If you ever wanted to watch a horror movie where the scariest thing is a missing jeep and the longest scene is someone frowning at a roll of film, then The Witches Mountain might be your personal hell—or heaven, if you’re into cinematic masochism. For the rest of us, it’s a sun-bleached, snail-paced misfire that manages to suck every ounce of tension from what should have been a slam dunk: witches, mountains, and mysterious happenings in the Pyrenees.
The Plot: Or Something That Sort of Looks Like One
We open with Mario, a photographer with the charisma of a wet ashtray and the emotional range of a mannequin, who decides to take a job in the mountains after breaking up with his girlfriend, Carla (who, like many women in this film, exists only to be dumped or cryptically stalked). On his way, he picks up Delia, a writer whose primary qualification appears to be “having a face.”
The two venture into the allegedly spooky wilderness, stay at an inn where the most horrifying thing is the wallpaper, and eventually end up in a ghost town that feels less haunted and more just… underfunded. They meet a woman named Santa who offers them shelter, and that’s when things get strange—but not interesting.
Mario disappears and returns with photographic proof that witches may exist. This sounds exciting. It is not. Instead, we are treated to several sequences of Mario looking at photographs and saying things like “That woman wasn’t there before,” which might have been eerie if it hadn’t come after 40 minutes of hiking footage and a handful of conversations that could have been written by a hungover film student.
Witches? Where?
The witches are rumored. They are suggested. They are whispered about in soft Spanish tones like a ghost someone once saw at a tapas bar. What they are not, however, is present. The title promises The Witches Mountain. What we get is Two Mildly Confused Tourists and the Grandma Who Probably Isn’t a Witch But Might Be.
When supernatural elements finally rear their heads, it’s too little, too late. Shadows drift by. There’s vague chanting. Mario grows increasingly moody. It’s like the film thinks the real horror lies in… ambiance. But ambiance only works when you’re not constantly distracted by poor dubbing, wooden performances, and a score that sounds like it was stitched together from leftover demo tapes of rejected spaghetti westerns.
Patty Shepard Tries, Everyone Else Naps
Patty Shepard, playing Delia, is doing what she can — but she’s trapped in a screenplay that gives her nothing to do except look attractive and occasionally act startled. Cihangir Ghaffari (credited as “John Caffari” because why not slap on a fake Anglo name when the film already feels like a knockoff of Don’t Look Now shot through a mosquito net) is even worse. He walks through the film as though hypnotized, which might be fitting since most viewers will feel the same way.
The most terrifying thing about the film? The line delivery. There are YouTube videos with better pacing and more believable chemistry than this.
A Lesson in Low Stakes
Nothing feels urgent in The Witches Mountain. The couple loses their car, and they shrug it off. They hike miles into remote terrain only to find their vehicle miraculously parked in an abandoned village, and they treat it like they found a coupon. There’s supposed to be an escalating sense of doom — but instead we get sleepy-eyed confusion and long, static shots of desolate terrain.
The pacing is a crime. Entire scenes play out in glacial real time, accompanied by droning sound design and vague mumblings that pass for character development. The film leans hard into the “slow burn” subgenre of horror, but forgets the “burn” part.
Production Value: Scenic and Shabby
To its credit, the Pyrenees are beautiful. The film makes good use of natural landscapes and eerie ruins. But even these shots eventually become repetitive, and without a competent editor or director to shape them into something atmospheric, they just become filler. The mountain becomes less a place of dread and more a cinematic cul-de-sac, where tension goes to die.
As for the score? Imagine a haunted music box getting tangled in a theremin fight with a microwave. It’s not scary — it’s noise.
Final Twist? More Like Final Sigh
There is a “twist,” if you want to call it that — involving Delia possibly being part of the coven all along. But by the time we get there, interest has flatlined. It’s a twist that lands like a feather on concrete. You don’t gasp. You barely blink. You just check your watch and wonder how a movie this short still feels like it stole two years of your life.
Final Thoughts: A Mountain Out of a Molehill
The Witches Mountain has all the raw material for a great Euro-horror film: remote locations, ancient folklore, eerie strangers, and a potential descent into madness. But instead of crafting something genuinely creepy or compelling, it just exists. It trudges along in neutral, mumbling about witches while avoiding any real confrontation with fear or suspense.
This isn’t a horror movie. It’s a vacation slideshow narrated by people who forgot why they went in the first place.
Final Grade: D+
Watch it only if you’re an insomniac. Or a completist. Or lost in the Pyrenees with no other options. Even then, you might want to hike out.
