not horrible nor great

Fantastic!

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Shelley Winters plays the heartbroken and distraught widow Mrs. Forrest (Auntie Roo to all the kiddies), who also lost her daughter in an unfortunate accident. I haven't watched very many of her films, but so far this is my favorite and she plays the role of Auntie Roo very well. We see her kind and caring side, who loves children and gives graciously to many of the local orphans during Christmas when she invites them to her mansion for fun, food, candy, presents and a sleepover. But, Auntie Roo also has a dark side and it slowly begins to take over.It seems as though Auntie Roo doesn't want to let go of her loved ones. And reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel, Auntie Roo seems to also have an appetite for children, which turns out to be very bad for an orphaned brother and sister. They are held captive and fattened up as Auntie Roo prepares what may very well be their last meal...7 out of 10

This takes place in 1920s England. Mrs. Forrest (Shelley Winters) lives in this big old mansion by herself. She had a daughter who disappeared years ago...and she never forgot her. Every Christmas she opens her house to kids at a nearby orphanage. One Christmas she meets young Katie (Chloe Franks) who looks just like her daughter. She plans to keep Katie forever but Katie's protective older brother Christopher (Mark Lester) won't let that happen.VERY mild horror film...it barely qualifies as horror! It's more funny than scary to see Winters chewing the scenery non-stop. The story is no more than an updating of "Hansel and Gretel" and is VERY thin. There's tons of filler and it gets boring when Winters isn't on screen. Also Lester and Franks are pretty bad in their roles. Still it LOOKS great (the DVD transfer is great) and it is well-directed by Curtis Harrington, but it's just not scary enough.

i probably should have given this perfect little horror ditty a higher rating. it's so perfectly executed (ha horror pun) and well done(ha another pun) that you want to go overboard and give it a ten or a nine, but because of it's light simplicity that might be overstating. i think i was overwhelmed by the stylish perfectionism of this that i wanted to overlook a certain lack of importance in general.a overall sense of development is put aside somewhat in order to achieve a sense of classic, elegant style and perfection. this film may not be as developed or as good as Aldrich's 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane', but it is less rough around the edges and achieves more dignity and refinement. there is also a slyer sense of subtly to the morbidity here and Winter's performance is less repelling than Davis's all though no less chilling.to say this is comparative to Aldrich or the Hammer greats does not mean that the films of H. Nicholson and Z. Arkoff for American International are anything to dismiss lightly either. and this film proves their taste(ha pun) as film producers once again.this is probably one of the best tellings and updatings of the 'Hansel and Gretel' story ever. the psychological take on the whole thing is blood curdling and a horrifying twist on who is evil and who is a menace. the likely culprit here is everyone. just great. no one is blameless. ain't it the God's truth.this is one of the best ways to present 'Hansel and Gretel'. why stop the paranoia aimed at one individual? as long as we are being paranoid lets take on everything including ourselves? if you truly go into this gingerbread house with a thinking and open mind little ones, this is one gingerbread house you won't come out of so easily.

I love Shelley Winters in this film as the demented Auntie Roo, the widow of a British magician. In this film, she plays a haunted troubled woman whose daughter died in a terrible accident. She wants to be a mother again and finds herself drawn to a girl who resembles her own late daughter. There are lot of interesting scenes and Shelley Winters is a scream in this film with her part. You feel sorry for her but despise what she's doing to Katy and Christopher, young British orphans, who end up being Hansel and Gretel in this story. The ending was kind of disturbing and the kids reminded me more of the boy in the Omen film at times. It's a first rate cast with Shelley Winters, Ralph Richardson, Judy Cornwell, and Marianne Stone just to name a few well known British actors in the cast. I would like to see it again especially since I missed the beginning portion of it. I found it terribly entertaining even a good Halloween movie to show.