I THINK THIS MOVIE WAS HALF-BAKED 'CAUSE IT WASN'T IN THE OVEN LONG ENOUGH...

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D (2013) Germany/US

Here's a new word to add to the new made-up words of the film industry to describe the crap being churned out at an alarming rate: mockbuster. This is of course a play on the word blockbuster and is mainly used by movie companies who see popular movies and immediately knock off their own copy. One main source of those kinds of movies is a company called The Asylum.

I'm not saying all their movies are crap, I have found a watchable movie or two, but mockbusters have made them some serious money. Okay, maybe not a ton, but some. Their version: Hansel & Gretel. Okay, not inventive but their catchphrase "A Classic Tale: Horrifyingly Real" is pushing it quite a bit. Real? The Brothers Grimm are twisting in their graves. And further down the movie evolutionary chain we've got Hansel & Gretel Get Baked. I don't think I have to explain that title, do I? Oh, and it's from the makers of Twilight - hey, where are you going? Get back here you cowards!

But we'll just talk about the witch hunters. You have the option of the 87 minute theater version, or the uncut 98 minute version that's supposed to have scenes "too intense" for the theater crowd. I saw both. My opinion is that there's a longer version so they can sell Blu-rays 'cause there's really no such thing as 'intense' CGI and that's what most of the effects were. 

Now I didn't watch the Avengers or any superhero movie made in the last few years (okay, okay I finally watched The Watchmen and it was awful) so although Jeremy Renner looked vaguely familiar to me, I couldn't place him so I looked around. Oh, he was Hawkeye. 'Kay. Apparently he was also in the Avatar crushing movie monster The Hurt Locker (didn't see either one). 'Kay. Gretel was played by Gemma Aterton who can be seen in Clash of the Titans or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Or not.

So. We have what is supposed to be the BLOCKBUSTER movie version here, the one so successful they're already making (if they're not already done) a sequel to it. How does it hold up? You know what I'm going to say about it, don't you?

Even if I put aside all the anachronistic hardware the brother and sister team wield through the movie, the taking of the original tale and screwing it all to high heaven, and the (sorry guys) not very enthusiastic performance of the characters, this still wouldn't be a very good movie. Not a BAD bad movie mind you, just not as good as I was hoping.

We start with the story - daddy takes the kids out into the woods at the bidding of his wife and tells them to get lost. Okay, he doesn't do that, but leaves them and they DO get lost - until they find that famous candy house. After being there long enough to give Hansel the 'sugar sickness' for the rest of his life (their word for diabetes I guess) they overpower the witch and... well, this part everybody knows. Hansel says that they learned there's only one thing to do with a witch - burn their ass. Cute.

The movie is a continuation of their life story. Woof. What can you say about the adult life of two children who kill for a living? They keep killing, they keep collecting the money. That's... about it. But since this is the BLOCKBUSTER version of the story (for 2013 anyway) they've got to shove a whole bunch more plot 'cause they've got lots of time to kill (sorry). So how out-of-time was this anyway? Well...

The Brothers Grimm (why they say it backwards I don't know) were Germans who grew in poverty but still managed to get an education. Later in life they became fascinated by the many folk tales of German and Scandinavian origin and decided to put them to paper. This was somewhere in the 1800s but the stories were much, much older. These weren't bedtime stories you told your kids to be nice. They were often violent, cruel tales that were more like a threat of punishment of some kind to children who misbehaved - soon to be sanitized by the likes of people such as the good folk of Disney.

So let's talk about the anachronistic (not belonging to this time period) stuff. First, Hansel and Gretel look like Neo and Trinity from The Matrix. Both are dressed in black leather outfits (metal rivets and all) with Hansel wearing a full length black leather coat. Hmm, maybe he was a Neo/Blade mix and she was a Trinity/Emma Peel mix. He certainly LOOKED like Neo when he bent over backwards to dodge an arrow - that was a pretty obvious ripoff and stupid besides.

Their weapons are patently ridiculous - if you could even find that much metal material to make weapons that haven't been invented yet, would you then meticulously carve patterns into them? I mean hey, seeing a Gatling gun take down flying witches was funny but c'mon (done by 'good witch' and beautiful Finnish actress Pihla Viitala). And giving Hansel diabetes? Really? The concept of the pancreas creating insulin to regulate sugar levels wasn't even discovered until 1869 and it was many years after that before it was synthesized for human use. What the hell is he injecting into himself? Fairy juice? And the syringe? Maybe if this was after the 1850s or so.

One more then I'll shut up - the phonograph. The player may have been around, okay, but it should have played a wax cylinder that looks like a scroll - not a flat round thing that looks like your grandparents 78's. There's more but I promised to shut up.

I had to laugh though as they travel through this Bavarian village as they offer the residents of the town their services as many children had gone missing. No, not about that part - the part where they had quarts of milk in bottles with 'missing children' posters on them. Pffft.

Famke Janssen is always a welcome sight and was good as the head witch Muriel. I wish she'd been in more of the movie, it would have been more interesting and more fun. So H&G are determined to wipe out all witches. In a silly attempt to smush subplots into that, we've got a big ceremony by the witches coming up that will make them impervious to fire. 

