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Two kids (Silvia Cipollone, Massimiliano Cipollone) go missing, and the
suspicion arises early on that they have fallen victim to an illegal
harvesting ring, possibly have even been sold to organ harvesters by their
stepfather, but no evidence can be found, and the alleged head of the
organ harvesters, Solange (Brigitte Christensen) does of course not admit
to it once questioned by the police. A few days later she is found dead,
drowned in her own pool. It could have been an accident, but because a)
the police doesn't think so, and b) the police needs an excuse to blow the
organ trade ring wide open, policewoman Silvia (Elisabeta Piamente
Boaretto) moves into Solange's mansion to question her relatives,
personnel and other houseguests. All of them are of course part of the
organ trade ring, but nobody confesses anything ... but then they start to
drop like flies, all dying from what could be natural causes or simple
domestic accidents - but why then are all deaths accompanied by nursery
rhymes that seem to emmanate from nowhere. It doesn't take long for
Silvia to figure out the deaths and the disappeared children are somehow
connected, but what she doesn't know is that the kids have actually come
back as ghosts, and they drive their former tormentors (all of them) to
death, one after the other. Eventually, the ghost kids make themselves
known to Silvia, and signal they mean her no harm, but when she tells this
to her superiors, she earns nothing but ridicule. Finally, the baddies
are down to one, Fred (Gaetano Russo), Solange's free-loading husband, and
he thinks he can outsmart both the ghost kids and the police presently
searching Solange's place for evidence by taking Silvia hostage - but as a
result of this, his death is only all the more gruesome ... With Fred
dead, the ghost children return to their grave in the ground, but not
without waving Silvia a warm good-bye. Hansel e Gretel
is a film not without its creepy ideas - especially the nursery rhymes
preceding the deaths are, while not exactly a novel idea, very effective.
Also, the film is very decently filmed, nicely directed, and the gore
scenes are well-placed ... but that's about it then. In all, the film's
premise is ok, but after a time repeating the same scare tactics again and
again gets tiring, the story develops more and more into a soap opera with
rather uninteresting characters, and the whole thing lacks narrative
build-up too. Not a disaster, and especially horror flicks from Italy
from that time were often a lot worse, but nothing really outstanding,
either.
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