Film / The Last Witch Hunter

Live forever. Hunt forever.

"By Iron And Fire."

The Last Witch Hunter is a 2015 fantasy action film. It stars Vin Diesel as the main character, accompanied by Rose Leslie, Michael Caine, and Elijah Wood as his sidekicks.

Unknowingly, mankind shares Earth with witches, descendants of an ancient race gifted with powerful magic. Eight hundred years ago, one of them, the Witch Queen, decided to end this coexistence 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 the death of his Secret-Keeper (Caine) leads him to discover that a new evil threatens to bring the Witch Queen back, forcing Kaulder to join forces with the young witch Chloe (Leslie) to try and stop it.

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This film contains examples of:

• The Ace: Even as a mere mortal, Kaulder was a cut above his fellows in the Order, who got slaughtered like sheep when they faced the Witch Queen in the past. In the present he's an unstoppable force with centuries of experience and Complete Immortality to back it up. Witches pretty much don't have a prayer against him in a straight fight; unfortunately, dirty tricks are the specialty of any evil witch worth their salt.
• Achilles' Heel: Kaulder may be completely immortal, but he's still perfectly vulnerable to mental attacks. When he's forcefully pulled out of a memory potion, he's left dazed and hallucinating so badly that Belial just goes about his business while Kaulder tries to choke Chloe to death thinking she's the Witch Queen. Later, Danique is able to trap him in a Lotus-Eater Machine that Chloe has to use her Dream Walker powers to break.
• Action Girl: The Witch Queen is perfectly willing to throw down hand-to-hand if need be. There's also Chloe, who despite being a simple bartender at first glance proves to be much more than Kaulder thinks of her.
• Alchemy Is Magic: Witches can make a variety of potions.
  • There's a love potion, which is implied to be more of an aphrodisiac.
  • A Memory potion induces flashbacks.
  • There's a similar one which can induce Lotus-Eater Machine.
  • When Belial attacks Kaulder, Chloe rescues him with a Dispel Magic potion.
  • And Max's butterflies have some unknown effects when applied to sweets.
• All There in the Manual: The Axe And Cross website released alongside the movie details much of the lore not explored in the movie. The Witch Queen, for example, is just one of the six so-called Witch Lords, a group of near-godlike witches who have terrorized humanity since time immemorial.
• And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with Kaulder and his new partner (Chloe) riding off to their new task.
• Apocalypse How: The Witch Queen aims to bring about class 3a - complete extinction of the dominant species - Humanity.
• Arch-Enemy: Kaulder has the Witch Queen, who killed his family and made him immortal.
• Back from the Dead:
  • The Witch Queen - bringing her back is the point of the plot.
  • 36th Dolan, although he wasn't so much dead as he was cursed.
• Badass Boast: "By Iron and Fire!", which seems to be Axe and Cross' in general, but is used mainly by Kaulder.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Kaulder wears a low key version of this - suit trousers and button-up shirt - for most of the movie.
• Baritone of Strength: Kindly remember that the eponymous witch hunter is played by Vin Diesel.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Chloe has one with Ellic when she tries to stop him from finishing the spell. It's a literal knife fight between the two of them.
• The Beautiful Elite: The fashion house Kaulder and Chloe visit for a necessary element of a memory potion has all the markings of one. Kaulder even calls it "old money and old magic", and the owner is a full-blown Femme Fatale.
• Beat Still, My Heart: The Witch Queen's heart continues to beat even after it's removed from her body.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Hexe" (Hexenbane) means "witch" in German.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The 37th Dolan seems like a Nice Guy and Kaulder fanboy who's a bit in over his head. The truth is he's a treacherous sycophant to The Witch Queen, and his reasons for betraying humanity and Kaulder are rather petty and pathetic.
• Black Magic: General term for non-elemental magic, meaning one that uses bones of the dead, graveyard earth, poisons and blood to do its job, while having no non-hurtful effects.
• Blind Black Guy: Max, a black warlock selling charm butterflies to bakeries and patisseries, is blind, though he seems to have little trouble functioning in society.
