Osgood Perkins isn’t a household name you would jot down if you were thinking about any up and coming directors in Hollywood, but he managed to leave enough of an impression on Orion Pictures with his previous low-budget fanfare to scrape up an opportunity to work on the upcoming Gretel & Hansel.

The trailer for the film is yet another rare instance of Hollywood doing something right and creating a measure of suspense and intrigue without giving away the entire plot, sort of like what happened with Blumehouse’s Black Christmas remake, where the trailer literally gave everything away within its rather minuscule runtime.

In the case of Gretel & Hansel, viewers are treated to a very grimdark rendition of the tale that fits in line closer to the likes of the Grimm fairy tales from which many of the classic fables are based. You can check out the trailer below courtesy of Orion Pictures.

The trailer starts with the standard tale of Hansel and Gretel being left to their own devices, with nothing to their names but the clothes on their backs and a willingness not to starve to death.

One red flag, however, is that the man who narrates their destitution is a black man, which doesn’t fit the theme of Hansel and Gretel taking place in Germany. Current day Germany may have seen an unwarranted influx of immigrants who have no qualms about engaging in public savagery, but during the time in which the story takes place, it’s completely immersion breaking to throw in an African-American.

Beyond the immersion-breaking diversity casting, the rest of the trailer plays out in an admittedly captivating way.

It’s obvious it’s a low-budget film, but the way the sets, lighting, and cinematography are utilized, you can tell that even on a small budget a lot of love and care went into the craft.

There’s a lot of symbolic imagery set against distinctly contrasting backgrounds with striking silhouettes on display.

You can tell that they’re definitely going with a big presentation with what little they have to work with.

My only concern would be the focus on style over substance.

But then again, given that this is an old story where we already (most likely) know the outcome, most people going to see this film are likely going to see it because of the stylized directing.

Perkins’ films have mostly waddled through the critics’ gamut with middling scores, so we’ll see if he can break the curse with Gretel And Hansel.

The visually ambitious film is due to release into theaters via Orion Pictures starting January 31st, 2020 at the end of the month.