Review of Witching & Bitching (2013) by Charlie M — 03 Nov 2014

Disguised as a green toy soldier, a Silver Jesus, Spongebob and a niño rob a jewelry exchange in Madrid in broad daylight then head for Paris to cash in their winnings. With the police and one of the thief's ex-wife in close pursuit the men get trapped in Basque country by a coven of witches who want to sacrifice the men and bring on the apocalypse.

This España movie is on Netflix as "Witching & Bitching," a terrible title and a promo poster that looks like some ABC Family shit. This is a wild and weird dark comedy that is filled with great character bits. The movie takes place in Zugarramurdi, where the Basque Witch Trials of the 1600's, so it's basically Spanish Salem. The movie has some great moment of cannibalistic fright with hilarious bits of buffoonery and well-staged action sequences.

The problem of course is that the theme of the movie is "bitches be crazy." You keep expecting that to be contradicted by showing that the men are foolish boys who need to mature, but in the end the movie simply just reinforces henpecked misogynist stereotypes. Perhaps this is a brilliant gender parody in Spain, and I don't understand it because I'm an american dude. Whatever, it's very entertaining and often funny, if you don't think meditate on that for too long. Needless to say, my girlfriend didn't appreciate the message. But maybe she's a witch...