• Blinded by the Light:
  • When Belial overloads the lightbulbs in Chloe's house, she's at first blinded by the sudden brightness.
  • In his last fight against the Witch Queen, Kaulder uses improvised flashbangs to knock the Witch Queen off balance twice, each time getting the upper hand for a short while.
• Body Horror:
  • At one point, Kaulder breaks all the bones in his hand to get free from a handcuff. The sickening angles his fingers end in are bad enough, but when the camera lingers on them as his Healing Factor 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 falls off the sorceress in huge, dry patches, revealing her elderly face underneath.
  • When Max is sacrificed to bring the Witch Queen back, the transformation ends with the Witch Queen bursting out of Max's skin.
• Bond One-Liner: After 36th Dolan crushes a plague fly with his journal, he quips "Try doing that with an iPad."
• Break Them by Talking: At the climax, the Witch Queen tries to do this, screaming at Kaulder that he is fighting for people who will never appreciate or never know what he does to protect them. Kaulder shrugs it off and goes for the killing blow.
  Witch Queen: You cling to your pathetic life and for what reason?! Those closest to you betray you, and those you claim to protect don't even know your name!
• Brick Joke: Near the beginning of the film, 36th Dolan turns down an iPad in favor of his Axe and Cross journal. After the climax, he proceeds to use said book for a purpose that would render an iPad inoperable.
• Brought Down to Normal: The Witch Queen takes Kaulder's, or rather her immortality to complete her rebirth. When Kaulder deals the final blow to her, a pulse of magic she unleashes during her death throes renders him immortal once again.
• Buried Alive: Almost happens to 36th Dolan, but then Kaulder realizes that he's not really dead.
• Call-Back: At the start of the film, Kaulder argues with 36th Dolan about advantages a 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."
• Captain Obvious: The lead witch hunter's brilliant observation that the Witch Queen will not die until her heart stops beating is NOT this. It's revealed that even though the Queen's body can be destroyed, her heart will remain intact, continuing to beat and maintaining her life until pains are actively taken to destroy it. As long as her heart is intact, there is a looming threat of it being used to resurrect her.
• Category Traitor: This seems to be Belial's general opinion of all the witches who don't help the Witch Queen return.
• Cold Iron: The traditional tools of a witch hunter are iron and fire. So more hot iron, but the thought is there.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Glaeser's bug, used to control the Prison Sentry, later returns to activate the Sentry when Ellic is pulled out of the jail so he can be assassinated.
  • Hexenbane, Kaulder's sword in the flashbacks, comes back for the final battle.
  • The Witch Queen's heart is later used to revive her.
  • The latest of the many notebooks is where 36th Dolan leaves his final message.
  • The three weather runes Kaulder confiscates at the start of the film's "present day" part come back when he uses them to distract the Queen. 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.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Ellic, the Fall Guy of Belial's, turns out to be the weak link Chloe has to break to stop the spell.
  • Max, the blind warlock to whom Kaulder comes for information, is sacrificed by Belial to bring the Queen back.
  • Miranda, a herbalist and one of Chloe's waitresses, is set up as one, but ultimately subverted, as Belial reaches her and her shop before the heroes can.
• Church Militant: The Axe and Cross, the Church-aligned witchhunter organization Kaulder works for.
• Clock Punk: In contrast with more "wild" feel of witchcraft, Axe and Cross has this aesthetic; notable examples include Kaulder's armoury and the mecha-bug controlling the Sentry.
• Colossus Climb: During the Final Battle, Kaulder jumps on top of the spider monster and kills it Just in Time before it can reach and kill the 37th Dolan.
• Cool Car: Kaulder uses a Aston Martin Rapide for his transportation purposes in the present. It also seen drifting at the end of the movie.
• Cool Sword: The Hexenbane, Kaulder's blade. It can break stone and turn into a Flaming Sword whenever necessary.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: A variation of this - 36th Dolan leaves a message to Kaulder by marking words in the chronicle of his life with bloody fingerprints.
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • Kaulder's "curse" is a textbook variation - the Witch Queen invoked Who Wants to Live Forever? to break him, and instead he became her kind's greatest prosecutor. It starts to make more more sense once it's revealed that she used him to store the immortality for her resurrection.
