The Naked Witch (1961)
She had the body of a goddess... but the soul of a witch.
Year of Release: 1961
Genre: Horror
Rated: R
Running Time: 59 minutes
Director: Larry Buchanan
Cast:
Robert Short ... The Student
Jo Maryman ... Kirska
Libby Hall ... The Naked Witch
Gary Owens ... Narrator of Prologue (voice) (uncredited)
Summary:
Ding, dong, the witch ain't dead! After a college student digs up the mummified remains of "The Luckenbach Witch" and removes the stake from her ribs - shazam! - via some godawful special effects, The Naked Witch is alive and well and strolling through the Texas countryside in her birthday suit! Killing off the descendants of those who condemned her to death, she also seduces the student who eventually realizes he must send his sexy new girlfriend back to the grave.
Review:
The Naked Witch, remindin' us that a lyin' witch needs no wardrobe.
And speakin' of the highly flammable, I don't wanna go makin' a big thing outta this, but I never realized what a stigma we as a society place on people of the recently convicted persuasion. Coupla months in the hole and people you've known for years start lookin' atcha like you're a completely different person; shopkeepers suddenly wanna know what you need with a garden gnome, triple-wall stove pipe, and five gallons of race fuel; code enforcement starts takin' meticulous notes regardin' the number of inoperable vehicles parked on your lawn; strange women with neck tattoos become irrationally enamored with the upholstery in your 1984 Mercury Topaz; stuff like that.
I only bring it up 'cause of the reception I got at the Grime Time followin' eight years of loyal service, combat experience in two separate mutant pack rat attacks, multiple bouts of frostbite, and frequent exposure to areas of certain women that would drive a lesser man to take up pottery and open a knick-knack boutique. I just wanted to put that out there so nobody got the idea that I'm bitter.
"Hey! Where you goeen?! Eemployees only!" Skunky hollered, pointin' to a recently erected sign that had plainly been tacked up on the projection booth for this precise moment and purpose.
"You really oughta think about proppin' the door open when you're pourin' bleach in the outhouse, Skunky; or don't, heck, maybe you'll forget you're married to Juanita and she can trade up," I replied, playin' dumb.
"Grime Time ees familia friendly - no criminals! You ees fired. Nothing personal, just bad for eemage to have deviates roameen drive-een," Skunky expounded.
"Yeah, I saw the schedule. The family values crowd's gonna love The Naked Witch," I mumbled, suddenly wounded.
"Always weeth sarcasm... show what you know. Husbands see nakeed weech, get excited, and boom! Eento back seat where familia expands!" Skunky reasoned before gesturing toward the exit.
Part of me wanted to walk out right then and there and let the place collapse beneath the weight of Skunky's incompetence and I prolly would have if Tetnis hadn't shown up to offer his two cents.
"Ya know, you really are a dipshit sometimes," Tetnis interjected.
"I tol' heem he fired, no need to be rude," Skunky chastened, tryna diffuse the situation before anyone else took notice.
"I was talkin' about you - he could ruin you in half an hour with everything he knows," Tetnis explained.
"Whah?! How?!" Skunky blanched.
"He means I might slip and tell everyone about the cabra in your caburritos," I chuckled, pleased but not surprised by Tetnis's stance on the treatment of the formerly incarcerated.
"Besides, I could use his help with our little situation," Tetnis said, lowerin' his voice.
"What situation? If Rusty Dockweiler's pissin' in the pond again just shove 'im in - the fish'll see that little worm of his and do the rest," I suggested.
"Thees eemployee only deescussion and he ees not eemployee!" Skunky barked, tryna reestablish the chain of command.
"Alright, have it your way - but if he goes, I go. And you know damn well Hilliard's gonna walk too, so either can us all or figure out some way to save face so we can get this handled," Tetnis replied in an ominously hushed tone.
"Nobody want to work! Thees why America goeen to hell een handbasket! Fine! Eef he help find crook he back on staff," Skunky growled.
"I want that 'do not accept checks from this man' crap off the register too," I demanded.
"We see," Skunky smirked before waddlin' off to rake the horseshoe pit.
