Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft (2013) – Review

Where to watch Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft

1/2 Star

Twins Jonah (Booboo Stewart) and Elle (Fivel Stewart) are sent off to boarding school. Jonah is invited to join a clique of students, who happen to be witches. As his powers grow, Elle snoops around the campus and discovers her parents used to be witch hunters. All the while a creepy headmaster (Eric Roberts) watches the kids by peering around corners. There’s also a guidance counselor (Vanessa Angel) who’s taken an interest in Elle. It seems that the kids at this school are offering up the souls of their classmates to an evil witch. Now Elle must convince Jonah to abandon his new friends and help her stop the witches.

Check out our review for Paramount’s big-budgeted Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters starring Jeremy Renner.

Lionsgate is distributing this, and if you think The Asylum is the only one that preys on other major Hollywood releases you’d be wrong. Lionsgate has in the past acquired incredibly low-budget flicks, retitled them and spruced up some artwork to make them seem more like the theatrical release. Yes, Lionsgate isn’t above the tactics that get The Asylum sued from time to time, and here they are at it again. Interestingly enough the filmmakers here are straight out of the Charles Band Full Moon school of hard knocks, which is a pretty on par with The Asylum.

It pains me to say that Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft is a horrible piece of trash. I grew up on Full Moon and do love a lot of their films, some directed by David DeCoteau. DeCoteau has essentially been shooting soft-core porn, and while the gay undertones of his previous work (the incredibly gay soft-core franchise 1313) are missing here, this is porno-quality. It literally looks like a well-lit home video. The man has a directorial style of a film school student, this is a ‘get it done’ situation in which no one cared how the final product looked, just as long as it was feature-length.

To be fair to the other actors this movie made Eric Roberts and Vanessa Angel look like hacks. It’s no wonder Roberts doesn’t have this listed on IMDb (at least as of the time this review was published). He’s so over-the-top as he teaches Gretel how to fight – and by fight I mean he tosses some balls towards her and she bats them away with her hand, all the while he’s wearing a ridiculous grin and dancing about. That’s the extent of a training montage that prepares Gretel to kill witches. This entire movie is a joke.

The bad acting really comes down to a terrible script with abhorrent dialogue mixed with bad or rather what seems like non-existent direction. The special effects are laughable and look like they were done by a twelve-year old on a laptop from 1995. This movie is a complete let down in every aspect of filmmaking and should be required viewing in film schools for what not to do. It’s the kind of flick you feel embarrassed for even while watching alone. Until DeCoteau starts taking filmmaking seriously again, he shouldn’t be allowed to direct anything else.

Director: David DeCoteau
Stars: Vanessa Angel, Eric Roberts, Fivel Stewart, Booboo Stewart

Comments

  1. :evil: Thos is one of the worst movies I have seen, I thought it looked really good on the cover, but I found out the film was awful, the director needs to sort out his film making.

  2. How absolutely dreadful this was. Laughable at every turn. Cardboard acting and the direction was something that was worthy of a good flailing. The extras were a case of cut and paste – they should have been paid in Weetabix – well the better ones should have been anyway. Frizzy hair guy, pink rucksack girl and orange teen were omnipotent. I would love to know what those two girls, standing cross-legged in both schools, were talking about every day of the week – did they ever go for that wee? I can only guess that ‘the Stewart’s’ dad paid for a ‘vanity’ production for his kids. My eight-year-old daughter (in pigtails and a tutu) is more convincing as Gollum than any of the cast as witches or witch hunters or for that matter – actors….. truly appalling waste of everyone’s time. Like a high school drama project that went t*ts up! Should never be used for anything other than stabilizing the leg of a wobbly table.

  3. OMG the music score for the movie was soooooooooo extra!! Like come on, the music sounds mystical and scary and nothing scary or mystical was happening. they built up the movie tooo much, plus the poster. also the opening credits, like wtf this movie wasnt even magical and they werent any castles. even fans of boo boo and fivel would say this movie sucked !!!!!!!! the effects were so horrible. booboo and ESPECIALLY FIVEL STEWART!!!!!!!!!!! dont EVER act again

  4. yeah, this movie sucked out loud. Fivel cant act,boo boo was horrible in this movie im sorry i know he can do better, but fivel cant she cant act hahahah its so sad she just had the same facial expression the whole time and didnt change her tone of voice. like i can act better than her and im not an actress! Boo boo is going places, he gonna be in Xmen! Fivel is going no where. she should just stick to her singing and dancing, but she cant even do that either. when shes live she cant even sing and the BTS for her new video….im sorry, i cant…she should really let booboo take over and retire. maybe she could sell BOo boo stewart memorbilia for a living and hey maybe she would be good at that…. :grin:
    yeah, fivel go cry in a corner when you read this review about how bad your little acting debut sucked ass :lol:
    Im just gonna laugh :mrgreen:

  5. Absolutely agree with everything you say except for the fact that David DeCoteau has never been any more than a mediocre at best student filmmaker. That includes the full moon drek.
    Action items:
    Complete ban on his films from Netflix and IMDB.
    DeCoc….er should be forced to watch his own 100+ films clockwork-orange-style so he can puke like the rest of us.

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