  • Chloe's ability is very powerful, and very dangerous.
• Dark Secret:
  • Axe and Cross keeps one for Kaulder without his knowledge. His eternal life is dependent on the continuous existence of the Witch Queen's heart. That's why they didn't destroy it.
  • Chloe hides her Dream Walker gift, as it's considered to be a Dark Magic skill, and she once inadvertently hurt her little brother with it.
• Death Seeker: Kaulder wants death to reunite with his family, but unfortunately for him, he's immortal. It's more pronounced in the flashbacks - in the present day, he seems to be largely fine with his continued existence.
• Design Student's Orgasm: The sheer number of details of flashback!Kaulder's throne in poster adorning this page is staggering. The poster with present!Kaulder is way more toned down◊.
• Destructive Saviour: After her bar burns down due to Belial's hunt for Kaulder, Chloe lashes out at him for causing the destruction of all she's ever had.
• Dispel Magic: Twice, in form of potions.
  • Belial uses it to bring Kaulder back from the memory potion trance.
  • Chloe uses it to save him from Belial's nightmare.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Modern witches seem to have a remarkably blase attitude toward their own magic, and it's this that seems to particularly irritate Kaulder by this point in his career: the good witches often underestimate the damage they can cause with mere carelessness, while the witches who DO have a firm grasp of their abilities and what they can do are the ones who abuse it.
• The Dragon: Belial works to bring the Witch Queen back, albeit he doesn't get to stay around to enjoy the results.
• The Dreaded: 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. Similarly, when he goes to meet Max, the staff in the bakery kitchen book it after this exchange.
  Oh, Crap! Shop's closed, Max!
• Dream Walker: Chloe has the power to enter other people's minds and dreams. Kaulder mentions that there used to be more like her and they were Queen's deadliest assassins, due to Your Mind Makes It Real.
• Elemental Powers: The non-Black Magic witches use is based on four classical elements.
• Embarrassing Ringtone: Chloe has a cat sound ringtone for Miranda's calls which everyone in the room finds awkward.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Kaulder manages to take down the Witch Queen even before she "curses" him with immortality and Healing Factor. After she does, he becomes The Dreaded to the supernatural community.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The Witch Queen wants to eradicate all human life and civilization.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • Dolans seem to have no name besides "[number]th Dolan". They forsake their names when they take on the title.
  • The queen of witches is simply the Witch Queen. It's implied she predates tradition of individual names.
• Evil All Along: The 37th Dolan betrays Kaudler very late in the film at a crucial moment, and reveals that he was against Kaudler from the start.
• Evil Plan: The Witch Queen seeks to use a plague to Kill All Humans.
• Explosive Instrumentation: When Belial attempts to kidnap Chloe, he starts with blowing up all the lightbulbs in her house. For some reasons, she has chains of them in her flat, and they all blow up after overheating, nearly blinding her.
• Exposition Diagram: After learning that Chloe is a Dream Walker, Kaulder takes her to Axe and Cross' headquarters and shows her a bas-relief of the war against the Witch Queen, using it to tell her what her kind can do.
• Exposition of Immortality: Kaulder has several indicators:
  • He has many flashbacks to the war against the Witch Queen.
  • After 37th Dolan's swearing-in for his position, Kaulder tells him of how he remembers the time when the church the ceremony took place in had been built.
  • A subtle one, but the archive in Axe and Cross' headquarters is filled with dozens of books of the same kind 36th Dolan uses to write down Kaulder's history.
• Expospeak:
  • At the start of present day section of the film, 36th Dolan's narration tells about the witches' current status in the world.
  • Before giving him the memory potion, Chloe outlines the rules about its effects, among them Your Mind Makes It Real. Lampshaded when Kaulder points out that he knows this already, only for her to tell him that her insurance company requires the speech of her.
• Fall Guy: Ellic is set up by Belial to be arrested for 36th Dolan's murder.
• Fantastic Racism: Witch Queen despises humans and kills them even if they aid her cause.
