Maria e João - O Conto das Bruxas

The only thing (apart from the title), I knew going into this, was that this was supposed to be trash. Now I like me some trash movies from time to time, so I was prepared for that. Turns out that's not the case at all. Actually this is more of an art excercise than anything else. Anything else also including the Hansel & Gretel stories we know - which the title switch of the names might be the first indicator of.

That's not all that is different - certain aspects seem to be as you may have seen them in other movies, but the majority of the movie dares to be different. In a lot of ways - character wise, story wise, setting wise, incidents wise ... Now that should answer the question some might have had, about the necessity of the movie: are there not enough of these already? Well apparently you can spin this another way - and it works.

Now having said that, it is surely not without flaws, yet the fact it goes places you probably don't expect it to go, handles horror in a way I personally prefer to the in your face jump scares (it is about mood and setting it) and how it is shot (visually) is quite exceptional! You have to be in the mood for this type of film and some may have issues with the pacing - but you can't please everyone anyway!