Witchslayer Gretl

Presumably a sequel to the 1812 fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm about a brother & sister and their run-in with a witch in the forests of medieval Germany, Hansel and Gretl (SIC) are now in their late 30s or so. Hansel (Paul McGillion) desperately searches for his sister who was apprehended by a witch queen when they were kids; he teams-up with a former witch, Lara (Sarain Boylan), and the vengeful daughter of a blacksmith, Ehren (Emilie Ullerup). Shannen Doherty is on hand in a vital role and Jefferson Brown plays a warlock.

"Witchslayer Gretl" (2012) was SyFy's knockoff of the big budget "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" (2013), which debuted eleven months later. There were a couple of other mockbusters: The Asylum's "Hansel & Gretel" (2013) and Lionsgate's "Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft" (2013). Witch-themed films were trendy at the time with "Beautiful Creatures" (2013) and, later, "The Last Witch Hunter" (2015), these two being the only ones I've seen before viewing this one.

McGillion looks miserable here, but this can be defended on the grounds that his character demanded an air of grave determination in a life-or-death situation. Doherty is quite good in a double role. Meanwhile Sarain Boylan is spirited and Emilie Ullerup is fetching. You KNOW at least one of these characters is going to be dead by the end and I was quite surprised with who buys the farm; kudos to the writers for having gonads.

I love the sylvan locations and there's a lot of forest action, along with several sequences at a witch grotto, but the movie struck me as cheesy from the get-go. It's like a second-rate meshing of "Grimm's Snow White" (2012), Robin Hood and "First Knight" (1995). (I realize the first one was an Asylum movie, but it was actually quite effective for its low-budget and lousy CGI; and IMHO better than the film it knocked off, "Snow White and the Huntsman"). On the positive side, the spirited Lara won me over by the end and I enjoyed the heartwarming relationships of the protagonists.

The film runs 1 hour, 28 minutes and was might have been shot in Canada since it's a Canadian production (I can't find any info).

GRADE: C/C- (4.5/10)

As a person who loves "so bad that it's good genre", I have a very high tolerance for cheaply made, low budget, badly acted garbage that are so often spat out, especially for straight to TV scene.

This one is pretty dull even for this "genre" though. The best words to describe it are probably dull and uninspiring. The thing that usually saves this kind of movies is sense of fun, which is nowhere to be found here.

The story is very loosely based on old German folk tales and I would want to say... "tries to capture the spirit of fairytale adventure or sword and sorcery tropes" but unfortunately I can not. It seems quite opposite. It seems the production team didn't even try.

Action scenes are very badly made, even for this level of production, story makes little sense and the scenery in which the story unfolds practically doesn't change at all. It's like the whole movie was made on one small location, in someone's backyard.

The acting is not worse than it should be for such a film and all the female actresses look good. Costumes are okey, but all the other props and "cgi" is laughably bad.

Overall, you won't be able to enjoy it even if you're a fan of bad movies.

It was with very little expectations that I sat down to watch the 2012 TV movie "Witchslayer Gretl". Why? Well, take a look at the synopsis and the cast ensemble, it just doesn't bode well.

But still, it could be a surprise and actually turn out to be an enjoyable movie. But no, that was not the case. I managed to last probably halfway through this movie before I finally dozed off and fell asleep. And let me say that it had already been a struggle up to the halfway point to stay awake, because the movie was just boring and didn't offer much of anything interesting.

The characters in the movie were two-dimensional and had nothing in terms of being memorable or particularly likable.

And the fact that the storyline was just as predictable as it was uninspiring, just didn't help in favor of the movie.

I awoke to the end credits and I must honestly admit that I have no intentions of returning to finish the last half of the movie, because I saw enough in the first half, and I can pretty much figure out the rest just by guessing, as the movie was that predictable.

The special effects were adequate, although they were on the cheap side of the scale, and that didn't really work out so well for the movie, especially since a fantasy movie should have some believable effects, if not have effects that bedazzle the audience.

For hardcore fans of fairy tales, then I am sure that there is something worthwhile on this alternate approach to the classic tale. But for a regular movie enthusiast, not so much.

Very very bad. Feels like a particularly bad episode of Xena or The Seeker. Plot is meaningless and makes no sense. CGI is pathetic. Acting is very unconvincing. Shannen Doherty's career is clearly over.

The 1800s story of "Hansel and Gretel" (from the Brothers Grimm) receives a confusing sequel with "Witchslayer Gretl". The original ending seems to have been ignored; probably, we are to assume other events occurred in the intervening years. In what appears to be about 30 years after the famous brother and sister cooked the old witch's goose, we find adult Paul McGillion (as Hansel) is a Witchslayer. He kills witches (violently) with help from recovering blonde witch Sarain Boylan (as Lara). They pick up and reform younger blonde witch Emilie Ullerup (as Ehren). Hansel is attempting to discover the fate of his sister Gretel, who is adult Shannen Doherty (spelled Gretl)...

Early on, Ms. Doherty appears only in shadows - probably, this is because we would all say, "A-ha! That's his sister Gretl" - okay, there is no reason for the shadows. There is also no reason to call this TV Movie "Witchslayer Gretl". Doherty's "Gretl" is not the Witchslayer. That title belongs to Hansel. Still, you have to forgive director Mario Azzopardi and folks who named this story, for not knowing the Witchslayer - it is a difficult movie to sit through, even (obviously) for the people who created this poorly titled "Witchslayer Gretl". Also in the cast is warlock Jefferson Brown (as Abyss), who has issues with Ms. Boylan and the Queen Witch. He also has great sideburns.

** Witchslayer Gretl (2/25/12) Mario Azzopardi ~ Paul McGillion, Sarain Boylan, Shannen Doherty, Jefferson Brown