I was still wrestlin' with the question of whether or not I even wanted to run movies for that pendejo when Tetnis pulled me 'round back of the projection booth.
"Strange that you should mention fish, 'cause somebody's been pinchin' 'em outta the pond, and damned if I can figure out who's doin' it," he explained.
"Why not just check every trunk at the end of the night?" I asked.
"'Cause this job ain't worth gettin' shot over? If these people knew what was goin' on they'd demand justice sure enough, but not if it means sufferin' a minor inconvenience - now think!" he snapped.
So I did, for right around 20 minutes while Tetnis went and explained the importance of utilizin' the provided trash containers to Skink Martin by givin' 'im a guided tour of one until finally I come up with somethin that seemed like it had potential.
"Have Billy start the flick. I think I've got somethin'," I yelled to Tetnis while he was kickin' the outside of the trash can occupied by Skink's head and upper torso.
Tetnis stopped kickin' the can long enough to give me the thumbs up and I headed over to the concession stand to enlist the help of the only guy I could trust with a problem like this.
"Hey Juanita, you seen Gnash?" I asked.
"Down here," she pointed to the floor in front of the grill. "He hopes I drop sometheen, don't you snookums?" she smiled down at the fluffy beast from Hell.
"Mind if I borrow him a minute? I need his expertise," I asserted.
"Si. Here, take thees and he follow you anywhere," she suggested, tossin' me a wad of beef that was still roughly 300 degrees.
"Ow! Jesus Chri... pes, Juanita, what's your... oh. Right. You kitchen people stick together," I grumbled, puttin' the meat in my pocket.
I gave half the hamburger to Gnash to stimulate his appetite and led him down to the pond to have a look around but nothin' seemed outta sorts, just a buncha old men arguin' Power Bait vs. worms and Barbara Eden vs. Elizabeth Montgomery, and so we hunkered down beside Dale Whelchel's Dodge Warlock and waited.
I was beginnin' to wonder if I'd lost my knack for this kinda work following my stint in captivity, but after about an hour of watchin' every move those guys made I noticed Cliff Kraid reel one in and discreetly toss it over his shoulder before pitchin' a rock back into the pond.
"Be back in a minute - gonna go water that bush," Cliff announced to no one in particular.
"That's the only bush you're apt to get close to anytime soon," Sty Sullivan yelled from the other side of the pond.
Cliff offered his butthole in rebuttal before wanderin' back to the spot he'd pitched the fish, did his business, stuffed the fish into his fanny pack, and headed for his car.
Now, as you probably know, it's considered impolite to go accusin' someone of smugglin' catfish out of a drive-in inside a fanny pack without proof, but I figured that if the cops can put a guy away on the word of a drug-sniffin' dog, evidence provided by a fish-sniffin' cat should prove equally compelling in a court of law. There was no time to go find Tetnis, so Gnash and I tailed Cliff to his Mercury Bobcat and stopped 'im just as he was about to pop the trunk.
"We saw what you did down there," I said, startlin' 'im and 'causin' 'im to drop his keys while Gnash began pawin' at his pack.
"You dunno shit and you can't prove a damn thing," Cliff snarled defiantly.
"Maybe not, but Gnash here hasn't had his supper and I give it about 15 seconds before he opens up one of your sacks tryna get it. So you might wanna decide which one before he does," I suggested.
Admittedly, I don't cast an intimidating figure by a longshot, but Gnash does, and when Cliff turned to run he musta twisted the contents of his pack awkwardly 'cause around that time the fish started thrashin' around in there and managed to penetrate not only the pack with one of its spines but also Cliff's Wranglers.
Cliff spent a good 25 seconds rollin' on the ground tryna unclip his baggage and by the time he managed it Gnash had torn a hole in the fanny pack and started eatin' the evidence, much to the amusement of everyone in the gathering crowd... everyone 'cept Skunky, I mean.
Skunky issued a rare permanent ban from the Grime Time that night and the moment Cliff'd been escorted off the premises by Tetnis and a half-dozen P.O.'d fishermen Skunky came up to me and started clappin' me on the shoulder like nothin'd happened, so I suppose we must be back to normal.