Because even though H&G drag around an army's worth of weapons and ammo, the sure thing that kills them is fire. Which is funny 'cause in the movie they get shot, beheaded, cut up with wire, heads bashed in... I would have concentrated on body armor instead of worrying about fire but that's just me.

Oh yeah, the other subplot. According to the original story (there's about a thousand versions) H&G's mom and dad don't wanna do it, but they're starving so they make sure their kids are lost in the forest. Later it becomes a father and their stepmother who wanted him to get rid of them so they all wouldn't starve. Putting sex over love (Why else would he do it?) he leads the kids waaay out and leaves them. In most versions it takes a couple of times before they are really lost. 

They find the witch's house made of candy... from here it goes pretty much as you've read it. The ending varies a bit. This borrows from even older tales - sometimes it's a giant that's outwitted by the kids, sometimes since the stepmother is used it is suggested that she and the witch are the same person, etc.

This one presents it to you like a big sugary cupcake with a foot of frosting on top. See, H&G's mom and dad had to hide the kids to protect them. Mom was a white (read good) witch, a powerful one, but one who could never hurt a human being. The townspeople are perfectly capable however. While the children wander lost, the mother is burned at the stake, their father hanged. 

As adults finding their old home they also find their mother's secret lair (apparently all witches have to have one) and a book of spells against black magic. How convenient. How... dumb. So that's why H&G are immune to spells and curses - they're part magic themselves. Uh huh. With the help of a white (again, white apparently equals 'good') witch Mina they find a spell to 'bless' their weapons and ammo and go to kick some serious witch ass.

If this is the 'too violent' part - c'mon guys. While some of the effects and gore are decent before this (an ogre stomping a guy's head into spaghetti sauce was pretty good) this is so CGI'd it was almost comical. After some go splat and some go poof and some just... go, H&G try to find Muriel (Famke Janssen, don't forget her...) and they end up at... say it with me.... SAAAAAAY IT.... the original candy house they were trapped in so long ago. Of course sugar doesn't hold too well and it looks icky now but could there be a bigger, more obvious plot device and place for a final battle? The answer is NO by the way.

A fight to the death ensues. It doesn't last long. H&G get Muriel with a shovel (all that fancy equipment and they use a shovel... sigh) and pin her down. Hansel holds the shovel on her throat. Gretel uses her weight on it to behead the witch. Hansel grabs the head and throws it in the oven. Uh huh.


Our last scene is of H&G and their new friends Edward (the troll) and Ben, a fan and future witch hunter as they travel around killing more witches and getting ready for H&G 2 no doubt...

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A DUMB MOVIE I WATCHED SOME TIME AGO BUT DIDN'T REVIEW AND NOW I HAVE TO BECAUSE I ALMOST MIXED IT UP WITH THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT DAMMIT!


An American Haunting (2005)

Okay people very quick history lesson here. This is a movie based on, not 'true events', but the telling of a story that was from a story that was told in a story that was found in a paragraph in an old book that someone found and went oooh, easy novel material and wrote yet another book claiming it to be true. Pffft. The Bell Witch or Bell Witch Haunting is a poltergeist legend from Southern folklore, centered on the 19th century fictional Bell family in Tennessee. Okay, partially fictional. There was a family named Bell and they were in Tennessee. Capicé? 

Just think of it as an early version of The Enquirer

No Andrew Jackson did not meet the witch and get scared off by it, no it did not torture a family in the 1800's, no it was NEVER a true story, it was ALWAYS a novel or an article written by someone out to make money, not history.

So. (My husband hates one word sentences so I use them a lot) So. This movie tanked. Since it was a fake story that's no great loss, but the waste of talent in Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland is almost a crime. It can claim to be 'the only case in the US where a spirit caused the death of a man' all it wants, that doesn't make it so you MORONS. That was directed at the movie makers, not you guys of course.

The truth as far as you can find it being he was a nothing kind of man in the 19th century, John Bell contracted a disease that he had for three years before his death. The claim that a 'spirit' caused the disease is like saying 'my mama is sick 'cause she was mean to me so God is killing her'. It's gross, it's wrong, and it's just plain stupid. 

Besides, it is stated with several sources (including this dumb movie I might add) that the cause of his death (as the illness was not considered fatal in itself) was poisoning at the hand of his daughter. How, then does one conclude that a 'spirit' killed him? Massive duh and I'm getting a wicked headache.

November 1848. Kids are playing soccer. Critics say that's anachronistic and as horrid as the film is, that's not entirely true. The idea of kicking around a ball has been in place since the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. In China, it was during the Han dynasty that people dribbled leather balls by kicking it into a small net. It made its way to England so it is not a big stretch to find it in colonial America. Why did I put that in? 'Cause this movie has nothing to say and I have almost nothing to put here.

The bottom line to this sorry mess of a movie is the subject of incest. The dumbass (and so lacking in anything original YOU could tell me the movie plot and you'd mostly be right) effects are the same, the progression, same, the fact that no one ever pays attention to their kids 'cause they're wrapped up in themselves and their own miseries until it's too late, same. Same same same same same.

