Nato – Witching And Bitching
Why am I excited for a horror comedy so cheekily titled Witching And Bitching? If you’re asking that question, you probably don’t know who writer/director Álex de la Iglesia is, and you probably haven’t seen his foreign dark comedies like The Last Circus. Álex de la Iglesia is a crazy, unique, very vibrant filmmaker who has achieved a foreign cult status much like B-Movie auteurs here in the States achieve with campy B-movies – but his quality is much higher. Go ahead, watch a trailer for Witching And Bitching, just see if you’re not instantly hooked by whatever the hell is going on (silver Jesus with a shotgun?!). Trust me, Iglesia’s last film saw a sad clown go on a gun-toting rampage – that’s the kind of insanity you can expect.
The plot is simple: “A group of Spanish thieves run amok of a coven of cannibalistic witches in the Navarrese town of Zugarramurdi.” It’s this kind of simplicity that Iglesia favors though, because his mind runs rampant with the nitty-gritty details that bulk up such a short plot summation. From the trailer alone we see iron chompers, tortured men, action sequences – and that’s only a short glimpse. Mix the enticing trailer with some favorable reviews out of early festival screenings, and you’ve got a horror comedy I’m jonesing hard for. Thankfully, IFC Midnight has already acquired the satirical witch tale for US distribution, so be on the lookout for a simultaneous Limited/VOD release in 2014!