History Film / TheLastWitchHunter

* GenreShift: The movie starts off as a grim DarkFantasy story. After the Witch Queen is killed and we shift to present day, the movie becomes a supernatural [[BuddyCopShow buddy-cop]] crime drama.

* TheWitchHunter: Kaulder's job description, it's even in the title.

* {{Retirony}}: 36th Dolan dies on the same night he retires, clueing in Kaulder that something is wrong. [[spoiler:Later subverted, as he turns out to be alive, but cursed.]]

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The basis of the Queen's curse - Kaulder gets to see generation after generation of his friends age and die, not to mention remember his loved ones forever while being unable to reunite with them in the afterlife.

* NeverSleepAgain: According to Kaulder, the {{Dream Walker}}s used to be Witch Queen's deadliest assassins, as they could enter a person's subconsciousness and bring forward their worst memories or simply kill them, thus [[YourMindMakesItReal murdering them in real life]].

-->'''Kaulder''': You know what the good thing about immortality is? I get to kill you ''twice''.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The basis of Queen's curse - Kaulder gets to see generation after generation of his friends age and die, not to mention remember his loved ones forever while being unable to reunite with them in the afterlife.

* WhenTreesAttack: Witchcraft, especially dark magic, loves this trope. Belial's teleporters are based on tree roots, the Plague Tree is, well, a ''[[CaptainObvious tree]]'', both Belial and the Witch Queen use tree branches as CombatTentacles, and the Queen herself looks like she's been grown in a tree.

-->'''Witch Queen''': Clay cannot be turned into gold. [[FantasticRacism Without magic, you're just a human]].

* FemmeFatale: Danique has all the markings: classy, rich, old-timey, attempts to have the protagonist killed...

** The unnamed witch at the beginning: she carelessly crammed weather-altering runes into her bag together, creating a thunderstorm that nearly brings down the plane she was on. Luckily Kaulder was there to avert a disaster.

* PetTheDog: Surprisingly, Kaulder's quite willing to do this. Consider the below exchange between him and Bronwyn, the teenage witch from whom he confiscates the weather runes [[spoiler: after she nearly inadvertantly brings down a passenger plane with them]].

* MetallicarSyndrome: Lampshaded by 37th Dolan. Kaulder's aforementioned CoolCar is a 4-door, 550 horsepower, 200 mph ''Aston Martin Rapide''. Though, as 37th Dolan points out, it's saved from being too conspicuous since at least it's black not gaudy red.

* MysticalPlague: In movie's mythos, Black Death was/is a plague engineered by the Witch Queen.

* NiceGuy: When not fighting witches, Kaulder is a really nice person, comforting others, joking, helping them to get at ease with supernatural and protecting whenever necessary.

** Then there's a matter of dealing with the witches. While arresting them instead of destroying is humanitarian and commendable, it creates a coven of most powerful witches for the Queen to use in her spell.

* NoImmortalInertia: After Chloe crashes Danique's immortality charm, the older witch immediately starts aging.

* {{Plaguemaster}}: Witch Queen's most notable ability - she can create and spread deadly disease, the Black Death.

* PoorCommunicationKills: If only Axe and Cross bothered to tell Kaulder that [[spoiler:they have Witch Queen's heart and it's gone missing...]]
* PowerCrystal: Danique wears a pedant with a gem that keeps her looking young. The GlamourFailure in dressing room implies that all her models wear them.

* {{Retirony}}: 36th Dolan dies on the same night he retires, clueing Kaulder that something is wrong. [[spoiler:Later subverted, as he turns out to be alive, but cursed.]]

** HereWeGoAgain plot? [[spoiler:Witch Queen's heart is hidden in Kaulder's armoury. Safely... for now.]]

** The YourMindMakesItReal aspect of memory potion, complete with the position Kaulder takes when it starts to have effect, are pretty reminescent of ''Franchise/{{Matrix}}''.

* TarotTroubles: Axe and Cross uses Tarot cards in place of interrogation, finding out whether the suspect is guilt or if he worked alone. Kaulder points out, though, that the cards can be, and sometimes are, wrong.

* TimeAbyss: The Witch Queen is old enough to remember world without humans, which would make her more than forty thousand years old.

* TrojanPrisoner: Ellic getting caught [[spoiler: is actually a part of the villains' plan, as the 36th olan's pen which they take for evidence has Plague flies hidden in it, and with him in the prison the Witch Queen finally has enough number of witches that will support her in one place]]
* VainSorceress: Danique acts and looks like FemmeFatale, while in truth she looks like an old crone. She hides her age with a PowerCrystal.

* WainscotSociety: Witches have their own society, and it's hardly an underground one - there are shops, bars, high-class salons, fashion shows... Chloe even has to recite a list of side effects to Kauldr for a potion because her insurance requires it.

