The Witches' Mountain, 1972 - ★★★

The Witches' Mountain, 1972 - ★★★

REVIEWED



"You don't think it could be an hallucination?."

- Delia (Patty Shepard)



The film starts with a backflash of Carla walking in on a girl (daughter, sister or kid shes sitting we never learn) whose killed her cat, because the cats killed the kids birds. Carla's infuriated and takes the girl to the garage and sets it on fire. After the kid barbecue we then learn Carla's photographer boyfriend Mario wants nothing more to do with her. Mario being a lady magnet soon picks up the attractive Delia. He takes her on vacation but they get stranded on an mountain pass, eventually taking refuge in an elderly womans home. Mario goes to shoot some photos of the interesting eerily deserted hillside village, eventually stumbling onto a procession of witches.


Raúl Artigot's 'El monte de las brujas' aka 'Witches Mountain' is an evocative Spanish horror, with a strangely unique, surreal dreamlike quality. Its also extremely muddled, infuriatingly pedestrian and at times downright inept. The whole movie feels like two films glued together and redubbed with a made-up script. While its obviously a badly produced movie, you can't deny theres real atmosphere here and genuine weird moments like Mario shooting photos of the hills which cut to photos of witches standing there. Plus the foggy mountainside scenery and creepy music add to overall dreamlike vibe. I'd love to see this one day as it was intended without the atrocious English dub.


[Personal Reasons For Remembering]

Mario's funky 70's Jason King chic, complete handbar stache. The witches danceoff ceremony. Fade to medieval chastity belt?






Originally taken from Letterboxd

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