Crypt of Dark Secrets

This is an ultra-rare outing from New Orleans filmmaker Jack Weis, who's later work included the more widely received MARDI GRAS MASSACRE. Whereas MASSACRE took place in New Orleans the city, this film takes place in the bayous beyond.

The plot concerns a drab war veteran who seeks isolation in the swamps of Louisiana. However, when three robbers find out that he has a stash of money from his army days, they seek to rob him, only to kill him in the process. Ted, the war veteran, is not dead, however, and is revived by a snake woman named Damballa, who is constantly naked, and has yellow eyes. Together Damballa and Ted seek revenge on those who've wronged him.

This is easily one of the best movies I've ever seen. Weis was the king of demented cinema long before there was a David Lynch or Cronenberg, or Wes Craven. His depiction of Louisiana is one of a foggy, mystic, shrouded place where anything can happen, and does. And, although MASSACRE was a bit more exciting, CRYPT's scripting and FX soar above the film that followed it.The FX are impressive, and dated. The acting is as bad as it gets. And the style of the movie is pure Midnight Movie material, from one of the most underrated and unappreciated directors of our time (right up there with H.G. Lewis and Fredrick Hobbs).

Though known for many years as an alternate title for MASSACRE, CRYPT is its own movie entirely and is being distributed through Something Weird Video since 1998.

The first thing to be said is that this silly but offbeat supernatural meller is unusually well shot for a genre cheapie of the era, and that SW's DVD print transfer is a knockout--the colors just pop, and some of the photography of the swamp is very beautiful. (The interior shots have an ordinary low-budget cheesiness. The film set in swamp country near New Orleans, and an on-screen credit says it was shot there too.)

The next is that this is a rare sympathetic genre portrait of a Vietnam vet at a point when they were often portrayed as violent psychos in drive-in flicks.

Another is that this movie has a lot of "exotic" interpretive dancing, always a good thing-- better still when it's naked. (And admittedly the woman who plays the snake-changeling sorceress i"Dambella" is gorgeous, with or without clothes--though her speaking voice is some weird mid-Atlantic affectation, like certain second-rung actresses of the 1930s who wanted to sound "sophisticated" aka quasi-British.)

I like how once our hero has "passed over," afterlife is no different from the "before;" the old voodoo priestess' purple-grey hair; Dambella's costumes straight out of Victoria's Secret; the villain-team wife who looks like she'd have recorded for Olivia Records in 1976; and the incongruity of some home decor much more tastefully fussed-over than these deep- backwoods characters would ever have in their homes. That said, the movie is more an enjoyable regional oddity than something that actually sustains suspense or atmosphere. Unless you consider scary so much photography of slithering water snakes--kudos to the (admittedly pretty amateurish) actors for swimming in various scenes, when there were presumably snakes (and maybe alligators) about. Ick!

Ultimately the plot doesn't make much sense--I have no idea what the final sacrifice/ritual/apparent resurrection means--but this is still enjoyable vintage nonsense. By the way, there's no "crypt" anywhere in sight.

Vietnam vet Ted Watkins (Ronald Tanet) lives deep in the swamp on a place called "Haunted Island." Local legend has the spirit of shape shifting Damballa (Maureen Ridley) living there. After three crooks hear of Watkins' small cash fortune (he is overheard telling the town banker "I keep all my money in my bread box"), they sneak onto his land and kill him. But Damballa (which everyone pronounces as Damn-bella) does a naked dance and brings him back to life, setting out a plan for revenge.

Should I be angry this has no crypt and no dark secrets? This regionally-produced snoozer from writer-director Jack Weis doesn't really offer much unless you are looking for some swamp photography. Well, Ridley, who has a British accent for some reason, does get naked a few times. Weis handles everything with a dull "point and shoot" style and the make up consists of some blood dripping on money. He went on to do MARDI GRAS MASSACRE (1978). I looked up Damballa on Wikipedia and it is indeed a voodoo God that can transform into a snake. But it is a male, so you have to give Weis points for at least recognizing some exploitation value.

"Crypt of Dark Secrets" is so badly written, so poorly directed, so clumsily acted, and overall so amateurishly put together that you honestly can't be too harsh on it. It feels like a movie thought up by a bunch of New Orleans' boys in the school's playground during the breaks! What are they most interested in? Boobs, of course! And maybe also some boat-cruising in the Louisianan swamps, snakes, bloodshed, and more boobs!

First off, there's not a crypt in sight. There's a lone tombstone in the middle of the bayou, at most. Deep within the swamp roams Damballa; - a restless Aztec witch spirit who enjoys dancing naked around a fire and mounting trees on invisible chairlifts. One day, Damballa witnesses - in her snake shape - how three thugs murder a Vietnam veteran who lives alone in the swamp and steal his money. She resurrects him via an erotic dance so sensual and sexy that it would probably even awake a Pharaoh who has been dead for centuries! After Damballa practically bores the former soldier back to death with her background story flashback, they plot their revenge.

Let's be totally frank and honest about this; there's only one reason to seek out "Crypt of Dark Secrets", and it's Maureen Ridley's sensational naked body and her unscrupulous dance moves that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination! What a woman. Apart from her dancing, the film is hopelessly dull and unremarkable. Even with a running time of barely 72 minutes, it's half an hour to long. Well, there is one more (unintentionally) hilarious moment! Quite early in the film, when the distrusting veteran has an appointment at the local bank to discuss the possibility of a savings account, the incompetent bank director openly discusses his financial situation and even asks where he currently hides the money in his house while there's a local yokel sitting right next to them eavesdropping!! That same yokel is, of course, the one who later robs and kills the soldier. Good job, Mr. Bank director. Shouldn't you discuss sensitive and discrete information in a closed office, or something?

This is the "b-side" of a disc with Larry Buchanon's "The Naked Witch". And it very much resembles the more well-known film. After three swamp rats murder and rob a Vietnam vet in a Lousiana bayou, he is found and revived as a zombie for some reason by a strange witch name "Dambala", and he proceeds to take undead revenge on his murderers.

This is the kind of regional, low-budget film-making that they really don't do anymore. (There are, of course, the modern-day, internet-savvy fan-boys with digital cameras who might pull off something like "The Blair Witch Project" once in awhile , but that's really a different thing). Texas-based Larry Buchanon was one of the first of these filmmakers, but these guys had their real heyday in the 1970's when they took advantage of things like the bigfoot craze (i.e."The Legend of Boggy Creek") and the explosion of "sexploitation" films. The director of this, Jack Weiss, was obviously more interested in the sex films then PG-rated bigfoot "docu-dramas" (although the two things weren't necessarily mutually exclusive--there were actually some "bigfoot sex" films in the 70's). His most famous film was "Mardi Gras Massacre", a much more graphic film both in terms of sex and blood, but this movie (believe it or not) has more of a plot and is more enjoyable simply because it is not so tediously repetitive. The down-home characters are pretty endearing too (despite the generally inept acting).

This is better than "Mardi Gras Massacre", but inferior to its co-feature "Naked Witch". Since this was a 70's film though, the witch "Dambala" is certainly a lot more NAKED than the one in the earlier Buchanon film. Maureen Ridley, who plays "Dambala", has an incredible body and was obviously some kind of professional dancer--it's actually not hard to believe her nude dancing could raise the dead (and a lot of other things). I would recommend this if you enjoy low-budget regional film-making, especially as two-for-one feature with "The Naked Witch"