• Feel No Pain: While he does grunt when hit, the handcuff scene proves that Kaulder doesn't really 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.
• Femme Fatale: Danique has all the markings: classy, rich, old-timey, attempts to have the protagonist killed...beneath the illusion magic she cast on herself, though, she's an ugly, bald old hag.
• Flaming Sword: Kaulder's blade can be set on fire.
• Flies Equals Evil: The Witch Queen's evil plan is to unleash a giant swarm of Black Death-carrying Plague Flies. The little uglies eat flesh, too.
• Foreshadowing:
  • 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 viewers may note that despite the 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 endeavor.
  • Early on, Kaulder confirms with The 37th Dolan that he indeed talked to The 36th Dolan alive and well the night he was attacked. It is heavily implied the former was the actual assailant.
• Genre Shift: The movie starts off as a grim Dark Fantasy story. After the Witch Queen is killed and we shift to present day, the movie becomes a supernatural buddy-cop crime drama. Then it switches back to Dark Fantasy for the fight against the revived Queen.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair:
  • Flashback!Kaulder sports one reminiscent of that worn by Ragnar from Vikings.
  • Belial, who can keep up with Kaulder most of the time, sports a giant Viking beard.
• Grim Up North: The first Plague Tree, Queen's "nest", is set in some cold, northern place.
• Glamour Failure: 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 evidence of fighting and torture.
• Good Is Not Nice: The Axe and Cross, in spades. They sentence witches without giving them a chance to speak, they are merciless in their prosecution of magic, they keep dark secrets from Kaulder to keep him working for them and they treat their top hunter as little more than a tool.
• Hand Cannon: Kaulder's sidearm is the size of a pistol, looks like a small shotgun, and works like a full-sized one.
• Happy Flashback: We are treated to happy flashback moments of Kaulder with his wife and daughter, facilitated by the memory potion.
• Healing Factor: Part of Kaulder's immortality is his ability to heal quickly. Broken bones mend in under a minute, and slash wounds take seconds.
• Heart Drive: Quite a literal one - a witch isn't truly dead until her heart is destroyed - otherwise she can be brought back to life.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: While he's seen using a bow, pistol and hammer, both times Kaulder fights the Witch Queen, he defeats her with his sword.
• Heroic Second Wind: After 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 do just that.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Subverted. Many witches believe Kaulder to be a monster, but when he's forced to deal with Chloe for a longer while, he turns out to be a surprisingly Nice Guy.
• Hot Witch: All witches except for the Queen, although while some are simply young, others cheat a bit to get the effect.
• Human Sacrifice: Belial sacrifices Max the warlock to bring the Queen back.
• Humans Are Insects: The Witch Queen's opinion - she believes that the world belongs to witches and mankind should be eradicated so that they can live in it.
  Witch Queen: You breed like rats. You put stone on top of stone and then live in your own filth! You are trespassers on our world. This is why I created the plague...it's why every one of you must perish!
• Humanoid Abomination: While witches and humans are separate races to begin with, the Witch Queen is most certainly this: an immortal, hideous, tree-like hag with abilities far surpassing any other witch. She's one of six Witch Lords, a family of malevolent, antediluvian monsters who ruled the world before mankind came into being, so writing her off as simply an 'inordinately powerful witch' may be inaccurate...
• Hunter of His Own Kind: Chloe becomes one by the end of the movie. She even lampshades it nonchalantly:
  Chloe: Why can't a witch be a witch hunter?
• I Call It "Vera": Well, Kaulder doesn't call his sword Hexenbane, but it's a name that caught on among the witch community. Ultimately, he decides Sure, Let's Go with That.
• I Just Want to Be Special: 37th Dolan wants to be a warlock. He was born to a pair of witches, but didn't inherit the gift, and part of the reason for his treachery is this.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • The fate of the Witch Queen, both times.
  • Belial also gets this fate, courtesy of a throwing knife in the throat.
• Improvised Weapon: Downplayed, but when 36th Dolan encounters a rogue plague fly that survived the climax, he promtply dispatches it with his journal as easily as a normal fly.
