Witching and Bitching

Witching and Bitching is the latest insane film from Álex de la Iglesia. His last effort was the bonkers violent clown madness that was The Last Circus. This film probably falls a little short of that one overall but it shares the anarchic comedy with violence template pretty closely. Like that film too, this one does lose steam a bit in its final section where it goes for a big ending, which loses sight of what made it good before a little. This is a pretty minor criticism though because on the whole this movie proves again that Iglesia is always someone who delivers something a bit left-field, unconcerned with the niceties of political correctness. The story has thieves on the run from a badly staged crime. On their escape route, they find themselves in a mysterious village in the Basque country where they are soon captured by a coven of witches.

As is common for Iglesia, this one starts out with a great, attention grabbing credit sequence where we are presented with images of witches and evil women throughout the ages. It takes a bit of a nerve to show a picture of notorious female killers such as Myra Hindley juxtaposed with former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher! After seeing that, well you can't say you haven't been warned. The opening heist is pretty hilarious, with the criminals dressed up as street artists and mascots. It's both funny and successfully pulse-pounding and certainly gets things off to a great start. Once the characters meet the witches, the film moves from being a crime-comedy into a horror-comedy, with a focus always on the humour. The witches themselves make for the most interesting characters in the movie, with Iglesia regular Carolina Bang being the standout as the seriously gorgeous biker-witch – she smolders the screen every time she appears. This section of the film focuses on lots of macabre humour and ends with a horde of witches gathering in a cave in anticipation for the arrival of their queen, who is a giant monstrous being. Like I said earlier, this whole finale in the cavern is less interesting than what has gone before – when things get too big and effects-driven you feel Iglesia himself loses a bit of interest too. But overall, this is another very enjoyable, crazy movie from this Spanish maverick.