Bezenby This is yet another film where you should probably watch it without the aid of booze or sleeping pills or whatever as barely anything happens at all for its entire running time. That said, it's not a total failure, but it's not that good either.After a fairly interesting start where a woman finds her cat stabbed to death by a young girl, then sets that young girl on fire, said woman goes to lay it on Fatal Attraction style with her ex, photographer Mario (and that is one THICK moustache that man has on him). Mario's not taking her insane advances too well, so he cancels his vacation and takes an assignment to go to Witches Mountain to take pictures of stuff.So far, so early seventies European horror. Mario heads off and somehow hooks up with a woman he was taking topless picture of on the fly. The two of them head off to Witches Mountain and the film kind of grinds to a halt.Uneventful, or atmospheric? Brooding or boring? That's up to you. Me, I had a hard time keeping my eyes open as these two wandered around the brooding, atmospheric Spanish landscape in a uneventful, boring way. There are touches here and there that saves the film from being a total flatliner (like the guy taking creepy pictures, the start of the film, others) but this isn't the best Euro-horror I've watched. At all.

lonchaney20 One of the few films directed by Artigot, a Spanish DP who worked with industry legends like Eloy de la Iglesia and Jess Franco. It's difficult to judge the film in its current condition for a few reasons: the only copies available are brutally panned-and-scanned from the original 2.35:1 ratio, the film was so heavily censored after its premiere that the final product is borderline incoherent, and the picture is so dark on the current releases that it's often impossible to tell what's going on. Nonetheless the film (which basically involves a macho photographer and his female companion getting targeted by a coven of witches) has a pleasing, sleepy ambiance, somewhat reminiscent of Arthur Machen's weird fiction. The mountain location is stunning, and the wacko soundtrack (lots of atonal choral music, and a strangely unnerving pop song) gets you through the more uneventful passages. Easily the best thing about the movie is the ludicrously masculine Cihangir Gaffari. He's even dubbed with a hilariously deep, manly voice - I believe it's the same voice actor who dubbed Paul Naschy in Count Dracula's Great Love. The film also gave me an odd Wicker Man vibe, meaning the insane version starring my beloved Nicolas Cage. This isn't as over-the-top, but like that film this has our protagonist stumbling onto a matriarchal religious sect, complete with a feral muscle man chained up in a cave who the witches use for breeding! Nicolas Cage also claims that he wanted to play Edward Malus as a macho man with a handlebar mustache, which is another interesting connection. Anyway, it's one of those quietly weird movies that I can't help but like, but anyone not obsessed with Euro-horror or handlebar mustaches probably won't find much to appreciate.

bkoganbing Witches Mountain finds Patty Shepard and John Gaffari trying to rekindle a relationship with a working trip together. He's a photojournalist and been given assignment that takes him into the Pyrenees Mountains that border Spain and France.Sad to say that he and Shepard run into a most unfriendly coven of witches who just don't welcome outsiders and have plans for those who don't leave quickly. Sometimes it even involves an outsider's unwilling participation in some black rites.Only nice cinematography of the Pyrenees is the only thing that this Spanish production with some bad dubbing has going for it. Horror movie fans and occult movie fans I think will also be singularly unmoved.

Hitchcoc I was never quite sure where this thing was going. These people seem interested in what is going on on some mountain. They investigate, have narrow escapes, leave, come back, leave, put each other in danger, sleepwalk, get attacked by witches who have consistent wardrobes, etc., etc. The guy seems to like the girl, but leaves her unprotected numerous times. She gets taken off, he gets her back, leaves her again. You get the point. The whole thing seems to get around to some sort of sacrifice, I think, but I'm not sure, or turning people into witches, but I'm not sure. It's just dull and endless and not worth the time. There are some atmospheric scenes, but the print is so bad that there times when twenty seconds of blackness is not unusual. Is this caused by age or the overuse of night filters.