupidity of the film: Gretel lost in a maze (of marijuana) discovers that there is a prisoner locked in a cage, but we are not sure where. She only hears him talking and asks the man to whistle so she can reach him. Once found, as if amazed in front of the bars that keep him prisoner, she utters the phrase that makes everything collapse: "Don't you have the keys?" And he replies, "I thought you had them." The rape of the Grimm fairy tale.