BA_Harrison Hirsute photographer Mario (played by Cihangir Gaffari, who sports huge eyebrows, bouffant locks and a 'tache so large it could house its own ecosystem) ditches his girlfriend Carla (Mónica Randall) and then strolls down to the beach where he spies blue-eyed hottie Delia (Patty Shepard) sunbathing in her bikini. Whipping out his massive lens, Mario begins frantically snapping away, but is spotted mid-shoot by the lovely lady; in order to make up for his lack of discretion, the lothario lensman invites Delia to accompany him on a trip to the Pyrenees, which she accepts (clearly under the hypnotic influence of his impressive hair). Once in the mountains, the couple experience a series of strange occurrences, forcing them to take refuge in the home of an old woman, who just happens to be part of a coven of wicked witches.A totally incomprehensible pre-credits sequence (in which Carla finds what looks like a wig pinned to her lawn with a carving knife, and a little girl kills a cat and puts it in Carla's bed) immediately sets the tone for this bizarre but incredibly boring piece of Spanish occult nonsense. Whereas many an incomprehensible 70s Euro-horror happily compensated for a lack of logic with an excess of gore and nudity, The Witches Mountain does no such thing, director Raúl Artigot content to present his confusing, meandering, dismal tale with nary a bare nipple nor a drop of blood (apart from the cat's). Artigot occasionally achieves a sense of dread, the eerie atmosphere accentuated through the use of a surreal choral soundtrack at high volume, and he makes good use of his spectacular mountainous scenery, but the pacing is soporific, the narrative dull and the film as a whole pretty forgettable.

catfish-er I am working my way through the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection and THE WITCHES' MOUNTAIN (El Monte de las brujas)is something like the 17th movie in the set.The movie had nothing to it to hold my attention at all. The plot was incoherent. The dialog seemed improvised. The acting was poor. The characters were unsympathetic.The best scene is the beginning, with an exasperated woman that is driven to burning her seemingly bratty daughter. However, the only connection this scene has to the rest of the movie, is the lead character, Mario, who has the most stupendous mustache ever. But, that's it.The film was not effective on any level. The music was too intrusive. The lighting was very dark, so that some scenes are almost completely black. It really is barely watchable -- what more can I say?

lost-in-limbo This engaging (which it shouldn't be) low-grade Spanish exploitation (quite tame I might add) looks good, but huh? Let me phrase that again 'huh?'. Actually the word 'huh?' would be going through your mind quite a lot. Nothing makes sense, nor does it try too. I just don't know if its complicatedly cryptic or just a convoluted muddle, but there's no denying how laconically uneventful, strange and wordy it feels.Unrelated sequences tied (like that nasty opening involving a little girl, dead cat and fire) in to a sparse story involving photographer Mario (played by a chest-puffing John Caffari, who's mustache is a dead ringer for Nintendo's iconic Mario. What's the odds?) that ditches his girlfriend at home and encounters a young lady (a gorgeously fixating Patty Shepard) who he asks to come with him on an photography assignment, where at this remote mountain retreat they come across some hooded witches.Look past the unhinged plot structure and wallow in what is simply a moody piece of atmospheric mechanisms and growing unease. Raul Artigot directs few jarringly unusual visuals and creepy passages, but for most part seems sporadically non-existent and unfocused just like his writing. Ramon Sempere's striking cinematography lenses the gracefully rich scenery as we take in the scenic views and let the time leisurely grind away. However there are certain areas where it was too dark to see what was going on. Fernando Garcia Morcillo's hauntingly bombastic and overwrought score blends terrifically with compulsively dense atmosphere created. The leads are capable, but there's also a sturdy bunch (the pick being Víctor Israel) of secondary performances.Slow with little in the way of interest, but this dreamy set-up (that seems to go on and on) manages to keep you watching until its closing.

capkronos Saying this movie is extremely hard to follow and just as frustrating to sit through is putting it very mildly. Also saying that the current available print is dark, dreary, scratchy, abysmally edited, painfully dubbed, seemingly censored and in almost unwatchable shape is also correct. This film is in dire need of a good remastering from the full, uncut, original negative and seeing how it's reasonably atmospheric (and won the director an award at the Catalonia Film Festival), it might actually be worth the trouble. Then again, maybe not... It's just impossible to tell in its current condition what kind of movie it actually is. It starts fairly interesting, if you can discount the completely senseless pre-credits opening sequence, which involves a deranged cat-killing, snake-loving little girl named Gerda. The girls mom, Carla (Mónica Randall, who should have laid off the eyeliner a little bit), splashes some gasoline around in the garage and torches the brat. Seemingly about as crazy as young Gerda, she goes to visit her estranged photographer (ex?) boyfriend Mario ("John"/Cihangir Caffari). He's on vacation from work, but so desperate to get away from Carla that he begs his employers to set him up on an assignment... any assignment. She scowls "You'll be sorry!" as he heads out the door. Well, Mario is assigned to photograph "Witches Mountain" (somewhere in the Pyrenees, I believe). Before he gets to his destination, he gets sight of a hottie on the beach named Delia (Patty Shepard) and snaps a few pictures of her taking off her bikini top. Only slightly peeved, she claims to be a single writer, the two flirt and then decide it would be a swell idea if they went on the trip up the mountain together. When they stop by her place so she can pack her bags, Mario suddenly hears loud, sinister music. Delia claims he's just hearing things.So the two begin their trip up the mountain, taking a stop at a local inn to spend the night. There they encounter a weird, partially-deaf, crazy-eyed innkeeper (Victor Israel) and Delia claims someone was spying on here through her window. The next day, under some trance, she wanders off up the mountain and is eventually located by Mario, who hops out of his jeep and runs after her. While he's finding out what's up, someone steals their wheels and they're forced to walk a piece, eventually finding the jeep undamaged at the foot of a small, ancient, seeming abandoned village... almost like someone was trying to intentionally lure them there. Well as we will see, that's exactly what has happened. In the village they encounter a friendly old woman named Zanta (Ana Farra) who claims she's the only person still living there and lets them stay in her home. Mario takes some pictures of the "abandoned" city and when he develops them they are eerily full of people. Slightly creeped out, he and Delia begin to leave and get stuck in "treacherous" fog and have to pull over and camp out for the night. The rest of the movie has to do with voodoo dolls, black cats transforming into sexy women, Satanic rituals performed by ladies in their bras and a deadly fall off a cliff. And yeah, coincidentally Carla the estranged wife turns out to be one of the witches, too. It all takes place in semi-darkness and to be quite honest, I didn't know what the hell was going on most of the time. The inconclusive "open" ending is just an additional slap in the face to anyone having to suffer through the rest of this senseless mess.Honestly, there are just a few things that stand out to me as being really good. The first is actress Shepard, who has that great Barbara Steele kind of dark, mysterious beauty. There's also an excellent music score (credited to Fernando Garcia Morcillo) and chanting songs, which aided immensely in making this film as atmospheric as it is. The location work is fairly decent, but as I said, the print is ugly as can be and it doesn't make a lick of sense, so proceed with caution on this one.