* WhenTreesAttack: Witchcraft, especially dark magic, loves this trope. Belial's teleporters are based on tree roots, the Plague Tree is, well, a ''[[CaptainObvious tree]]'', both Belial and Witch Queen use tree branches as CombatTentacles and the Queen herself looks like she's grown on a tree.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The basis of Queen's curse - Kaulder gets to see generation after generation of his friends age and die, not to metion remember his loved ones forever while being unable to reunite with them in the afterlife.

* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: Belial taunt Kaulder over the phone about how he killed Miranda.

* YourMindMakesItReal: When memory potion or DreamWalker's powers are in effect, every wound - up to and including a mortal one - manifests on a body in reality.

Unknowingly, mankind shares Earth with witches, descendants of an [[WitchSpecies ancient race]] gifted with powerful magic. Eight hundred years ago, one of them, the Witch Queen, decided to end this and exterminate mankind via a deadly disease - the Black Death. While witch hunter Kaulder (Diesel) defeated her and stopped her from spreading her plague across humanity, before her death the Queen cursed Kaulder with immortality, forcing him to never find peace from the death of his wife and child.

In the present day, Kaulder's an agent of Axe and Cross, an organization making sure that the witches will never pose the same threat the Queen did. An investigation into death of his SecretKeeper (Caine) leads him to discover that a new evil threatens to bring the Witch Queen back, forcing Kaulder to join forces with a young witch Chloe (Leslie) to try and stop it.

* AlchemyIsMagic: Witches can make variety of potions.

** Memory potion induces {{flashback}}s.

** Max's butterflies have some unknown effects when applied to sweets.

* ApocalypseHow: The Witch Queen aims to bring about class 3a - complete extiction of dominant species - us.

** [[spoiler:36th Dolan]], although he wasn't as much dead as he was cursed.

** Flashback!Kaulder sports one reminescent of that worn by [[http://vikings.wikia.com/wiki/Ragnar Ragnar]] from ''Series/{{Vikings}}''.

* BadassBoast: "By iron and fire", which seems to be Axe and Cross' in general, but is used mainly by Kaulder.
* BadassInANiceSuit: Kaulder wears a light version of this - suit trousers and button-up shirt - for most of the movie.
* BaldOfAwesome: In present day, badass witch hunter Kaulder is bald. Averted in the past, when he wears something akin to a short mohawk.
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Chloe has one with Ellic when she tries to [[spoiler:stop him from finishing the spell.]] It's literal knife fight between the two of them.
* TheBeautifulElite: The fashion house Kaulder and Chloe visit for a necessary element of memory potion has all the markings of one. Kaulder even calls it "old money and old magic" and the owner is a full-blown FemmeFatale.
* BeatStillMyHeart: The Witch Queen's heart continues to beat even after it's removed from its body.

** When Belial overloads lightbulbs in Chloe's house to kill them, she's at first blinded by sudden brightness.
** In his last fight against the Witch Queen, Kaulder uses impovised flashbangs to knock the Witch Queen off balance twice, each time getting the upper hand for a short while.

** At one point, Kaulder breaks all bones in his hand to get free from a handcuff. The sickening angles his fingers end in are bad enough, but when camera lingers on them as HealingFactor sets in, we get to see a close-up of bones that move in a manner that shouldn't be possible, accompanied by sickening crunches.
** When Chloe breaks Danique's youth charm, the young skin gets off the sorceress in huge, dry patches, revealing elderly face underneath part by part.

* CallBack: At the start of the film, Kaulder argues with 36th Dolan about advantages tablet has over a journal. At the end of the movie, Dolan swats a fly and murmurs "Bet you couldn't do that with an iPad."

* ColdIron: Traditional tools of a witch hunter are iron and fire.

** Witch Queen's heart is later used to revive her.

*** For that matter, his question whether the witch put them in water. We later see just why you should keep weather runes in dry places.

** Miranda, a herbalist and one of Chloe's waitresses, is set up as one, but ultimately subverted, as [[spoiler:Belial reaches her and her shop before heroes can.]]
* ChurchMilitant: The Axe and Cross, Church-aligned witchhunter organization for which Kaulder works.
* ClockPunk: In contrast with more "wild" feel of witchcraft, Axe and Cross has this aesthetics; notable examples include Kaulder's armoury and the mecha-bug controlling the Sentry.

* CoolCar: Kaulder uses ''Aston Martin Rapide'' for his transportation purposes in the present. It also seen drifting at the end of the movie.

* CouldntFindAPen: A variation of this - 36th Dolan leaves a message to Kaulder by marking words in chronicle of his life with bloody fingerprints.

