WitchSlayer Gretl (2012)

Too much of everything

Excellent but underrated film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

A whole lot of running through the woods with everyone trying to figure out who they are and what they're supposed to do. Acting so-so and the dialogue is a bit on the boring side.Scenery is fine but it's kinda on the dark side inside the Witch Queen's lair. Her familiar as a bit on the Klutzy side and not very believable.Okay to watch for free but I wouldn't put up a dime otherwise.

Another SyFy movie that could be so much more. Poor acting, poor dialogue with strange accents (I mean not any I recognized anyway). Hansel is a witch slayer who is accompanied by a former witch. They hunt down witches and guess what? slay them. They use several pieces of apparently magical equipment with no explanation of where they got them. The two come across a young woman (Ehren) as the witches coven is trying to capture her for the queen (an old looking Shannon Doherty) to transfer into. They save her of course and she goes with the two so she can avenge her father. I don't know where all the witches of the coven come from but a lot get slaughtered. The coven even has a warlock to make it different and I guess more powerful. Turns out the coven queen is Hansel's sister Gretl (well her body at least). If Gretl is the witch queen why is the movie's title "Witchslayer Gretl"? Anyway, Hansel finds the sarcophagus of the queen witches body which is inhabited by Gretl's spirit. He drives a knife into her heart after some internal conflict. The queens spirit takes over Ehren's body and Hansel has to kill her too. So the queen is dead long live the warlock!! Of course Hansel must return so help Ehren, but she doesn't need it as the warlock really screwed up and returned her to her full powers. She kills the warlock and the remaining coven and who ever is left lives on. They leave an ending that could lead to a sequel. Lord I hope not!!!!!!!!!!

Don't watch this people! The movie is an overwhelming nonsense! The idea of watching this is probably based on a wish to see magic, to see a new version of a nice fairy tale, to see Shannen Doherty... Well, the plot is complete rubbish, a good character, a pretty girl is being killed by main character for no particular reason, another good character loses her powers with no clear explanation why, the main character behaves so unfair you kinda want him to be killed by the end. Special effects, graphics and decorations are really bad. There's a lot of mangled bodies, blood and unreasonable violence. Actors are not good as well, there's a load of screaming, wild eyes, clumsiness and awkwardness. You get kinda uncomfortable watching them failing their job. Well, this doesn't apply to Shannen Doherty, because despite of all the awkwardness of the movie she acts good. She doesn't look very good though. So in case you wanna watch it just because of Shannen - don't bother, it doesn't worth it.

This is a real shame, because Witchslayer Gretl(or Gretl: Witch Hunter) alongside Black Forest(similar genre, and while flawed was a better movie) had one of the better ideas in a long time from SyFy. It was a very interesting idea and could have been tolerable at least with the right execution. However, the execution didn't work for me and overall I did find it dull. For one thing, I didn't think much effort went into the set design and stuff. I didn't see much life or anything at the couple of shacks there were or the cave covered in moss. And the costumes didn't feel authentic, as far as I know these actors could've come fresh from a fancy dress party or something. The effects are cheap, even for SyFy, and I have seen some schlock in my lifetime in that aspect, and the editing has a haphazard look to it. Even worse was the story, yet another movie that had a good, no great, concept, that fell so hard on terrible execution, the action was generic(crossbows fired, witches stabbed) and didn't maintain my interest much, and the story was predictable and so sluggish that I almost drifted off once or twice. The script is anachronistic and stilted, the characters are just as lifeless as the pace and the acting is incredibly stiff, even from Shannon Doherty. Speaking of Doherty I was surprised that for a lead role how little she was in Witchslayer: Gretl until the final third of the film, where it sort of picks up but it was too late to care. The only person to inject life into her part was Sarain Boylan. Overall, rather dull and pointless at the end of the day. Loved the concept, but the execution was the complete opposite. 2/10 Bethany Cox