The Witches Mountain – original title: El monte de las brujas – is a 1972 Spanish horror film directed by cinematographer Raúl Artigot (The Ghost Galleon; The Cannibal Man; The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein) from a screenplay co-written with Juan Cortés Alvarez de Miranda and Félix Fernández. The movie stars Patty Shepard, Cihangir Gaffari and Monica Randall.
Plot:
After a bitter breakup with his girlfriend Carla (Monica Randall), a photojournalist named Mario (Cihangir Gaffari) takes an assignment to an area in the Pyrenees Mountains in northern Spain.
On his way, he meets Delia (Patty Shepard), an attractive freelance writer, whom he convinces to join him. The couple stop at an ancient hotel and hear rumours that the nearby mountain is haunted by a coven of dangerous witches, but decide to travel there anyway…
Reviews:
“From minute one to minute eighty-three, The Witches Mountain follows up bad grammar (and worse dubbing) with lots of misty space. Unfortunately, that semi-menacing spaciousness is vacant. Or filled with several minutes of unbelievably wretched soundtrack cues.” Bleeding Skull!
“I expected very little from this film and was pleasantly surprised. It was a fun movie that stayed on the borderline of creepy and amusing. Gaffari portrays Mario so perfectly that the conclusion is most fitting for him. The acting was above average and the pace though slow at times, built up in the last half hour quite nicely.” Scared Stiff Reviews
” … a laborious, tedious affair whose dreamy ga
ps in logic, awesome mustaches, and ghastly locales couldn’t defy its overall inertia. It may open with a frenzied nightmare, but the rest of the film feels like it’s either sleepwalking or lazily plodding through the motions…” Oh, the Horror!
“Shepard’s beauty aside, the only other thing this film has to offer is some great moments of unintentional hilarity to brighten any Bad Movie Night. Otherwise, this is just a mediocre horror film that’s scare free and, like its protagonists, ultimately ends up nowhere.” Terror Titans
” …beautiful mountain scenery, weird witch chanting, creepy photographs, hot heroine, amusing moustache on the hero, but also long stretches of boredom, not enough skin or gore, and an incomprehensible plot.” David Elroy Goldweber, Claws & Saucers
Buy: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca
Main cast:
- Patty Shepard – Edge of the Axe; Slugs; Rest in Pieces
- Cihangir Gaffari [as John Caffari]
- Monica Randall – Cross of the Devil; My Dear Killer
- Guillermo Bredeston
- Soledad Silveyra
- Luis Barboo – Satan’s Blood; Female Vampire; The Demons
- María Eugenia Calleja
- Ana Farra
- Carmen Herrera
- Victor Israel (El pobrecito Draculín; Horror Express; Graveyard of Horror
- Conchita Linares
- Inés Morales
Choice dialogue:
Mario: You know, you’re forcing me to be disagreeable.”
