The Witches Hammer (2006) Online

This is really terrible.

The only redeeming feature about this movie is that the next time people ask me what is the worst vampire movie I have ever watched, I would have a suitable reply.

I think it is filmed on 35 mm so it is already tacky like hell. I wouldn't have bothered commenting but I noticed some fanboys (probably connected to the movie) had claimed that this was the best movie since the Matrix. Let me debunk the myths and lies.

There is nothing good in the movie. Everything yells tacky. The actress is ugly. The fight choreography is the worst I have ever seen. The fight scenes are unbelievably amateurish. Imagine a girl flailing her arms around in a circle helplessly and delivering weak kicks which wouldn't hurt a kitten. Obviously, the director just pulled people off the street to give them roles in the movie.

I know the director did not have much budget for the movie but still better movies have been made on smaller budget before. Unforgivable.

Technically pretty good, except for the audio, which made it a bit difficult to pick the dialog out of the background noise. The acting was also not bad, considering that Everything Else about the movie, the script, the plot, the directing and the very structure of the movie, practically screams amateur.

Disjointed, too many cutesy (or maybe they were supposed to be artsy) sequences. Juvenile script, as someone else mentioned, much of it looks like a project from a first-year student. The camera crew and the actors show promise, but this isn't the movie for anybody to shine in.

The action sequences seemed okay, if sometimes a bit choppy.

Frankly, it's difficult to find 10 lines of anything to say about this movie. The movie's not bad enough to be campy, but not good enough to recommend.

"The Witch's Hammer" is an enjoyable and finely entertaining action vampire film.

**SPOILERS**

After being violently attacked, Rebecca, (Claudia Coulter) is brought to the mysterious Project 571, a group that hunts down vampires. Told that she has been genetically modified into a vampire, she is placed into a training regimen and returns from an assignment to find that everybody at Project 571 has been slaughtered, only to be rescued by the witch Edward, (Jon Sedgwick) and taken before Madeline, (Stephanie Beacham) a witch who heads Project 572, a special project that is assigned to battle the master vampire Hugo Renoir, (Tom Dover) only with her involvement. Needing to acquire a book to defeat him, they travel around the world attempting to find it, and when they finally get a hold of it, they face opposition from his vampire hordes to get it before they can use it against him.

The Good News: This here was actually pretty good and had some pretty good parts to it. The main thing is the action in the film. There's a lot of this in here, mainly from the tremendous amounts of fighting in here, both hand-to-hand and swordplay. These here are nice to see in such a horror film, making it feel rather fast-paced and really entertaining with a lot of things going on to keep the interest level high. The fist-fight at the warehouse, the brawl on the train and the entire sequence that lasted back in the older times makes the biggest impressions, although there's a lot more in here to make the film feel all the more exciting. Rather well done as well is the back-story to this one, which is new, unique and incredibly interesting. There's some changes to the history that are played with nicely, seemingly logical without being too much of a stretch that the very inclusion is something that won't offend too many. The fact that there's also a very, very fun finale to this is what gives the film it's main powers, taking a lot into consideration to make it very entertaining and leaves on a high note. From the high-scale fight scene to the revelation of a twist that comes completely out-of–the-blue is what helps it out, and there's a real sense of action and danger here which is what is there for it's big finish. The last big one is that there's some really fun creative choices at times, namely the relationship between the two loner vampires, the decision to do the back-story to that one completely in B&W and there's a big sequence early in the film that makes for some impressive choices to come along that are highly creative to make it seem like a great film. Overall, this one here is a really fun film.

The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot about this one that wasn't enjoyable. The main one is that there's a real lack of funds for the film, and the low-budget look it has because of it is really problematic. There's almost nothing here that makes it feel really outlandish or grandiose, and with the plot-line given to the film, it really needs something that will really force the film out to the top-levels of the genre if only it would've had more to do whatever it had to get more bang out of this. The low-budget also handicaps the big plus, all the action and fighting by keeping the style toned down to accommodate the lower budget, and it really could've been the fact that there's nothing in here to make the special effects stand out that make it so memorable. The film really could've had a better opening as well, since this one has rather confusing origins and then wipes it away later with another story-line that makes the inclusion of the first one is a difference that will really make some confused. Otherwise, there isn't much wrong with it.

The Final Verdict: One of the more enjoyable modern vampire films, with a few mild flaws that keep this one down in the genre. Worth a look for those find the particular sub-genre entertaining or have an affinity for these kinds of films, while those who aren't particularly find with the genre won't find a whole lot with it.