• Immortality Inducer: For Kaulder, the heart of the Witch Queen - as long as it beats, he's immortal.
• Informed Attribute: Max is apparently an extremely powerful warlock by what Kaulder tells Dolan 37: the most we see him do is influence a swarm of butterflies to (unsuccessfully) cover his escape. Belial later incapacitates him effortlessly, with Max outright begging for mercy instead of putting up any kind of fight or flight.
• Instant Runes: Runes and symbols indicate the presence of magic. They're usually invisible, but can be brought into the open if you know what to look for: Kaulder usually breathes on a window and fogs it up, with the rune appearing in the middle of the misty patch.
• Ironic Nickname: Kaulder calls the 36th Dolan, well into his seventies and looking the part, "kid". Played with in that for eight-hundred-years-old Kaulder, 36th Dolan is a kid.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: When talking to his successor, the 36th Dolan expresses his annoyance at this, noting that Axe and Cross doesn't see Kaulder, they only see a weapon.
• Kick the Dog:
  • 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. He murders her just to taunt Kaulder about it on the phone.
  • Earlier than that, the Witch Queen cursed Kaulder with immortality out of spite for stopping her from killing humanity.
• Kill It with Fire:
  • Ultimately, the hunters in the prologue destroy the Plague Tree by burning it down.
  • Invoked in Axe and Cross' Badass Boast, "By Iron and Fire".
• The Last Title: The Last Witch Hunter.
• Legacy Character: The Dolans, series of Kaulder's Secret Keepers through the ages. The first Dolan was a priest accompanying the Queen-slaying team. Dolan was his actual name, it's only his successors who's taken it up as a title.
• Light 'em Up:
  • Kaulder opens the last round of his fight against the Witch Queen by plunging the weather runes he'd collected earlier into a pool of water, producing a truly impressive flash.
  • Light seems to be somewhat anathema to Black Magic in general - Belial's tree teleporter only works in shadows and when Kaulder uses his improvised flashbangs, the Witch Queen seems more than just blinded.
• Logo Joke: At the start of the film, Summit Entertainment's logo is drawn with ink on parchment and text is written in runic script before morphing into familiar latin letters.
• The Lost Lenore: Helena, Kaulder's deceased wife.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The potion Danique puffs at Kaulder puts him in a dream in which he's reliving his most treasured memories of his family. Chloe has to dive in his mind to pull him out of it.
• Mage Species: Witches are said to be a separate species older than mankind. They can breed with humans, and witchcraft is something that's in the blood.
• The Magocracy: Witch society has a ruling council tasked to preserve The Masquerade and the truce with humanity by punishing practitioners of Black Magic.
• Magic Potion: Witches can create wide variety of potions, including ones that induce Lotus-Eater Machine, aphrodisiacs, ones that work like Anti-Magic and plot-important memory potions, which induce flashbacks.
• Masquerade:
  • Axe and Cross enforces this on witches, because if their powers were to be left unchecked, there'd soon be some wannabe Witch Queen aiming to take over the world again.
  • Kaulder's real age and immortality are naturally concealed with an assumed identity. The evident increasing difficulty of maintaining that cover in the digital age is lampshaded by 37th Dolan.
• Metallicar Syndrome: Lampshaded by 37th Dolan. Kaulder's aforementioned Cool Car 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 and not gaudy red.
• Mind Control: The Witch Queen can do this to other witches, forcing them to participate in her spell.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Murder of a Dolan reveals a plot to bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: Used briefly in Danique's fashion house, when Chloe looks into the mirrors only to see that the "supermodels" are in fact old crones using youth charms.
• The Mole: Dolan The 37th is one within the Axe and Cross, having always been loyal to the Witch Queen.
• Moment of Weakness: Feeling betrayed by the Axe and Cross after learning that they've been keeping the Witch Queen's heart to use him as a weapon, Kaulder heads off to stop Belial on his own, declining Chloe's help as he feels he can't trust anyone anymore. With no backup to help him, Belial and the newly resurrected Queen proceed to beat the crap out of him and he ends up losing his immortality.
