Featured DVD Review: Sabrina - Secrets of a Teenage Witch: A Witch and the Werewolf

September 7, 2014

Sabrina - Secrets of a Teenage Witch: A Witch and the Werewolf - Buy from Amazon: DVD

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch has been around for more than 50 years, starting as a comic book character in the 1960s. The character and its world have been turned into TV shows in the 1990s starring Melissa Joan Hart, which is probably the incarnation most people know the best. This time last year, the latest installment in the long-running franchise debuted. It is a digitally animated series with Ashley Tisdale providing the voice for the titular witch. This week, a DVD is coming out. Is it worth checking out for fans of Sabrina? Or is it best to stick with some of the previous versions?

The Movie

We are dropped in the middle of the action with Sabrina in the middle of a competition with Shinji, the son of Enchantra, an evil witch. As we quickly learn, Sabrina lives in both the human world and the witch world and much prefers the human world. This is something Enchantra can't stand and is determined to bring Sabrina to her way of thinking. She even has a mole to help her: Salem, her cat. In order to get her to leave the human realm, she wants Salem to sow chaos. He does this by getting Sabrina to give Harvey Kinkle a cursed jacket that will turn him into a werewolf. Of course, this is the night a big werewolf movie is opening, so everyone just thinks he's in a costume. This works out for the most part, until Harvey accidentally crosses over to the witch world.

Once that's cleaned up, Sabrina plays a LARP game with some of her friends, but Salem accidentally summons a real troll into the human world. Of course no one but Sabrina realizes they are not just people in bad costumes and they give chase and wind up in the witching world where the game turns real. Again, only Sabrina realizes they are not just playing a game.

A Witch and the Werewolf is not a movie, it is three episodes of the TV series (Dances with Werewolves, Return of the Werewolf, and Creatures and Caves) stitched together. The end result is short (it is only 63 minutes long) and disjointed. It doesn't do a good job of selling the show. I do like Ashley Tisdale's voicework, but she's better in Phineas and Ferb, or to be more accurate, she has a lot more to work with in that show. Despite the Sabrina name, the show feels too generic and the characters are mostly uninteresting. Additionally, the animation looks cheap. It's not the worst animated TV show I've reviewed, but it is much weaker than I was hoping for.

The Extras

The only extra on the DVD is a music video.

The Verdict

Sabrina - Secrets of a Teenage Witch: A Witch and the Werewolf is not very good, it's not very long, and the DVD doesn't have very many extras. If you are a fan of the franchise, I would stick with the live action show with Melissa Joan Hart or the older animated series with Emily Hart providing the voice of Sabrina.


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Filed under: Video Review, Melissa Joan Hart, Ashley Tisdale