Rated R: Violence and Graphic Language

I'm in Iraq right now doing a job that gives plenty of time for watching movies. We also have access to plenty of pirated movies, this gem came along with 11 other movies, and this is easily the worst I've seen in a long time. I've seen a few other reviews that claim this movie doesn't take itself too seriously, but really, I think that's a cover up for the fact that its horrible. It's not tongue in cheek, the writers really thought they were improving on the movie Blade. This movie is just one notch above Vampire Assassin, which if you haven't seen, i recommend. At least that movie is so unbelievably bad that you'll laugh harder than you thought possible. This is right at that cusp of no redeeming qualities what so ever. from the bad acting, to cliché visual (ie opening credits), to the adobe premier special effects. they couldn't even get blanks for the guns, which may have to do with where the movie was filmed, but if you're going to use effects, make them close to accurate. as for the cast, it seems like they just went to a tae bo class and picked up the first not to ugly chick that walked out. Once again, like Ron Hall in Vampire Assassin, don't let stunt folk act, they can't. Also, the comment about this being a "return of old vampire movies"...no, it's not. This is exactly what all new vampire movies are about. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, Underworld, they're all about some super star fighting the vampires. This is the newest vampire genre, with bad blood, fake screams, and cheesy over acting. obviously anyone who wrote a good review about this is somehow connected to the movie, or friends of the cast. But what do I care, I paid 33 cents for it. Anyway, to wrap this up, someone in their first semester of film school decided to make a movie, I give them credit because it's better than I could do. Of course I also know I can't make movies so I don't try. I do know how to watch movies though. I work 12 hour nights, 6 days a week, I've seen several thousand in the year I've been out here and this was so bad that half way through i was hoping for a mortar attack.

I, like many horror fans, have been force fed the same banal big budget Hollywood remakes and MTV high school slasher tripe for the last 20 years. Here, at last, is an original horror genre movie that ticks all the right boxes.

You want a hot lead actress, you want vampires, you want cool weapons, you want cool vehicles and you want blood, lots of it, by the bucket load - you got it.

With excellent fight choreography and a supporting role from the Hammer Horror scream queen herself Stephanie Beacham, this really is fantastic stuff.

Despite it's low budget, by opting to use 35 mm stock and adding quality CG effects to the mix, director James Eaves has created something that feels much bigger.

A must for old school horror fans.

Dude, really!!!! where have you guys been the past 20 years, this is shocking in all kind of ways, horror ? This is a joke, there is nothing wrong with being low budget, but this is a laugh, If you want to look at the classics, Freaks of Tod Browning, the victims of Dracula and Frankenstein, the Undying Monster, Ernest Thesiger, Paul Wegener's The Golem and the passengers of The Ghost Train, you can't compare it, it gives it a bad name, bad acting, bad screenplay etc. Total waist of money and free time, have watched a lot of movies, were as horror is my all time favorite, I really am speechless, have nothing more to say that please don't do the effort to watch something so daft, please understand

The film is hugely enjoyable with a great cast, and excellent direction by James Eves. The movie is entertaining with a very charismatic performance from Stephanie Beecham and everyone is perfectly cast. James Eves has a good eye for casting and directs like a conductor knowing exactly when to crank up the action, fall and then rise to a climax. He does this with an element of humour, Plenty of twists, thrills and blood. This is a return of the old vampire movie, with loads of gore, blood and screams. The movie works at a great speed and the characters take you on a terrific adventure,but what makes it work is that the film doesn't take itself too seriously with plenty of tongue in cheek action.Great !

...you wouldn't get this, because those two movies were actually good. However, if you also added Plan 9 or something of that quality, you'd get The Witches Hammer. Basically, it's an extremely low budget (around the quality of a good YouTube video) action comedy with vampires, so if you're looking for horror or good special effects, you won't find it here. There's a lot of filler between the action sequences, and the plot is rather thin, but it's still watchable. Some of the scenes worked rather well, I thought, even if the movie as a whole didn't. Hopefully, the director will have more money to work with, next time. It's obvious that there were some issues in that department.

How anyone can give this anything over a 1 without invoking the power of the almighty "unintentional laugh" is beyond my understanding.

Acting and character script: absolutely cringeworthy. Everything is stale, unemotional and wrong. "Oh I just died and can neither be with my husband nor child any more! What's more is that some strange people who are experimenting with me want me to be their new super duper killer! ...But... that's totally okay, because I'm a Vampire now *moronic smile*.

"Oscar is a master acrobat and a trained fighter" the guys says, apparently someone really to be fearful off. Yet he stops him by putting a fork through his hand, ramming it into the table. WHAT??

Theme inconsistencies - A story is told of how the Witches Hammer came to being, somewhere before 1100AD, the movie of that story is in colour. Yet when another story is told about something that happened in the 1800s we get it in black and white and with silent film talk boxes. WHY? In the Witches Hammer story the people were dressed in 17th century, maybe 18th century clothing even though it's supposed to be around 1000AD, at the latest.

Why do we need to know the French pronunciation of the word cardinal if it both sounds pretty much the same as the English pronunciation, and if that knowledge does absolutely nothing to further the story? WHY?