Gnash spent the rest of the night enjoyin' his feast up on the deck of the projection booth with Billy and me, and even though Gnash really don't care for anyone but Juanita I feel like we've laid the groundwork for a solid working relationship goin' forward.
Havin' repaid my debt to drive-in society, I grabbed a coupla grease burgers at the concession stand and cheered Gamera in his battle with Guiron until it came time to swap over to the third feature (usually we only show two flicks but when one of 'em has a 59 minute runnin' time we gotta run three or people get hacked off and start demandin' their $5 back) and I gotta say, the 1960s musta been the decadal equivalent of waitin' for your dad to go to work so you could sneak a peek at the Playboys he had hidden in the garage.
I suppose you could compare it to Mario Bava's Black Sunday with the caveats that Larry Buchanan had color film and Mario had talent, but basically, the idea was to get people to drop a dollar to check out some of the itty bittiest boobies allowed by law 'cause if you didn't you might not get to see any boobies at all, and so Larry ended up makin' ten times his original investment back because none of us has any self-control.
I don't have time to go into the intricacies of why we all start droolin' like idiots and checkin' our bank balances anytime a woman pops 'er top, though, 'cause right now I'm obligated to offer persuasive evidence as to why people of the straight female and homosexual male persuasions should consider checkin' this sucker out, and I'm gonna do that by offerin' unto you a few titless, yet titillatin' educational tidbits guaranteed to make you wonder how you ever lived without 'em.
First, life was a lot simpler when you could head off an alimony settlement by accusin' your woman of witchcraft. Second, some folks consider the Bible and its teachins to be old hat, but trickle-down sin is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago when accountin' for things like timeshares, climate change, and witch's curses. And third, if you've got big enough balls to quote Shakespeare in a film whose central theme revolves around a witch's nipples, buyin' off the rack may prove impossible.
The movie begins with Gary Owens beginning his trainin' for the absurdity of Laugh-In by warnin' the audience about the evils lurkin' within the recesses of man's primordial lizard brain, his susceptibility to the corruption of free-love practitioners of hexual deviancy, and basically kink-shamin' everyone to the left of Torquemada against the backdrop of various public domain Renaissance paintings depicting child sacrifice and wild parties held atop German mountain peaks. It was kinda like The Gathering of the Juggalos only for witches, or, as it was known in the ancient texts - the Rockin' of the Brocken. Next thing, some guy drivin' an Alfa Romeo Spider runs outta gas while cruisin' through Central Texas and starts dronin' on about German settlers fleein' religious persecution and cabbage-based cuisine while hoofin' it into the Village of the Knee Socks where everyone dresses like it's Oktoberfest every day of the year. He eventually finds a hotel and starts badgerin' everyone for information about The Widow Witch and where a guy can go to meet hot singles who've been burnt at the stake but everybody just looks at 'im like he's gettin' too close to their fishin' holes and tell 'im to go back to Austin. Thankfully, the innkeeper's daughter (Kirska) lends 'im a book detailin' the complete history of Texas witchcraft and what it all comes down to is some Bavarian skank wrangler accusin' his side piece of cavortin' with the devil so all the local God botherers'll make 'er the guest of honor at their luau so the guy's wife won't find out. Then the occult studies major decides to head over to the cemetery to dig through the ditches and unearth the witches, only he accidentally removes the stake tetherin' Hagatha Crispy to the spirit realm and pretty quick she wakes up nekkid lookin' like a wood nymph that just went through a real nasty divorce and remembers every single thing the worthless S.O.B. did while takin' the best years of 'er life.