** Chloe's ability is very powerful, and very dangerous

** Axe and Cross keeps one for Kaulder without his knowledge. [[spoiler:His eternal life is dependant on continuous existence of Witch Queen's heart. That's why they didn't destroy it.]]
** Chloe hides her DreamWalker gift, as it's considered to be a Dark Magic skill and she once inadvertently hurt her little brother with it.
* DeathSeeker: Kaulder wants death to reunite with his family, but unfortunately for him, he's immortal. It's more pronounced in the flashbacks - in present day, he seems to be largely fine with his continued existence.

* DestructiveSaviour: After her bar burns down due to Belial hunting for Kaulder, Chloe lashes out on him for causing destruction of all she's ever had.

** Belial uses it to bring Kaulder back from Memory potion.

* TheDragon: Belial works to bring the Witch Queen back, albeit [[spoiler:he doesn't stay around to enjoy the results.]]

--> OhCrap. Shop's closed Max

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The Witch Queen wants to eradicate all human life and civillization.

* ExplosiveInstrumentation: When Belial attempts to kidnap Chloe, he starts with blowing up all the lightbulbs in her house. For [[RuleOfCool some reasons]], she has chains of them in her flat, and they all blow up after overheating, nearly bliding her.
* ExpositionDiagram: After learning that Chloe is a DreamWalker, Kaulder takes her to Axe and Cross' headquarters and shows her a bas-relief of war against the Witch Queen, using it to tell her what her kind can do.

** After 37th Dolan's swearing-in for his position, Kaulder tells him of how he remembers the times when the church the ceremony took place in had been built.

** At the start of present day section of the film, 36th Dolan's narration tells about witches' current status in the world.

* FeelNoPain: While he does grunt when hit, the handcuff scene proves that Kaulder can't feel pain - he continues to push his hand through the metal ring even though it breaks his fingers, and there's nothing on his face but grim determination.
* FemmeFatale: Danique has all the markings: classy, rich, old-timey, attempts to have the protagonist killed.

** Close to the start of the movie, Kaulder says that a witch's curse is broken when the witch who cast it is killed. Watchful viewer may note that [[spoiler:despite Witch Queen dying in the prologue, Kaulder continues to be immortal, meaning she's not truly dead.]]
** The fashion show at Danique's place has a tree theme, just like the Witch Queen. Predictably, Danique is not Kaulder's friend in this endeavour.

* GlamourFailure: When Kaulder checks 36th Dolan's house for earth magic, the entire illusion comes down, revealing that in reality, the place is not clean and ordered, but a mess with many proofs of fight and torture.

* HandCannon: Kaulder's sidearm is the size of a pistol, but looks like a small shotgun and works like a full-sized one.

* HeroicSecondWind: After [[spoiler:37th Dolan's betrayal]] and the Witch Queen reactivating the plague spell, a beaten Kaulder has a vision of his deceased wife and daughter urging him to stand up and fight. He proceeds to figure out a way to do so.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Subverted. Many witches believe Kaulder to be a monster, but when forced to deal with Chloe for a longer while, he turns out to be a surprisingly NiceGuy.

* KickTheDog: Belial killing Miranda. With his power level, he could take what he wanted and leave, he had no use in hiding his identity anymore and she was nowhere near powerful enough to pose any sort of threat for him, but he murders her just to [[WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied taunt Kaulder about it on the phone]].

** Kaulder opens the last round of his fight against the Witch Queen by [[spoiler:plunging the weather runes he's collected earlier into a pool of water]], producing a truly impressive flash.

* TheDreaded: Kaulder is the terror of the witch community, and many an urban legend is out there telling what he does to every witch he encounters. When he enters Chloe's cafe/pub to get the memory potion, the entire hall is empty before he even reaches the bar, with both staff and clients fleeing in abject terror.

** Early on, Kaulder confirms that The 37th Dolan talked to The 36th Dolan alive and well the very night he was attacked. [[spoiler: It is heavily implied the former was the assailant.]]

%%* EvilAllAlong: this is the more specific case BigBadFriend

** Close to the start of the movie, Kaulder says that witch's curse is broken when the witch who cast it is killed. Watchful viewer may note that [[spoiler:despite Witch Queen dying in the prologue, Kaulder continues to be immortal, meaning she's not truly dead.]]
** The fashion show at Danique's place has tree theme, just like the Witch Queen. Predictably, Danique is not Kaulder's friend in this endeavour.

* HeroicSecondWind: After [[spoiler:37th Dolan's betrayal]] and Witch Queen reactivating the plague spell, a beaten Kaulder has a vision of his deceased wife and daughter urging him to stand up and fight. He proceeds to figure out a way to do so.

* CoolCar: Kaulder uses ''Aston Martin Rapide'' for his transportation purposes in the present. It also seen drifting at the end of the movie.

* MetallicarSyndrome: Lampshaded by 37th Dolan; Kaulder's CoolCar is a 4-door, 550 horsepower, 200 mph Aston Martin Rapide. Though, as 37th Dolan points out, it's saved from being too conspicuous since at least it's black not gaudy red.