And what's up with him being that absolutely incredibly strong and evil foe and when you get to meet him he's this whimpering little lump of ridiculous? If you're building up suspense and tension leading up to meeting a super villain, why then suddenly make a 180 degree turn and turn him into a soggy lump of nothing?

Okay, not everybody can do super fight scenes - BUT IF YOU DON'T, THEN DON'T TRY!

Why is the dead fat lady laughing while she's taking revenge on her father for poisoning her? Wouldn't she rather be full of rage, or sad or disappointed? No she butchers him with a happy smile. Why in all the world would she go out on a revenge spree if she's in such a good mood?

That's it, I could go on for hours but what for? What remains is that I have another name of a director to stay away from. Sad that learning that name had to be such a painful experience.

THE WITCHES HAMMER is a really terrible British action horror indie feature, about an ass-kicking female fighter who is transformed into a super vampire and tasked with killing the members of an evil organisation intent on bringing destruction to the planet. Business as usual, in other words. Half of the film is made up of historical re-enactment material which is cheap and uninteresting while the rest features very poor fight scenes seemingly copied from the likes of BLADE and UNDERWORLD. Nobody seems to have any talent, least of all the CGI animators who do an appalling job. And just what is Stephanie Beacham, in a small role as a tarot card reader, doing here?

Turned out to be a classy production with what must have been a low budget. The variety of characters is amazing, from axe-wielding dwarfs to 7ft ghouls! I enjoyed the relationship between the leads, not overly sentimental but romantic enough to keep the interest going. I also enjoyed the mix of humour (which can be very easy to get wrong, too much/not enough) which meant it didn't get too dark, nor too spoofy. It was a great step up from Eaves' other efforts, Hellbreeder and Sanitarium, in terms of storyline and production. They have a great website which is worth checking out. Can't wait for Bane, if the level of improvement continues, it should be fantastic.

Well, you know the rest! This has to be the worst movie I've seen in a long long time. I can only imagine that Stephanie Beaham had some bills to pay when taking on this role.

The lead role is played by (to me) a complete unknown and I would imagine disappeared right back into obscurity right after this turkey.

Bruce Lee led the martial arts charge in the early 70's and since then fight scenes have to be either martial arts based or at least brutal if using street fighting techniques. This movie uses fast cuts to show off the martial arts, however, even this can't disguise the fact that the lady doesn't know how to throw a punch. An average 8 year old boy would take her apart on this showing.

Sorry, the only mystery on show here is how this didn't win the golden raspberry for its year.

Not really all that an original story line .. if you've seen La Femme Nikita that is .. along with an idea of Three Days of the Condor. Oh .. can't forget Blade .. now can we?

All that aside .. everything just misses the mark. The camera work .. acting .. the lines .. the narration .. all sub-par. Obviously the movie was made on a shoestring budget. The fight scenes are reasonably well done though .. that is if you over look the camera work.

So sadly .. it's almost a good movie .. and could have been .. IF .. such a big word .. IF. But it's not a total waste of time to watch either. It does have it's "moments". If you want some light entertainment or an excuse to eat some popcorn .. go for it.

B movies are supposed to be a thing of the past. Cheap graphics, half-formed stories, and bad acting was supposed to have stopped around the same time as black and white. Not so with this movie. It's got everything you expect from a B movie, and much much more.

However, as B movies go, it's actually a fairly decent flick. The actors are clearly taking themselves very seriously, and the fact that they can do so is almost humorous. If you're into B movies like I am, this is actually one worth seeing just for kicks. If not, let me explain why the movie is horrible by modern standards:

The fight scenes are preformed in the rigid choreography associated with such films, and the fact that no more than two moves are ever seen together in the same shot leads one to believe that they never actually fought, but instead filmed move-by-move, and then ineptly mashed together.

The storyline is clunky at best. It's fairly clear that the author never actually planned out the story, but instead put a bunch of ideas that he/she thought was awesome into a semi- understandable order, and ran with it. The odd stale joke is thrown in for good measure, though I have to admit that I found myself legitimately chuckling at some lines. If you've seen Black Sheep, it's sorta like that, but unintentional.

I'm not going to comment on the graphics. It's a B movie. You can probably guess for yourself.

Overall, I'm gonna give this a 5/10. It deserves less, but the ridiculousness of the movie is almost a bonus in a strange way.

This movie is a vampire-action-comedy.

The movie starts a bit boring and stupid but it keeps getting better and funnier towards the end. I've really enjoyed it very much, although I didn't expect this, due to the bad votes for this movie.

Sure this is a B-movie with B-class actors, but I find that they've put a lot of funny ideas in which I didn't see in any other movie before.

There is no time in this movie where is really gets boring, maybe some of you will consider some gags in the movie as stupid, but overall they 've put lots of great ideas together and unlike other movies the result is very consistent and everything fits perfectly together.

Please do not expect an epic story but if this kind of humor fits to you then this movie is for you.