• Monster/Slayer Romance: Subverted. There were plans to have the witch Chloe fall in love with Kaulder, the eponymous Witch Hunter, but this was rejected because the age gap between them^note About 20 years between the actors, and 800 years between their characters was seen as too large and Kaulder still being haunted by the death of his wife made it seem inappropriate.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: A slower cover of "Paint It Black" plays over the trailer.
• Mr. Exposition: Kaulder sometimes works like this to both Chloe and 37th Dolan, both relatively new to the Witch Hunting trade.
• Muggle Born of Mages: 37th Dolan is a non-mage born to a pair of witches.
• The Musketeer: Kaulder's weapons of choice are his Hand Cannon and Cool Sword.
• My God, What Have I Done?: A non-verbal variation: Kaulder tries to strangle Chloe in a hallucinogenic trance, visualizing her as the Witch Queen. When Chloe manages to dose him with an antidote for the spell he's under and he comes to his senses, his hand snaps off of her and he has a horrified expression on his face.
• Mystical Plague: In the movie's mythos, Black Death was/is a plague engineered by the Witch Queen.
• Named Weapons: Played with, as while Kaulder notes that he had never named his sword, he quickly adds that others had come to call it Hexenbane, for its proficiency in slaying witches.
• Never Sleep Again: According to Kaulder, the Dream Walkers used to be the Witch Queen's deadliest assassins, as they could enter a person's subconsciousness and bring forward their worst memories or simply kill them, thus murdering them in real life.
• Nice Guy: When not fighting witches, Kaulder is a really nice person, comforting others, joking, helping them to get at ease with the supernatural and protecting whenever necessary.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While it's certainly effective, Axe and Cross may have some troubles with this.
  • They never once told Kaulder that the Witch Queen's heart is still not destroyed, as it's the only thing keeping him alive. Had they, he'd be wary of anyone who may want to come and steal it.
  • The above is bad enough, but not telling him about it after the heart's been stolen is pure idiocy. If only he knew what to search for, he could probably avoid the entire resurrection. However, the latter might be justified: considering that the 37th Dolan is actually on the Witch Queen's side, and he's the only member of the order we see Kaulder interact with, it's just as likely that he did it on purpose so that Kaulder would not have avoided the resurrection.
  • 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 the most powerful witches for the Queen to use in her spell.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: The movie has no romantic subplot whatsoever, even between two leads Chloe and Kaulder. Rather justified, given that she's thirty at best, while he's over eight hundred.
• Noble Bigot: Kaulder dislikes witches, sure, but it doesn't cloud his judgement: he only hunts ones guilty of harming humans and is perfectly willing to work with them if needed.
• No Immortal Inertia: After Chloe breaks Danique's immortality charm, the older witch immediately starts aging.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The Sentry is an automaton with one purpose: guard the Witch Prison and recapture any escapees. It attacks Kaulder and co. when they pull Ellic out of the jail so they can kill him and break the Chant.
• No Ontological Inertia: It seems that killing a witch stops her magic:
  • Belial's death lifts the curse he's put on 36th Dolan.
  • The Plague Flies all drop dead when the Witch Queen is killed.
• Our Witches Are Different: Mage Species-type that can breed with humans:
  "Witches live among us in secret. Their magic passed down from an ancient race, diluted, half-forgotten, but dangerously powerful."
• Outliving One's Offspring: Kaulder's daughter dying of Black Death is an important part of his backstory.
• "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The final shot pans up to the skyline of New York.
• Parental Substitute: Kaulder ends up getting this dynamic with Chloe, becoming a sort of father figure to her.
• Pet the Dog: 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 after she nearly inadvertently brings down a passenger plane with them.
  Bronwyn: You gonna turn me over to the Witch Council?
  Kaulder: No.
  Bronwyn: [afraid] You're gonna kill me?
  Kaulder: [surprised] Kill you? I'm trying to stop you from killing yourself. Enjoy New York.
• Plaguemaster: Witch Queen's most notable ability - she can create and spread a deadly disease, the Black Death.
• Plant Person: The Witch Queen looks like a humanoid tree and has trees as her weapons.
