The Day of the Beast (1998)

Witch trials were a widespread phenomenon in Europe and North America between the XVI and XIX centuries. Despite how ridiculous it may sound, a lot of people were condemned to death accused of witchery, especially women. The Holy Inquisition had opened a total of 125,000 processes during those years, and at least 59 people were burned trying to expel the devil from within them.

This barbarism affected Spain too; one of the most famous trials is the Zugarramundi one, a small village in Navarra where, in 1610, the Inquisition processed 53 people and executed 11 of them. The action in Coven of Sisters is set one year earlier, in 1609, and it depicts a trial made to five young girls, who were living in a small fisher’s village.

In this artistic masterpiece directed by Pablo Agüero, he tells us the story of those girls, who do what teenagers were supposed to do. They work (the XVII century was not idyllic from the point of view of labor or children’s rights), but also play, laugh, and have fun. One night they decide to go into the woods to dance, drink some cider, smoke, and sing; in short, to have a good time. Nonetheless, by performing such naïve actions, they signed their own death sentences.