Hansel and Gretel Get Baked

aka Black Forest: Hansel and Gretel & the 420 Witch

Director - Duane Journey (The Storm)
Starring - Lara Flynn Boyle (Wayne's World, Twin Peaks), Molly C. Quinn (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story), and Michael Welch (Twilight, Day of the Dead)
Release Date - 2013
Genre - Horror/Comedy
Tagline - "Prepare for the high of your life"
Format - Streaming (Netflix)

Rating (out of 5):

     When I first heard about the blockbuster Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters I soon discovered the cheap knockoff entitled Black Forest: Hansel and Gretel & the 420 Witch.  I love quirky black comedies like that, well I like them most of the time.  They take a tried and true story that everyone knows and add silly humor to it.  I was hoping this one would be a fun romp through the Hansel and Gretel legend instead of an Asylum mockbuster.  Anyway, when I head about this film I tried to follow it closely but the project seemed to come to a stand still.  Months later I was checking out the films on Red Box and seen Hansel and Gretel Get Baked was added to it.  I rushed home and discovered that the name was changed just prior to release.  I also saw something horrible with that.  The phrase "from the producer of Twilight" was stamped across the top of it.  I almost didn't watch it for that very reason but I decided not to be a close minded fool and checked Netflix to see if it was available...and it was.  Poor me!
     The film follows stoner Gretel and her brother Hansel as they search for her missing boyfriend.  He left one evening to visit an elderly lady that sells extremely potent weed. He never returned home so the siblings visit the old lady where it turns in to a dead end.  Unbeknownst to them, he is in the basement where she has been cutting him apart to feast on.  Gretel is heartbroken and searches everywhere for her lost love but deep down she knows the old lady is the culprit.  The witch is using young men to gain her youthful beauty back.  While Gretel sets out to break into the old witch's house, a drug dealing thug and his goons plan on doing the same because her weed is cutting in to their drug trade.  Once inside the house all are exposed to the witch's magic and undead servants.  Gretel, Hansel, and some street thugs fight for their lives against a now young witch.
     As you probably figured out, I was not a fan of this movie.  The stoner humor that can be found in Halfbaked, the Cheech and Chong series, and Kevin Smith films are nowhere to be seen in this one.  In fact, I don't remember laughing at this movie at all.  There was nothing funny in this film except everyone's infatuation with Lara Flynn Boyle.  Instead of being beautiful, like everyone thinks, I find her to be funny looking.  Anyway, the acting is so-so at best.   Molly C. Quinn is the only one who did above par in her performance.  Plus, she is damn good to look at.  The story is actually pretty damn boring.  It had so much potential but failed to put all the elements in the right order.  The witch, zombies, and kills could have made one hell of a horror movie but could not do so.  The film relied on Boyle's star status to entertain viewers instead of giving them a good film without her.  To be honest, the only thing I can think of her being in that was worth a damn is Men in Black II.  Finally, the film does offer some pretty good special effects and on screen kills.  The zombies looked great, the few instances to use CGI look decent, and the blood and gore looks great.  Sadly, these could not save this movie that was doomed from the very beginning.  Overall, this film could have been up there with the best stoner comedies but fails horribly.  I do not recommend this one.