Adorable Humans(2025) Fantaspoa

 

A horror anthology based on the work of Hans Christen Andersen tells four stories.

The stories in the film are updated versions of Anderson's tales. Since the copy I saw retained the original titles I had to look up what the stories were. They are The Dead Man, The Story of a Mother, The Snow Queen, and Auntie Toothache,  Since the stories are updated and because I have't read his stories since I was teenager I couldn't fathom a guess as to how close they are to the original tales.  

I should also mention that, even if this weren't a "horror" film, this isn't one looking for family friendly tales. This is the unfiltered Andersen that had the the Little Mermaid ending up as foam on the ocean instead of living happily ever after.

While this film may look like its four short films by four writer directors, the truth is the films were all written and put together with interaction from everyone and the same crew. I mention this because from the outside looking in you eould think that the directors would want to put their own stamp on things but it's not the case. The reality is the film looks and plays as if it was put together by a single director. 

While the stories are told with a horrific edge, the tales are really trying to say more about love and loss and other  human emotions. I'm not certain it's always successful. Yea, the chills are here but the quest for larger things doesn't always land.  I think it's that in updating things some of the humanity of Andersen that spoke to larger things was lost. 

The stories as they stand in the film are all good to various degrees. I don't think that there is a bad one in the bunch, though some are going to play better than others. I'm intentionally not describing the plots because I found that I was not happy with my descriptions with some of my thoughts coming out as overly snarky.

I liked the film and its stories a great deal, though I wish the film was a tiny bit less polished so the stories felt realer and less like a movie.

Worth a look.