• Poor Communication Kills: If only Axe and Cross bothered to tell Kaulder that they have the Witch Queen's heart and it's gone missing...
• Power Crystal: Danique wears a pedant with a gem that keeps her looking young. The Glamour Failure in the dressing room implies that all her models wear them.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: After the Witch Queen shows Kaulder a vision of the future she intends to make, showing a ruined and overgrown New York with humanity exterminated:
  Witch Queen: I've taken this world back!
  Kaulder: Not yet.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Delivered to the Witch Queen:
  Kaulder: You know the benefit of eternal life? I get to kill you twice.
• Really 700 Years Old: Kaulder is eight hundred years old.
• Rescued from the Underworld: Chloe dives into Kaulder's mind to rescue him from a Lotus-Eater Machine.
• Retirony: 36th Dolan dies on the same night he retires, cluing in Kaulder that something is wrong. Later subverted, as he turns out to be alive, but cursed.
• Red Baron: The magic users call Kaulder the Witch Hunter.
• The Reveal:
  • Chloe is a Dream Walker, possessing a skill that's considered to be part of Black Magic.
  • Kaulder will live only as long as the Witch Queen's heart keeps beating.
  • Kaulder's immortality is not a curse, but part of the Queen's plan to bring herself back to life. She takes it back to finish her resurrection.
  • 37th Dolan serves the Witch Queen, because Kaulder killed his parents.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: For his glorious service to the Witch Queen against his own species, 37th Dolan is killed by her for being human.
  Witch Queen: Clay cannot be turned into gold. Without magic, you're just a human.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Hinted at in a single, somewhat-jarring line as Kaulder refers to Max as a 14th-Level Warlock.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: The vision of the future the Witch Queen shows Kaulder has New York overgrown in vegetation and with wrecks and rusting metal all around.
• Running Gag: 37th Dolan asks to be given any weapon several times.
• Secret-Keeper: The entire purpose of Dolans is to be this for Kaulder, keeping him company and writing down his history.
• Sequel Hook: The movie gave itself several ways to follow up with a sequel, depending what kind of a sequel it'd like:
  • Wainscot Society shenaningans? Danique now holds a grudge against Chloe.
  • Bringing in something bigger and badder? Chloe tells Kaulder that she saw some "greater darkness" hiding and waiting unitl the witch hunter is gone to reveal itself.
  • Here We Go Again! plot? Witch Queen's heart is hidden in Kaulder's armory. Safely... for now.
  • Broken Masquerade? It's hard to cover up completely whole story with The Swarm and Plague Tree growing in minutes in center of New-York, plus it might give ideas to someone else.
• Sexy Stewardess: Kauldar has a one night stand with one, played by Inbar Levi.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Chloe rants at Kaulder about popular opinion of witches, she talks about how most people see them. The description she gives is pretty clearly that of the Wicked Witch of the West.
  • The Your Mind Makes It Real aspect of memory potions, complete with the position Kaulder takes when it starts to take effect, are pretty reminiscent of The Matrix.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: The scene at Danique's fashion house has clear undertones of this, with Danique and Chloe slinging insults at one another as much as Kaulder's presence permits.
• Smoking Is Glamorous: Femme Fatale Danique smokes, first from a cigarillo, then shisha.
• Spotting the Thread: Kaulder has a knack for this.
  • He notices that there's something sketchy about 36th Dolan's supposedly-peaceful demise when he notes that the man has died on the same night he has retired, which isn't something that usually happens.
  • The illusion at Dolan's house is shaken when he notices a dead fly on the floor, lying there despite the house and windows being closed all the time, and it shatters completely when he notices it's a Plague Fly, a sure sign of dark magic.
  • He realizes that Ellic isn't the only person involved in 36th Dolan's murder when he notes that such a low-level warlock shouldn't be able to perform shapeshifting, which he hasn't seen in 800 years.
• The Swarm: The Plague Flies, swarm of insects the Witch Queen uses to carry her diseases. When they're let loose, they're numerous enough to blot out the sky.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: When witches use their magic, there's something like second pupils opening in their eyes, and they're gold.
