I wouldn’t blame you for not having heard of The Hexer. Six years before CD Projekt Red’sThe Witchervideo game, this film and TV series combo was one of the only adaptations of the Polish book series. The turn of the century was big for author Andrzej Sapkowski, as the previous decade had held only a comic book adaptation of his novels penned by himself, Maciej Parowski, and Bogusław Polch. 2001 brought about a TTRPG called Wiedźmin: Gra Wyobraźni (The Witcher: A Game of Imagination), and The Hexer.
The Hexer was a two-hour film that was incredibly poorly received. It had a far larger budget than most Polish-made movies, hiring famous Polish actors for the lead roles and spending big bucks to land well-known Polish composer Grzegorz Ciechowski. It coincided with action toys and the first English translation of the novels, but flopped critically and commercially. So why is it that The Hexer has been given a new lease of life in 2023? Is it a genuine appreciation of a hidden gem, or is it an internet meme following in the footsteps of Morbius? To know for sure, we have to find out a bit more about the film itself.
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The first thing of note is the name. Many assume that, because it’s not called The Witcher, this is an unofficial adaptation. That is not the case. The Hexer is simply another translation of the original Polish ‘wiedźmin’ – a word that Sapkowski created – to mean a male witch. The translation to Hexer probably comes from German, in which ‘hexe’ and ‘hexer’ are the words for female and male witch, respectively. Video game designer Adrian Chmielarz claims to have invented the term ‘witcher’ in the ‘90s, but it didn’t gain popularity until four years after the film’s release, when Sapkowski noted it in his 2005 book-interview Historia i Fantastyka.
So it’s official, but that doesn’t make it good. The Hexer’s marketing budget was huge by Polish standards, in an attempt to draw in not just fantasy fans, but anyone who liked watching movies. Which is, you know, everyone in the world except Michael Owen. The casting of famous Polish stars helped draw people in, but it didn’t quite work out. The fantasy film genre was still in its pre-Peter Jackson era, and therefore wasn’t taken seriously by the masses, while comedy actors in straight roles only served to confound viewers.
It also didn’t help that the film is basically a montage of the best bits of the forthcoming TV series, in essence a feature length trailer that made no sense.
Critics praised the acting and score, but little else. The TV series that the film was seemingly cut from wasn’t much better, with poor CGI becoming even more apparent over the course of 13 episodes. It did not get renewed and, perhaps more damningly, has become the butt of many Polish jokes referencing the poor quality of the country’s cinematic entertainment releases. So why has The Hexer re-entered the public consciousness?
It’s part-meme, part-protest. Many communities on social forum Reddit have shut down or hosted blackouts in recent weeks toprotest changes to the site’s APIthat would monetise the system, and The Witcher subreddit has taken it a step further. The entire subreddit is now dedicated to what was previously thought of as an awful take on Sapkowski’s novels, from praising the character work, to the lore contradictions, to the shoddy noughties CGI that looked outdated at release. The mods hope that this will make for lower engagement as, despite the memes, casual Witcher fans will simply scroll past or even leave completely.
However, this has reached the point where some people seem to be genuinely reaching out to ask if the praise of the show is legitimate, and whether they should try to watch it themselves. These fans, seemingly concerned with missing out on a key adaptation of their favourite fantasy series, may be an unintended victim of the protest. Who knows, though, maybe there’ll be a certain retro charm in watching the series two decades later?
While not many blackouts persist, communities across Reddit are undertaking similar protests. ThePokemon GoandDungeons & Dragonsart communities have enforced a rule inspired by r/pics which means John Oliver must be present or referenced in every post, and many NSFW initiatives are trying to make the site less advertiser-friendly.
As for The Hexer, though, there’s only one opinion that really matters, that of The Witcher creator Andrzej Sapkowski. The author was asked for his thoughts in a2003 interview. His reply? “I can answer only with a single word, an obscene, albeit a short one”.