'Course she can't just go runnin' around rural Texas buck nekkid and risk gettin' 'er buns barbecued a second time, so she sneaks into the hotel, retrieves the stake, swipes the nightgown right offa Kirska while she's dreamin' about bein' swept away to someplace excitin' like Lubbock, and plunges the pointy crone stone into the heart of some horn dog lathe operator for eyeballin' 'er toasted strudel. Her beef only extends to the descendants of the bratwurst who slipped 'er the Bavarian cream, so she gores the innkeeper after he falls asleep in front of the fireplace followin' a few too many Heidelbergs. This leaves Kirska as the sole survivin' heir to the treachery of Von Juan, 'cept by this point our guy's startin' to think there might be some connection between his exhumin' the grave of the witch and the recent spate of vengeance killins and so he figures he'd better do somethin' before Kirska gets spiked like the punch bowl at an office Christmas party. Unfortunately, when he tracks Nan Haggerty down she's havin' a nekkid swim and he decides to investigate the validity of the witch's titty axiom until she takes 'im back to 'er cave and does the Belly Dance of the Seven Veils and leaves 'im layin' passed out in the dirt after demonstratin' that girls just wanna have fehrvergnugen. I'm gonna go ahead and zip my lip right here beins we've only got about four minutes of movie left, but if you wanna find out whether the witch gets burned a second time for the crime of loving too much, this one's in the public domain and you can check it out at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs-4ec_zB9A
Alrighty, and with that, Larry Buchanan throws his hat into the exploitation ring to challenge the Nudie Cutie empires of Russ Meyer, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Doris Wishman and... well he kinda took his eye off the prize a little bit. I realize they don't call 'em exploitation flicks for nothin', but according to Libby Hall (the witch in question), she spent a coupla days roamin' around buck nekkid for Larry and co-director Claude Alexander and even performed a nude dance audition, but they seem to've left mosta that on the cutting room floor. Matter of fact, I'll bet that if you pulled out your stopwatch, the history of witchcraft (as told by two guys with library cards) prologue probably runs longer than the total nekkidity of said witch. This is not to say that we didn't get what was advertised, but we didn't even get to see the nude dance number that Libby hadda perform in private in order to land the gig.
It's impossible to say why so much of the nudity never made it into the film, and explanations range from Buchanan and Alexander simply bein' perverts who never intended to use the footage they shot, to concern over attaining distribution in the event they went too far. The problem with shooting this kinda picture in 1960 was that the courts were only beginning to budge in terms of what you could show, and although you could get away with full frontal if your film was shot on the grounds of a nudist camp, that condition was non-negotiable. The Naked Witch wasn't filmed at any such resort, and while attitudes about nudity were beginning to shift it would still be a couple years before the MPAA would let you get away with it sans nudist colony. So it's very possible that the filmmakers (who were only just getting started in the business) chose not to butt heads with the powers that be over fears of being blacklisted. In fact, the movie didn't even make it to theaters until 1964, and while you could just as easily suggest that was due to its complete lack of production values, it could also be reasoned that the fear of censorship had lessened significantly by 1964 - with Jayne Mansfield having shucked her bra for Promises! Promises! one year prior. I suppose you'd have to say that the flick was ahead of its time... by approximately two years. And that unfortunate timing was probably the cause of the film falling somewhere between a Nudie Cutie and a bonafide horror flick and ending up relegated to the dustbin of drive-in history. At least it would have if not for the watchful eye of the ever-vigilant Something Weird Video.
In any event, let's dive into the ole swimmin' hole and see what Libby the liberated woman's B-movie B-cups can do to stem the tide of... well, everything else goin' on in this mess.
The plot is as bare as the chest of its titular star, and while I've seen mention made of the flick's significance as bein' the first to utilize the resurrected witch angle, that's a load of crapola that even someone well out of their era could debunk by citing flicks like Mario Bava's Black Sunday. Nay, there's no cultural significance to be found here, but nor does there need to be. We're talkin' about a titty movie starrin' a gal with crazy eyebrows and enough guts to bounce 'er bosoms in rural Texas circa 1960. We may salute her, but she is, ultimately, the star of a picture that'd have us believe a German township founded in Texas in the 1800s sired a witch via false accusation and then executed the woman rather than admit one of its prominent citizens couldn't keep his dong under wraps. Exchange the execution with a bribe and we've basically got the Donald Trump/Stormy Daniels situation, only 150 years before we'd developed the superior breast augmentation technology we enjoy today. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it has zero plot, but it's neither groundbreaking nor engrossing even before factoring in little things like guys carryin' lanterns at 4 in the afternoon.
