Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft (2013)

Got this from a jumble sale, and then watched it and realised why it was in the sale. Be assured it's going back to the next jumble sale for another poor mug to buy it.I have never watched such a bad film.There was a plot, but it was thin and boring. No real atmosphere, no empathy with the characters, no caring if anyone lived or died. Nothing in the film, not one thing, was like the cover of the DVD shows. Such a let down.There were several filler shots of the campus, and every time they were shown you'd see the same people walk across the area in the same way.That was the only fun part - me yelling, ''There it is again!'' every time the repeated filler scenes showed.Don't bother to watch it.

Take a look at the DVD sleeve, then watch the film. Then wonder if there should be some sort punishment enforced on the writer, director, producer or distribution company. Actually I can't blame the writer. For all I know it was a great script that simply didn't survive the pre- production. But there you go on the sleeve with Fivel and Booboo (who names their kids that?) dressed in black leather, carrying swords, explosions, castles and flocks of bats behind them teasing you to something of a great action movie. Here's the spoiler alert..... none of that happens. Fivel discovers an enchanted letter opener about 3/4 of the way in and slays the head witch at the end in the shortest final battle sequence ever. "I'm the main witch! - And now you're dead!" cue the happy music. I won't spoil all of the story for you. I'll let the film do that if you find yourself actually watching this nonsense.Then I could go on about the continuity? OK I will. Opening scene is Booboo getting into what we later find out to be another fight. The scene is cut with exterior shots to basically establish where we are. So, the poor troubled lad with his twin sister are sent to an exclusive private school. But hang on......? Isn't that the same place in the exterior shots? Should this be in the goofs section? Essentially it looks like someone went out with a camera one afternoon, shot about 30 minutes of exterior views with which to loosely cut together the "main action". This film is dreadful. Please don't read this review and then go watch the film to see how dreadful it was. Please, I beg you, just.... don't. This isn't going to turn into a cult classic like "Attack of the killer tomatoes" one day that becomes famous because it is rubbish. "Attack" was put together purposely to be a bit naff and we loved it for that. Hansel & Gretel Witchhunters etc, seems to be taking itself seriously like it set out to be a serious film. You will get to the end and say "Seriously?"

Whoever wasted their money on producing this movie deserves losing everything. What a load of trash. Unnecessary bad language, ridiculous modern style script and to cap it all out comes a stun gun sort of disguised as something like a wooden catapult. Do not bother wasting your time or money watching time and certainly don't waste YOUR money buying the DVD or going to the cinema. Unfortunately, IMDb rules state that there must be 10 lines of review before it can be accepted for on-line submission. Not easy in this case as what I have said really does sum up what a load of rubbish this film is. However, to put it some sort of context I should add that I currently have nearly 900 film DVD's in my collection and yes there are a few that were not worth the time and effort let alone money, but this film; Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft (2013) is definitely 'bottom of the pile' and will be duly binned. The only saving grace is (and only just 'is'), is the CGI. Everything should have stayed on the cutting room floor.

This is not a good movie. If that's all you need to know, then you don't have to go any further. It's badly acted, badly directed, has no budget, the script makes no sense, there's no continuity, the camera work is pathetic, and the story flat out contradicts itself on several occasions. As a purveyor of bad movies, I naturally enjoyed it a whole lot.The story follows Jonah and Ella (no, not Hansel and Gretal... that would be stupid!) as they are kicked out of yet another high school because her brother has misbehaved in some vague manner. They are accepted into one of the most 'prestigious' schools in the nation at Salem Massachusetts. I say 'prestigious' because they keep talking about how well respected it is despite the fact that there would appear to be only one or two buildings, the dorms consist of a single room with two beds and, oh yeah, people have been murdered and/or found severely brain damaged on campus, although from what I can tell nobody has really made a big deal of it. Jonah gets into a fight almost immediately with the most stereotypical jock ever, and after complaining that nobody ever talks to him he immediately tells the only people who want to talk to him to f**k off. He's then invited by the jock that beat him up to come perform witchcraft and suck out the souls of other students, which he readily agrees to (I can't stress enough how fast he goes from 'nobody likes me' to 'i'm a complete jerk').Ella, meanwhile, begins to think that something is afoot as she repeatedly talks to her guidance councilor who tells her all about the rumors of witchcraft at the school, telling Ella that it was prophesied that a set of twins would kill the cult of witches that reside there. Spoiler alert, the councilor is the head witch (who told her all about them). I'd say it's a surprise except every time you see 'mysterious robed witch' it's clearly a middle-aged woman, and the only woman the characters have any real interaction is the middle-aged guidance councilor.Along the way, Ella finds that her parents were witch hunters who were killed by the same witch group, so she decides to kill the witches with a knife she found while investigating a bookshelf because... it had.. circles on it? She learns how to kill witches from her creepy stalker principle who trains her by throwing baseballs at her. They do this while the witches stand not 10 feet from them watching, and are then surprised when one of them stabs the principle in broad daylight. Anyways, she eventually convinces her brother that killing people to drain their souls is bad, and after the shortest non-fight ever they kill the witch and decide to leave. To say it's a short fight would be an understatement. The head witch reveals her identity, says they don't stand a chance, is immediately stabbed by Ella, then explodes. Then they find out their real names were Hansel and Gretel, because apparently they didn't know their own names due to their parents dying...or something... Where to begin on what this movie does wrong? You already likely noticed that this movie has NOTHING to do with Hansel and Gretel outside of the eventual reveal that their names are coincidentally the same and that one of the school buildings is called 'gingerbread house'. The witches are completely non-threatening, and seem to sabotage themselves at every opportunity. They claim that it was 'destined' that the two would go to the school yet it was the school THAT INVITED THEM THERE in the first place. Then they decide to stop them fulfilling the prophecy by TELLING THEM THEY ARE WITCHES. While both actors ARE siblings, it's strange that they both have black belts yet have maybe 2 seconds worth of fighting. It's a waste that I'd think even THESE directors would have noticed, but apparently not.The night scenes are clearly filmed during the day and they just tinted the screen blue... you can even see the sun! And at one point they are inside at night then someone opens the door and it's clearly the middle of the day!Ella's shirt changes between every scene, and she even wears it backwards sometimes. Not to say she has a large wardrobe, she just changes back and forth between 2 or 3 shirts over and over. There's 10 kids in the entire school that occupy the backgrounds, making 'afro-boy' and 'girl with pink backpack' my favorite characters in the whole movie. They re-use the same stock footage too many times (not just same angle, but same people in same position), and they have still images as establishing shots. They say it takes place in Massachusetts despite looking a lot like California and having the California flag in the corner of a room in several shots. For some reason witches explode into stars when stabbed, using CG like in the original Star Trek. You can see the camera crew in several reflections throughout the movie. Oh, and the scene on the cover where they wear leather armor brandishing crossbows while walking away from an exploding castle? Yeah, that never happens. They never change out of t-shirts, and the only weapon in the entire movie is the dagger that Ella finds. There is no castle, and nothing explodes. Honestly I could keep going on, but when I tried listing all the flaws I ended up going over the 1000 word limit. This movie is a complete waste of time and money, unless you're looking for something that's so awful it's funny, in which case go for it. In that regards I liked it enough to give it a 2, but it probably doesn't deserve that.