Witching and Bitching

The film opens in Madrid with a tense daytime robbery carried out by two men, José and Antonio. They target a pawn shop, but the mood quickly sours when Antonio reveals his true anxiety: José has dragged along his young son, Sergio. The decision to involve Sergio weighs heavily on Antonio, who sees the boy as a liability and a risk that could explode their plan. The robbery devolves into chaos as gunfire erupts, and several lives are lost in the mayhem. In a desperate bid to escape, the trio hijacks a taxi, forcing the driver, Manuel, to drive them north with the intention of slipping across the border into France. The urgency is palpable, the road ahead uncertain, and every mile north feels like a narrowing window of possibility.

As the escape unfolds, the criminals find themselves not only pursued by the police but also trailed by a fragile personal history. Sergio’s mother, Silvia, and José’s ex, along with two persistent detectives, Pacheco and Calvo, close in, drawn by Silvia’s movements and the tangled web of loyalties surrounding the heist. The chase leads them to the borderlands and into the striking, wind-swept landscape near Zugarramurdi, in Navarre, a place steeped in old legends and rumors of witchcraft. It is here that the group comes face-to-face with an unsettling coven of cannibalistic witches, led by the formidable Graciana. The witches’ lair is both terrifying and surreal, a place where fear has taken a ritual form.

The tension ratchets up when the witches’ matriarch, Maritxu, becomes fixated on Sergio, attempting to cook the boy in her oven as a feast for their nightmarish pantheon. The men manage a brutal, chaotic escape from the witches, but their flight is short-lived; they are swiftly recaptured by the coven. On the outside, Silvia’s resolve hardens, and with the police closing in, she makes a dangerous move that alters everything: she locates the witches’ house and, in a bid for control over her own fate, she enlists the help of the cops to break into the dwelling. The ensuing clash between pursuit and ritual forces the group to split once more: José, Antonio, and Manuel slip away in the confusion, while Silvia and the two officers are captured.

The capture comes with a dark twist. Silvia is transformed into a witch through the use of tainted toad juice, joining the coven she once sought to outmaneuver. The three men remain in the clutches of the witches for the moment, but José survives the encounter thanks to a surprising intervention from Eva, Graciana’s daughter, who has developed an unexpected fixation on him. Eva refuses to let him leave without his son, and she pleads for him to run, yet José is determined to protect Sergio. Eva’s plea doesn’t end the danger; it accelerates it, drawing José into the ritual chamber with the coven where loyalties are tested and the line between salvation and damnation blurs.

With the help of Eva, José locates a path through the labyrinthine lair and frees Eva herself, who had been buried alive by her mother as punishment for her perceived betrayal. The moment is macabre and potent, a turn in which the personal and the supernatural collide. Inside the chamber, Luismi, Eva’s brother, joins José as they confront the ritual’s core. They witness the grim procession of the coven’s captives—Antonio, Manuel, Pacheco, and Calvo—being burned on a pyre. The ritual culminates in the emergence of Graciana’s goddess, a grotesque, colossal figure who resembles a fertility statue brought to monstrous life. The air grows heavy with power and fear as the goddess consumes Sergio, forcing a chilling moment in which the boy’s fate seems inextricably bound to the witches’ ancient ritual.

In the chaos that follows, Eva’s allegiance becomes a fulcrum of change. She uses her influence to spark a confrontation with the goddess, ultimately playing a pivotal role in her downfall. José, bolstered by Eva’s courage, stands firm against the coven and fights to rescue Sergio. They press forward through the ruinous aftermath, escaping the collapsing ritual space with Sergio and the other men in tow. The escape is fraught with peril, but it marks a turning point: the coven’s power wanes, and the threat to the trio’s fragile hope for safety begins to subside.

In the aftermath, the story threads toward a quieter future. A month passes, and José and Eva are portrayed as a couple who have formed a protective, if wary, unit around Sergio, who is already showing signs of burgeoning powers. The world around them, however, remains haunted by the coven’s influence. Silvia, Graciana, and Maritxu—those who aligned with the witches or opposed them—survive the ordeal and linger in the margins, their presence a persistent reminder that danger can endure even after the immediate threat is vanquished. They wait, patient and enigmatic, for the moment when the couple’s happiness might waver or fracture, suggesting that the battle between ordinary life and the marvels—or horrors—of the magical world is far from over.

The result is a narrative that blends crime, myth, and family tension into a single, unflinching arc. It orchestrates a collision between the grit of a volatile heist and the primal, mythic dread of a coven’s ritual, all while tracking the slow, stubborn growth of a boy who holds within him a powerful, awakening potential. The ending leaves us with a sense of uneasy peace: a family forged in danger, a daughter torn between loyalty and love, and a landscape where old legends still cast long shadows, waiting for the next moment when they might rise again.

Last Updated: November 22, 2025 at 15:57