The acting is generally lifeless with occasional flashes of unbridled enthusiasm ranging from endearingly amusing to levels of conviction that would likely earn applause following a community theater performance. This last description, while somewhat unflattering, is honestly the highest praise I can bestow upon any member of the cast, because although it's overdone and acted more in the fashion of a stage play than what we're accustomed to seeing in movies, Libby Hall's performance during the flashback sequence in which she's thrown under the bus by her lover does demonstrate a hint of passion. Everyone else is reading their lines with a complete lack of conviction and coming across as though they've already lost their checks at the track before filming had wrapped - it's pretty dire.
Here's who matters and why: Denis Adams (The Amazing Transparent Man), Charles West (The Giant Gila Monster), Howard Ware (The Giant Gila Monster), Jack Herman (The Yesterday Machine, Beyond the Time Barrier), Libby Hall (Don't Go in the Basement 2).
And the diamond in the rough: Gary Owens (voiced Captain Squash on Bobby's World, the Powdered Toast Man on Ren & Stimpy, and narrated for countless TV shows, movies, and ads including Garfield and Friends, Eek! The Cat, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, Laugh-In, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, and voiced Space Ghost in its original iteration).
The special effects are abysmal but no more than should be expected from a flick shot in 1960 on a budget of $8000. Essentially, there's a small amount of blood too diluted by the poor film quality to be judged with any kind of accuracy, and the horrendous timelapse photography used to show the disintegration and reconstitution of the witch's face (the base layer of which is a mask of five and dime quality with makeup either added or removed as needed). Call it a quality of mercy, but I kinda liked the opening prologue where Larry pads out the movie with a collection of old Renaissance artworks depicting witchcraft throughout history, and even though they're really not special effects by modern standards, I'm inclined to give the film a point or two for that.
The shooting locations are alright but hardly done justice by the shoddy cinematography, and while on its face the idea of a settlement of German immigrants in the dead center of Texas may sound absurd, the plot of the film draws precisely upon the founding of the town of Luckenbach in which it is set. At the time of filming it was all but abandoned, being purchased a decade later by a coupla guys with more dollars than sense who were briefly able to reinvigorate it with appearances by Willie Nelson; but even the Red Headed Stranger couldn't keep it viable for long, and it has in recent times has been redesignated a ghost town. The cemetery sequences were filmed 13 miles north in Fredericksburg at the Der Stadt Friedhof Cemetery where you've gotta believe the locals were keepin' a close eye on Larry to make sure he didn't desecrate the graves of any long-dead German frontiersmen, and it serves as the most memorable location despite the refusal of Buchanan's go-to cinematographer to use a wide angle lens. I don't mean to bury the guy too deep 'cause there are some shots filmed along the base of a rock wall that're pretty sharp and others shot on the banks of a river that were likely pretty stunning back when the film print was in better condition, but all the same, it was the guy's first shoot and due to his inexperience and the short filming schedule you get the feeling there's more here than what made it onto the screen.
The soundtrack was (with the exception of the piece lifted from The Day the Earth Stood Still that plays during the prologue) composed entirely on an organ, but cheesy as that may sound, it actually fits the bizarre tone of the film surprisingly well. Honestly, the score is probably the movie's strongest asset, and whether by coincidence or genuine understanding, its composer seems to have grasped the dreamlike atmosphere the movie was meant to be shrouded in. Herschell Gordon Lewis composed a similar score for Blood Feast and although that movie is far more entertaining and memorable, I've gotta say, the explicit gore in it didn't lend itself very well to this type of soundtrack, while Ray Plagens' organ tracks work well in conjunction with the otherworldly tone of The Naked Witch. I'm not saying the boutique labels should start a bidding war to release the soundtrack on vinyl or anything as drastic as that, but when a movie this cheap and rudderless does something that works it kinda catches you off guard and makes an impression.
Overall, like so many titles in Something Weird's home video catalog, The Naked Witch is worth watching once to satisfy your curiosity, though there's nothing here that's going to earn it cult status. By and large Larry Buchanan's films are uniquely terrible, though among the ones I've seen it should be pointed out that this is the most interesting atmospherically and is among the least excruciating to endure due to its exceptionally short runtime. So if you're interested in Larry's filmography, there's probably no better place to start than right here.
Rating: 35%