In short: Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (2013)

aka Witching and Bitching

I do remember a time, once in the long ago, when Álex de la Iglesia’s transgressive horror comedies were actually transgressive. Not that I liked them much, mind you, because they always had the whiff of watching films made by who did not give much of a throught about who the targets of his humour were as long as his films got someone outraged, and convinced someone else to defend him for reasons of art (seldom of, you know, substance to that art, alas). I always thought his films lacked any actual conviction, or anger, or bitterness, or love that would direct where he pointed his humour at.

This time around, it’s especially difficult not to see the lack of an actual edge in this tired sequence of mild misogyny and bored homophobia. I’m sure, parts of outrage culture will still be outraged (that’s what it lives off, after all, be it in the guise of right-wing guardians of public morals and freedom or of identity politically moved guarding the very same thing) but I couldn’t help but find myself bored by the tiredness of it all, yawning through much of the film, and finding my patience tried not by any moral apprehensions but by how little the film actually works at shocking – or entertaining, for that matter – its audience, as if shouting some shitty nonsense about women would even be worthy of notice. Being a prick who only spouts lame clichés, it turns out, isn’t all that transgressive in my book, just vaguely unpleasant, like the proverbial racist uncle one pointedly doesn’t talk to once a year yet who never seems worth the effort to actually get angry.


It doesn’t help the film as a horror comedy that it’s often quite sluggishly paced and needs nearly an hour to actually get going, but then, why should that part of the movie suggest any more intellectual or emotional involvement than anything else in it?