The siblings Hansel and Gretel are left alone in the woods by their father and captured by a dark witch in a candy house. However they kill the witch and escape from the spot. Years later, the orphans have become famous witch hunters. When eleven children go missing in a small village, the Major summons Hansel and Gretel to rescue them, and they save the red haired Mina from the local sheriff that wants to burn her accusing Mina of witchcraft. Soon they discover that the Blood Moon will approach in three days and the powerful dark witch Muriel is the responsible for the abduction of children. She intends to use the children together with a secret ingredient in a Sabbath to make the coven of witches protected against the fire. Meanwhile Hansel and Gretel disclose secrets about their parents.
Trivia:Diane Kruger, Eva Green and Noomi Rapace were considered to play Gretel, but Gemma Arterton eventually got cast.
In an interview with Famke Janssen at Cannes 2011, she stated that she took her role as the head witch because she had to pay off her mortgage. Janssen has stated multiple times that since 2007, she was prepping her writing/directorial debut "Bringing up Bobby", where funding and distribution had gone through hard times, partly due to the 2008 economic crisis. She also had not done much acting in that period of time.
Not screened in advance for critics.
In the movie, Hansel is diabetic as a result of his experience in the gingerbread house as a child. In the original script, Gretel was also supposed to have an eating disorder as a result of her childhood trauma, but it was cut from the final version.
