Halloween is upon us and the streets are ripe with creepy! Haunted houses, decorated front lawns, horror movie marathons, and of course scary movies! While Witch Hunter isn’t a horror film, it is a nice creepy action adventure movie.

I didn’t know a thing about Witch Hunter beforehand aside from “Oh man, this movie looks sick and has Vin Diesel in it! I want to see this!”  And basically, that sums up the movie. It’s a sick movie, and his has Vin Diesel in it.

Imagine Chronicles of Riddick, but set on earth, and with witches instead of alien necromancers, and you’re essentially got yourself The Last Witch Hunter. As unoriginal as the movie was, I still found it highly entertaining. If there is one thing Vin Diesel has always been able to do, it’s draw large audiences and I have no doubt that while this movie will not break any records, it will be successful enough to earn a sequel or two.

The movie starts centuries ago just after the black plague has swept through Europe. In the film, the plague is known to be caused by witches performing dark magic, who are trying to kill the human population an establish witch dominion over the earth. Kaulder (Diesel), and a group of soldiers head out to stop the witches before they can complete their plan of human extinction, and so so successfully. Hence you are sitting here reading this on your iPhone, you lucky bastard.

Just before Kaulder kills off the head witch, he is cursed with immortality. Over the centuries Kaulder uses this immortality (and relative invulnerability) to continue fighting, capturing or killing those who practice dark magic, which leads us to current day. 700 years have battle hardened Kaulder into a fighting machine, and his reputation proceeds him in religious and mystic circles, where he is known simply as the weapon.

Long story short, all is not well in the land, and an ancient evil has been awakened that threatens the existence of man kind, blah blah, blah, the hero comes in to the save the day and rescue the damsel in distress with the help of his butler Alfred Pennyworth, I mean Dolan, played by Michael Caine.

Like I said, the movie is intriguing but definitely not original. Nonetheless I found it very interesting. There were a lot of mentions about things like new vs. old, change vs. traditional, progressive vs. nostalgic; the usual plot devices in a story featuring  a centuries old immortal.

Vin Diesel brings his usual performance to the screen. His voice pretty much does all the acting for him. And when that falters, his machismo, athleticism, and steady hand pick up the slack.

Michael Caine pretty much plays a priest version of Alfred. Again, his usual “I feel better that a cool old wise dude is here” performance.

Elijah Wood plays Caine’s successor as Dolan 37th, and also brings his usual, pint sized, timid persona.

Lastly, we have Rose Leslie, who you might best know as the hot red head from Game of Thrones who got it on with John Snow. Her role is the most different from the one you know her best from. She doesn’t play a bad ass wildling, but she does play a determined bar owner Wiccan who really ought to invest in commercial fire insurance.  Just saying…

The movie very craft-fully took the things you like most about other movies and hodge-podged them all into a single film. Plus, it has Vin Diesel. What’s not to like?

All in all, I give Witch Hunter a D for originality, a B+ for entertainment value, and a B+ for acting.