Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft is a 2013 horror film directed by David DeCoteau, featuring Eric Roberts and Cherie Currie and distributed by Lionsgate.
Ella and Jonah (Fivel and Booboo Stewart) are twins who have gained a scholarship to a prestigious school. Despite being bullied for being working class, Jonah is eyeballed by the other top students for joining "the Circle," a coven in the school that performs Human Sacrifice to a powerful witch's spirit to secure their futures. Meanwhile, Gretel discovers their heritage as witch hunters. Revealing this to Jonah, the twins team up to stop the Circle once and for all.
This film contains examples of:
- And the Adventure Continues: After slaying the Great Witch, Ella and Jonah decide to walk the Earth and slay the powerful witches the Circle bred.
- Big Bad: The Great Witch of the Woods, the powerful spirit the Circle sacrifices people to.
- Child Eater: The Great Witch of the Woods only eats children's souls.
- The Corruptor: The Circle spends the film trying to corrupt Jonah into joining them. He ends up rejecting the cult and has them taken down.
- Covers Always Lie: See that image up there? The one depicting a shotgun and sword-wielding, leather-dressed Booboo and Fivel Stewart standing in front of a burning castle? The only accurate thing on it is that the Stewarts are playing the lead characters.
- Disappears into Light: Witches vanish in a burst of blue light when they die.
- Distinguishing Mark: People with magical bloodlines are denoted by a circle-shaped birthmark on the back of their heads.
- Empty Shell: When the Great Witch devours souls, it causes the victim to become an amnesiac husk generally perceived by normals as insane.
- Evil All Along: Ella's seemingly kindly guidance counselor Ms. Keegan is secretly The Great Witch herself.
- Evil Sounds Deep: The Great Witch can apparently change his normal voice to a booming deep one.
- Good All Along: It's initially implied that Headmaster Sebastian is in on the Circle's conspiracy, but he's revealed to be a Witch Slayer and trains Ella to take the Great Witch out.
- Heel–Face Turn: The surviving members of the Circle are redeemed by memory wipe when their leader is killed.
- Historical Hero Upgrade:
- The Salem Witch Trials are depicted as a just war against a real coven of child-eating witches, as opposed to the paranoid slaughter of innocents it really was.
- The Brothers Grimm are theorized to have written down their fairy tales to warn people about dark magic and evil witches. In actuality, they simply wanted to maintain a German cultural identity in a time of political unrest.
- Immortality Immorality: The Great Witch eats souls to stay immortal.
- In the Blood: Magical ability is a genetic trait in this universe.
- Jerk Jock: The current human leader of the Circle is also the captain of the baseball team.
- Large Ham: Headmaster Sebastian and The Great Witch are quite prone to chew the scenary once their true nature is exposed.
- The Mockbuster: Of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Landon, current field leader of the Circle, claims that he's mercy killing the poor students he sacrifices due to the challenges they have to face in life, but he's actually just sacrificing them for power.
- Redemption Rejection: Jonah tries to convince Landon to join him and stop the cult, but Landon refuses. He's later redeemed by memory wipe.
- Religion of Evil: The main antagonists are a pagan coven at a school who perform Human Sacrifice to secure successful futures.
- Role Called
- Salem Is Witch Country: The film is set in Salem, Massachusetts.
- Shirtless Scene: Par the course for a David DeCoteau film, Jonah spends an entire scene without a shirt at one point.
- Soul Eating: The Great Witch makes meals out of child souls to stay immortal.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Twisted example. The Great Witch will eat any soul, but male souls are her favourite.
- Villain Opening Scene: The Circle sacrificing a fellow student's soul to the Great Witch.
- Wicked Witch: The Great Witch of the Woods, a powerful spirit who eats children's souls.
- Would Not Hit a Girl: Jonah does not want to hit the female members of the Circle. Luckily, his sister has no such problems.
- The Witch Hunter: The Witch Slayers are an organization of mages who kill evil mages.
- You Killed My Father: The Great Witch killed Ella and Jonah's parents.
