an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

WITCHSLAYER GRETL is another junky SyFy Channel TV movie filmed in the Canadian woods, this time with a fantasy setting. The story posits itself as a kind of sequel to the classic Hansel & Gretel fairytale, set 20 years after the events of that story. Hansel is now a full-time witch hunter while Gretel, after becoming estranged from her brother, is now a witch herself.The film itself is clearly copied from HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, which was itself only middling, but this is much worse. There's a lot of larking around in the woods and a lot of bad CGI used to depict magical attacks and various familiars belonging to the witches. The acting is very wooden, especially from the main actor, and the only one who seems to be trying is Shannen Doherty who got the job on the back of her role in the popular TV show CHARMED. It's still embarrassingly poor.

I have to first say I am not a major fan or many TV movies because of the lack of depth or funding they use to create theses films. This movie didn't reach too far above the average either.The first problem I'm addressing is the plot of the film because I am not starting on the idiocy that is the title just yet. The idea behind the film was brilliant. They did a film on something others have attempted before, taking those old fairy tales we are told of when we're young and turning that into a film which is much darker and more realistic. But the storyline was rushed and poor. You would have suspected more conflict and head butting between Hansel (played by the wonderful Paul McGillion) and Ehren (played by the fabulous Emilie Ullerup) but instead they got on well far too quickly.The character depth for some was under developed. I wanted to see Ehren become tougher and bad-ass but instead she kept missing the target and looked like a silly girl with an undeserving gift. Lara (played by Sarain Boylan) I wanted to see more of her background and her being a bit more hesitant to walk away from someone with answers to her past, see some strains but on her and Hansel's relationship (whatever that is). Even then when Ehren died, she accepted it far too easily for someone whom was her tutor in magic. There should have been an outburst of anger and sadness aimed at Hansel saying something like he should have given her more of a chance, blaming him for her death (of course he should have told her he killed her to get it to that). I did like the characters of Gretl and Hansel. They were as you'd expect in their situations. Hansel always on guard and distant from others, Gretl with the witch inside her as powerful but graceful, in control and over confident.Something I missed was the depth into Lara teaching Ehren about magic. They moved out far too fast and needed to go into a depth of Ehren learning about her abilities and us getting to know the character so that at the end you actually felt something when she died. Another thing I would like to have seen would have been an exploration into Hansel's abilities. They could have spun it so that they said that Hansel actually was a witch (or as this film calls male witches 'warlocks') but one of defensive abilities instead of offense. They could have added in that extra character who knows that little bit more than Lara to say that actually he is a witch just of a different kind and to teach him about his abilities. They could have had both characters on a journey to learn more about their abilities to prepare them for the fight against the crescent moon coven.That was also a bother. I mean come on the film was surely building up to one big magical weapons and magic battle. But instead we got the odd rough and tumble to spice it up a bit. But seriously if the film is suppose to be about survival against these witches they you have to feel as though they are in danger in the first place which you don't. It just seems they are killing witches for fun and it just so happen this one coven's leader is Gretl taken over by an evil witch who supposedly has a lot of power.And finally get back to the title. Seriously! Witchslayer Gretl! She wasn't even the witch slayer, Hansel was. Or they could have twisted the film to be about witches hunting witches.

"Witchslayer Getl" ranks as an abysmal broth of sub-par special effects swirled with a sorry thesping. This reimagined Grimm's fairy tale about an adult Hansel searching for his long-lost sister who he believes has been killed is hokum. The way that "Stargate: Atlantis" actor Paul McGillion lets his mouth hang open makes him look a little like actor Jason Bateman; okay, McGillion looks like a bearded, middle-aged Jason Bateman out there slaying witches without a qualm. The cast appear to have appropriated their wardrobe from the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Indeed, they wander alternately through real woods and then ersatz wooded sets wearing Renaissance Era attire and utter forgettable dialogue. Despite all these yesteryear trappings, our hero and heroine come equipped with necklaces featuring ear-buds which enable them to communicate over vast distances. Occasionally, a synthetic gargoyle flaps its way out of the wild blue to menace them. Poor Paul McGillion straddles one of theses supernatural beastie at one point and whacks it with a wand. It seems that an evil witch has taken possession of his sister body. Shannon Doherty of "Heathers" plays Hansel's sister. Wow, has she gone to seed. The Angela Mancuso & Brook Durham story/teleplay is both predictable and humorless. This original SyFy Channel presentation is incredibly egregious. If you've read this far, you're probably wondering why I let myself suffer through this ghastly nonsense. I spotted it in at a local Redbox and thought I'd prepare myself for the forthcoming "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters." Mind you, I sat through it once simply because I shelled out the loot to rent it. Anybody who bewitches themselves into watching this so they can compare it with the Jeremy Renner & Gemma Arterton epic is wasting their time. Yuck!!!

Most people have read the story of Hansel & Gretel during their kindergarten time. It seems that now is the time to make a different version of the fairy-tales. They have done several version of Snowhite, why not Hansel & Gretel now. The first impression, it is either bad players who don't know how to act properly or a mediocre director who can see that the acting was very bad. This is not something you watch from a movie, but more from a high- school play. The acting was awkward most of the time and on top of that a very low quality costumes and low cost setting. The story-line takes on the time when Hansel has grown-up and he is back to the place where he lost his sister. A little magic here and there to spice up the performance, but overall a very clumsy warlock in on the scene most of the time and trying to kidnap girls (this is another silly Hollywood recipe...., you have to sacrifice women and not men in order to do something magical....). Of course they have to show that there is magic..., when the witches are killed, their body is instantly disappeared... My overall rating is 1, that is for making this horrible movie and spending the money to finance it, but don't waste your time to watch it. You will regret it......