Everything old is new again

I just read that there is a movie being made called "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters". It shows the titular characters several years in the future after their encounter in the gingerbread house, becoming a duo of bounty hunters. I'm not crazy about the casting (although I do enjoy some things that Jeremy Renner has been in), but overall, what bothers me about this is that I had a similar idea at one point! Except in my version it was a sort of murder-mystery, Hansel and Gretel were still children...and other fairy tale mainstays made cameo appearances. In my head it was amazing. On paper...probably not so much, maybe.

Apparently, fairytales are the the new supernaturals. I'm okay with this. There are few things I enjoy more than a good (emphasis there, that word is important for the purposes of distinction) retelling of a classic cautionary tale. And some writers (either literature or screenwriters) can do it. And some just can't. Honestly, if you want an example of what I consider to be good, one of my favorite film versions of the Snow White story is Snow White: A Tale of Terror. It was a made-for-tv movie from the 1990's starring Sigourney Weaver and Sam Neill, and is a lot more faithful to the Grimm's version of the story than other retellings (I'm looking at you Disney, with your scampering woodland creatures and watered-down sense of creeping terror and dread!). 

Of course, aside from film versions, the written retellings and homages and parodies are endless. I could make a very long list of writers who get it right, and Neil Gaiman would be at the top. (He's at the top of nearly all of my lists. Fangirl, outed. Moving on.) But also there is Terry Pratchett (the Discworld series is riddled with references, both timeless and modern, and that's half the fun of reading them), and John Connolly (do yourself a favor and pick up The Book of Lost Things, because what he does with fairy stories is inspiring).

So this is one trend that I may try not to dismiss so readily as so many of the other storytelling bandwagons that have come along in recent years. I'll be glad to see the era of the sensitive vampire dissipate an errant neckbiter getting caught out after day break.