• Super-Strength: Witches have strength that often belies their physique. In their first fight, the Witch Queen holds Kaulder at bay in a Blade Lock with one hand while he's using two. One of Belial's kicks sends Kaulder flying across the room, and later Chloe does the same to try to snap Kaulder out of Danique's Lotus-Eater Machine. She then manages to throw Ellic, a grown man, off of her during her battle with him in his psyche. It must be noted in her case, however, that both instances happen in the minds of Kaulder and Ellic, where Chloe has a distinct advantage. It remains to be seen whether she can manage such feats in the real world.
• Tarot Troubles: Axe and Cross uses Tarot cards in place of interrogation, finding out whether the suspect is guilty or if he worked alone. Kaulder points out, though, that the cards can be, and sometimes are, wrong.
• Teleporters and Transporters: Belial can summon a teleporter which looks like tree roots emerging from any surface, grabbing the teleported and taking them with them by pulling them into the hole they've made for themselves.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Played with. After Chloe and Kaulder leave, with Danique aging rapidly, she stops for a moment to give their back a Death Glare and hiss "bitch." Someone's going to hold a grudge.
• Time Abyss: The Witch Queen is old enough to remember a world without humans, which would make her more than forty thousand years old.
• Time Skip: After the prologue set by the end of the Black Death plague, the story jumps to the present day.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The 37th Dolan chooses to willingly serve a powerful witch who seeks the absolute annihilation of all muggles. He also happens to think she will be perfectly cool with the fact that he was born a non-magic user, and will actually give him magic. Suffice to say, he's wrong.
  • Bronwyn, the teenage 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.
• Trojan Prisoner: Ellic getting caught is actually a part of the villains' plan. The 36th Dolan's pen which they take for evidence has Plague Flies hidden in it, and with him in the prison the Witch Queen finally has the magic number of witches that support her all in one place.
• Vain Sorceress: Danique acts and looks like a Femme Fatale, while in truth she looks like an old crone. She hides her age with a Power Crystal.
• Voice of the Legion: The Witch Queen has a bad case of multiple voices.
• Wainscot Society: 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 Kaulder for a potion because her insurance requires it.
• Weaponized Teleportation: Belial uses his teleporters to kidnap people.
• When Trees Attack: Witchcraft, especially dark magic, loves this trope. Belial's teleporters are based on tree roots, the Plague Tree is, well, a tree, both Belial and the Witch Queen use tree branches as Combat Tentacles, and the Queen herself looks like she's been grown in a tree.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: 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. In truth, it's just a bonus: she gets to make her killer suffer until she's revived and can take her immortality back from him.
• Wicked Witch: While most witches are of the Hot type, the Witch Queen looks like something humanoid grew from a tree, has a double voice and isn't pretty at all.
• The Witch Hunter: Kaulder's job description, it's even in the title. Unlike most examples of this trope, he a. only goes after criminal witches, and b. hands them over to the Witch Council to be tried rather than simply executing them with impunity, making him more of a Bounty Hunter.
• Worf Had the Flu: Kaulder is forcefully pulled out of his Memory Potion trance by Belial, leaving him in a half-awake drugged-up haze flickering between the real world and his memory. Despite getting a few good swings in, Kaulder is too out of it to fight effectively, even attacking Chloe when he hallucinates her as the Witch Queen as Belial casually burns the bar down.
  Belial: I was yanked out of a memory spell once: my mind was scrambled eggs for hours.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: Belial taunts Kaulder over the phone about how he killed Miranda.
  Belial: She died badly, screaming. Alone.
• You Are Number 6: The naming system of Kaulder's Secret Keepers is based on this - everyone is called by his number and "Dolan".
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: The Witch Queen's heart is stolen even before Kaulder realizes that something doesn't add up in 36th Dolan's murder.
• You Killed My Father: Kaulder unknowingly killed Dolan The 37th's parents, not realizing they were the witches he was hunting and inadvertently driving 37th to revenge.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: When a memory potion or a Dream Walker's powers are in effect, every wound - up to and including a mortal one - manifests on a body in reality.

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