Present: A divorced woman and her daughter live together. The daughter has bad dreams of being chased. She has to spend the weekend with her father and really doesn't want to. The mother doesn't care. In her daughter's room she finds stuff from the attic and chastises her daughter for being up there. She takes the stuff and the story begins as she opens a letter and reads and somehow one letter becomes a 93 minute movie.

Past: Again, 19th century. This must have been the CLEANEST place in the new world 'cause every scene looked like the actors picked up their bleached and starched and ironed outfits without a speck of dirt anywhere, the homes looked better than any I've ever lived in, and everything was one lightbulb away from being ripped out of Better Homes and Gardens.

Betsy Bell is having fits. She's not spoiled, she's actually having fits. To make this movie more dramatic we've got the smashed windows, voices, Betsy levitating, you know, everything you probably already have seen in another film. No wonder I get these 'The Haunting Of' movies confused. What's happening to her is obvious to everyone except her mother - no strike that. Her mother knows perfectly well what's going on but has chosen to ignore/forget it. Betsy is being 'visited' during the night by her father. Duh.


They ask a, umm, I don't know who the hell he was supposed to be but he had a Bible. He attempts to - you know. It fails. They then for whatever reason (probably to advance the plot since he's the writer of the letter) call the schoolmaster over to discover what the hell is going on. During all of this the father chooses to blame a neighbor he had a property dispute with. Never once does he confess his sin against his daughter. Figures. Since he doesn't the torture continues until Betsy poisons him with her mother looking on (in the movie, I have no idea what happened in real life). All the spooky stuff stops and Betsy marries the schoolmaster. He makes the remark that he hopes this never happens again. <snort>

Riiiight. And the small Washington town I used to
live in has a Bigfoot festival every year. Cause
everything you hear/read is true.

Skip to present day. Mother has conveniently just finished the story when her daughter comes in and announces her father is there and she's leaving. She watches them drive away, her daughter looking upset and worried (DUUUUUH). Going back into the house she's confronted by the 'ghost' of Betsy (also conveniently still looking like she did in the movie) who tells her to 'Help her'. She gets a clue way too late and runs back outside, trying to stop her ex from taking off with his apparently already-being-abused-daughter. And the credits run. And now I can put down the whiskey bottle.

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BLOODBATH: A TWELVE MOVIE COLLECTION OF HORROR - SO THEY SAY. GET YOUR SEATBELTS ON KIDDIES, THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY BUMPY RIDE PART SIX

Uninvited (1993)

When you see a movie's IMDb and the first words are 'tedious western with a hint of horror' you know you're in for a bad one. Buuuut that's what I do (as I keep reminding the hubby as he always says 'Why can't you just watch good ones?') so here I go. With a brief appearance from the late Jack Elam (always great seeing that face, too bad this was his last appearance in a movie) this was guaranteed to tank as the people who supposedly traveled a long distance to get to their destination look as fresh as if they just stepped out of a costume shop onto a movie set. Hey wait, that's just what they did...

This movie made me add another category to my horror movie worksheet (patent pending): The triple 'B'. Bored. Beyond. Belief. I'll have to add it after the Piss Of Death.

This movie, written by Michael Derek Bohusz, directed by Michael Derek Bohusz, and including a character called 'The Indian' who was played by... say it... SAY IT.... Michael Derek Bohusz was a massive snoozefest and there is nothing funny I can think of to make it any better. 

It was NOT a horror movie unless you're scared by an Indian who hangs from a tree for a week, gets buried, then rises and kills all the menfolk. Hmm, was it Easter or something? Here's the whole movie in a nutshell and the only things I have to add are a line by I think the preacher 'At the risk of sounding in charge I...'  uh, what? I didn't know being in charge was a risk. Apparently in this movie, it is.

The only other thing (besides everyone being pristine - clean clothes, clean hair, nobody eats but nobody appears hungry) is that when they go to hang 'The Indian' they have this really fancy noose that apparently they packed in just for such an occasion. Wow. Oh and all the ammo they could ever need since they shot off their numerous (and anachronistic firearms) all through the movie without worrying about running out of bullets. But this is the breakdown:

On a cold, eerie evening, on a barren, wind-swept mountainside, a leathery, evil man named Grady brings eight people to their destiny. A priest looking for the money to build a church hides a dark past, a young married couple looking for the wealth to start a life together, a prostitute searching for a way out of her present, - they all share one thing - a desire for the gold that is buried deep in the mountain. What they find instead is a terrifying horror and a powerful greed that leads them into a descent into the maelstrom of their existences.

What a gripping way to say a bunch of idiots get ripped off when Jack Elam sells them the right to a gold mine that doesn't belong to him (BTW, he's top billed but gone before the beginning credits end) and so one by one they turn on each other 'cause they're stupid. They find bones indicating the mine is actually an Indian burial ground but they don't care and when one Indian (THE INDIAN) shows up to complain they promptly hang him. 

Eventually he swings down (Get it?) and the men left over after killing each other he finishes off while the two women wander off to... well, let's face it, death. Because where are they going to go? They're untold miles from anywhere and they're on foot with no supplies. THE INDIAN would have been kinder if he had just killed them too.

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