Witching & Bitching

A silly English-language re-titling hides a smart, sharp, big-budget horror-comedy from Spanish fantasy-gore director Alex de la Iglesia that plays like a hybrid of Roald Dahl's The Witches and the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez gore franchise From Dusk Til Dawn. The battle-of-the-sexes premise finds alimony-stricken Madrid dad Jose (Hugo Silva) masterminding a bank robbery (in which he is strikingly disguised as a street-performing Christ) so that he can bolt with his small son away from an ugly custody battle to a haven in France. Before reaching the border, however, their taxi full of conspirators and hostages enters the notorious witchcraft-infested village of Zugarramurdi (hence the original title, The Witches of Zugarramurdi), where a cannibal coven of witches has foretold the coming of a "Chosen One" destined to usher in a new era of mystic matriarchy under a female God. In pursuit of the imperiled robbers are two cops (with lady problems of their own) and Jose's vindictive businesswoman ex-wife, all of whom end up in this hellish sacrificial tableau. One could make a strong case for the film being anti-woman (or anti-Wiccan), but just like in a movie by Pedro Almodóvar (some of whose regular actors appear here, notably Carmen Maura), no gender escapes entirely unscathed/unmutilated. A fun foreign-language film, this is recommended. [Note: DVD extras include three behind-the-scenes featurettes (10 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a fun horror popcorn flick.] (C. Cassady)