The Naked Witch / Crypt of Dark Secrets (1961)

The Naked Witch (1961, 59 min.) - Ding, dong, the witch ain't dead! After a college student digs up the remains of The Luckenbach Witch and removes the stake from her ribs, The Naked Witch is alive and well, strolling through the Texas countryside in her birthday suit! Killing the descendants of those who condemned her to death, she also seduces the student, who eventually realizes his sexy new girlfriend belongs back in the grave. A charmingly goofy and naughty-for-its-time regional rarity, this is also the first horror film directed by cult fave Larry Buchanan, who also gave the world "Zontar the Thing from Venus!" "Crypt of Dark Secrets" (1976, 71 min.) - Vietnam vet Ted Watkins is robbed of his cash by three thugs who invade his swamp home and leave him for dead. Ted awakens to find that he's the pet project of Damballa, a sexy witch who dances in the nude when she's not turning into a snake. She then takes revenge upon Ted's dimwitted almost-killers with the help of a voodoo priestess, buried treasure, a smoking mummy case, and her Crypt of Dark Secrets. Shot in Louisiana, this is off-kilter Drive-In-Approved Southern-Style Swamp Horror!

I waited over 40 years for this one!

I can't say anything good about the movie "The Naked Witch" other than it would have made good Mystery Science Theater 3000 material. In terms of shear volume, the DVD is a good buy, but don't buy this for the quality of the content!

So why was I waiting for this? Claude Alexander, the producer of this movie, was a second cousin of mine. I remember back then him talking to my father about the financing and telling stories about getting it past city censors. It was great to hear the interview on the DVD. He thought as little about the movie then as he did on the DVD. For him it was just a way to put food on the table. I was too young to see the movie when it was released, but I was certainly curious! Claude died last July, 2006. May 13, 2007

Another great DVD from Something Weird

Two great flicks here especially if you like regional made horror films. The first if Larry Buchanan's first film Naked Witch about a college student who brings a beautiful dead witch back to life. Filmed for $8000.00 in Texas, Buchanan does his best to bring a very interesting story to life. I really enjoyed this film and it was nice to see a color print. Contains a little nudity, but nothing special.
The second feature is Crypt Of The Living Dead and it was shot in Louisiana. A mysterious woman on an island brings a man back from the dead and they seek revenge of those who killed him. Thick with voodoo and murky swamp vengeance, this is another rare treat for horror fans.
Great extras and trailers as only Something Weird can do. Check it out! February 3, 2003

Fairly competent story telling for both features

The Naked Witch is a low budget movie that hooks you first with facts about witches and then with facts about German settlers in Texas. Its a first person narrative about a college guy doing research on the folklore of the German folk who settled in Luckenbach Texas. While the older folk refuse to talk of the legend of the naked witch, a pretty young blonde girl aides the student who learns where the naked witch is buried and goes and digs her up. Revenge ensues.

The Crypt of Dark Secrets takes place in Louisiana bayou country. It reminded me of comic books like Swamp-Thing and Man Thing. The acting is the definition of wooden but I found the photography to be nice and the colors crisp on the DVD. The lead witch in this production is very attractive and does have a prolonged nude scene.

Then there are a ton of short subjects and witch related trailers. One of the most incoherent of the shorts is called something like the Great Pearl Snatch where forbidden Lesbian love and a lust for pearls collide in an epic rambling journey of rambling epic proportion. I don't know what it was about but it had some nudity.

Then there's the even more completely incoherent Acid Skull, which is the best short on the disk that combines LSD, a human skull, two naked girls in chains, and disco lights into about ten minutes of something. But don't worry, what ever it is, its not as bad as Moulin Rouge.

... December 17, 2002

Magic!

To break down my ratings I give the Naked Witch 4 stars, the Crypt of Dark Secrets 1 star, and the extras get 5 stars.

In Crypt of Dark Secrets, all you get for your trouble are 4 drownings, one robbery, one naive vietnam vet, and a long and boring look at a fictional society (with a population of 4 or 5 people (one dead)) that lived in the New Orleans swamps before the Europeans arrived. These ancient ones apparently spent most of their time doing boring, hippy dippy dances. Interestingly, half of them were white. But it's not as funny as it sounds. The only interesting thing is the swamp footage. It is unfortunate this movie takes up space on this DVD, but even if you skip this second feature, you get more than you do on most DVDs. The extras, plus "The Naked Witch", directed by Larry Buchanan, the man behind such hits as "Zontar" and "Mars Needs Women", make the DVD worthwhile.

"The Naked Witch" starts out with a long introduction giving the history of beliefs about witches around the time of the Black Death, with lots of great detail shots of Bosch's famous triptych. This opening is sort of like a sensational counterpoint to the classic "Haxan". It then goes into the history of a (real!) village in Texas settled by Germans which has maintained a culture straight out of mid-1800s Germany. Once these almost-documentaries end, it tells the story of a folklorist arriving in the village to study the legend of a witch (a real German folk legend transplanted to Texas, and previously the subject of a movie in Germany called, guess what, "The Naked Witch"). All of this I found interesting enough (many viewers may find these openings boring, but imagine going to a drive-in for a horror movie and sitting through this!), but eventually, the folklorist revives the witch of the title and the real fun begins. You get to see such things as the witch dancing to bongo drums inside a cave and walking behind censorship dots which mysteriously float on the screen awaiting her arrival before she even comes on screen, and "nighttime" scenes just as brightly lit as the daytime scenes! And the witch's eyebrows must be seen to be believed!! (Divine must have based his eyebrows on hers).

The extras include some of the best movie trailers I've seen on any Something Weird compilation, and "The Hot Pearl Snatch" (I wonder if the Cramps named their song after this?), is a really bizarre and fascinating short which is completely incoherent. Despite the fact that this last short lacks "Psyched by the 4D Witch"'s psychedelic imagery, it is just as jaw-dropping. So although this is not one of Something Weird's best DVDs, and many viewers might not enjoy "The Naked Witch" as much as I did, it is still worth getting for this short. October 31, 2002

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