The Naked Witch

This regional horror from schlockmeister Larry Buchanan is often confused with a film by Andy Milligan that bears the same title. Milligan's movie has long been considered lost, which is probably for the best (if you're familiar with his work, you'll know why I say that), but Buchanan's film has no such sense of shame: it's unapologetically awful and still out there for the world to see.

The Naked Witch is just under an hour long, but Buchanan still dedicates the first ten minutes of his film to a dry history lesson about witchcraft which comprises of nothing but close-ups of Hieronymus Bosch paintings accompanied by monotonous narration. It's a real test of any trash movie fan's resolve. The rest of the film is no better...

Robert Short, in his one and only screen role (no surprise there), plays a college student who travels to the hill country of central Texas to carry out research for his thesis on early German festivals, with a particular interest in the folklore and superstition of the people who live there. After hearing the story of a witch (Libby Hall) who was executed in the area one hundred years earlier, he locates her grave, digs up her mummified corpse and removes the stake that still pierces her chest. The dead woman returns to life to avenge herself, killing the ancestors of the man who condemned her.

The vast majority of this film appears to have been shot with no sound, meaning that many scenes are narrated by the central character, whose voiceover is like aural temazepam. Buchanan has also managed to source some of the worst organ music imaginable to slap over his film. The direction is lifeless, the editing is amateurish, and the acting is atrocious.

There is, of course, the naked witch to spice things up, Hall stripping off to go skinny dipping, but the application of ridiculous make-up, especially to her eyebrows, ensures that she isn't very sexy. Bizarre brows don't stop the student from boffing the witch, but, in the end, he kills the reanimated woman to save the life of pretty blonde Kirska (Jo Maryman).

The Naked Witch (1961)

1/2 (out of 4)

This 59 minute movie starts off as a documentary on witchcraft and it's slightly interesting for what it is. Then, around the ten minute mark we switch gears to an actual "movie" about a student who is doing research on witchcraft and comes across the grave of a witch. The witch returns and is sometimes naked. However, she's not naked enough to earn the title THE NAKED WITCH, which was obviously just a way to get creeps like me to watch the film.

This was co-directed by Claude Alexander and Larry Buchanan but it seems the majority of the "student" footage was from Buchanan. I'm really not sure why his name isn't brought up more when people discuss some of the worst directors of all time because he has certainly made some major stinkers and this here is one of the worst. Even though this turkey clocks in at less than a hour it's still rather hard to sit through and it's just about as boring as watching paint dry. The incredibly dry narration will have your eyes drying out to the point where you'll want to take a nap.

Apparently this originally played on television in B&W but the print I saw was in color. Also, while there's a limited amount of nudity, some of it appears to have been blacked out with a marker of some sort. Yes, it looks that cheap and bad. I've read this happened by the distributor but I don't know the whole story. Either way, THE NAKED WITCH is pretty pointless and only for those who enjoy really bad movies.

Let's go to Luckenbach Texas with Waylon and Willie and the boys. OK, wrong movie. No Waylon here. This is about witches. Well, it is about naked witches. they say.

First we have to sit though nine minutes of woodcarvings and a lecture on the history of witches. Then the student (Robert Short) who lands in Luchenbach, Texas to do research gives us a few minutes of history on the German settlers in this town. When do we get to the naked witches? There is no use talking about the cast as the vast majority did no more that two appearances in their careers.

Just when things do get interesting and we have a secret book in our hands, we get another history lesson. Sheesh.

Before we get a chance to see the witch (Libby Hall) naked, she steals the clothing off another girl (Jo Maryman). We don't get to see her naked either.

The use of Vaseline on the lens when the witch is swimming in the stream convinces us that we will never see all of the naked witch. The is clearly false advertising. Only the student is given unfettered view.

Questions unanswered: How did the student dig up a 100-year-old grave with his bare hands? Where did the witch find panties and shoes? Is having sex on gravel painful? What reward awaits the student after saving Krista?

In addition to writing, directing, and editing alongside Claude Alexander, Larry Buchanan also served as producer (and cinematographer) for this movie, distributed by "Alexander Enterprises." One man or the other - I assume Buchanan - was responsible for the decision to have the actual film preceded by a narrated prologue of almost eight and one-half minutes giving a(n incomplete) history of witches and witchcraft. Even generously recognizing that this was a low-budget B-movie made of, by, in, around, and for Texas, to fill nearly one-sixth of the runtime thusly is simply perplexing. Robert Short's continued pervasive voiceovers as the unnamed protagonist are hardly any less perplexing. For that matter, 'The naked witch' clearly takes most of its cues from movies and TV shows of another era, and the proceedings are sterilized in a way that will pointedly dampen most genuine meaning of the word "horror." The pacing is also astoundingly sluggish as it is longer still before any plot truly shows up; before you know it the feature is more than half over.

I won't say when the titular figure first makes an appearance in the active narrative, but suffice to say that it is later than you think. Whatever it is you think you're going to get out of a picture labeled as "horror," the quantity and quality you'll get out of 'The naked witch' are decidedly low. In fairness, extra abbreviated as the actual tale is, all the same the right parts are here: a witch, a return from the grave, murder, enchantment. Why, plentiful fare has been made with much the same narrative ingredients. The problem is that Buchanan and Alexander pad out as much of the small length as possible with anything but plot - the prologue, more exposition, gratuitous nudity, deliberately slothful or extended execution of scenes, long shots highlighting the admittedly beautiful landscapes, and more. If you're here for a familiar story, you'll get it, but one should perhaps just stick with other flicks with that familiar story, because the iteration here is wildly underrepresented, and just plain treated poorly. There are good ideas here, sure; only, they're relegated to a fraction of the runtime.

For what it's worth, the "effects" that are employed, though modest, are decent enough. The cast of inexperienced nonprofessionals aptly play their parts, with Libby Hall especially leaning into the chewing of scenery as the witch. Humble as it may present - all too little of these sixty minutes, and with some inclusions that raise a skeptical eyebrow - the tale is enjoyable in and of itself. So many of the choices that were made here, however, plainly reduce the lasting value of the production, and ultimately it's not even a question of tone (rather light), or how the genre elements are handled. (For the record, on a spectrum for horror that broadly ranges from "kid's gloves" to "See Everything," this is on the gentler and less impactful side.) It's just that the basic premise that one might use to describe the film pertains to so small a part of the whole. So there's that.

There are far worse ways to spend one hour of your time, but in 2023, the truth of the matter is that there's not much reason to spend time with 'The naked witch' in the first place. Alas.

THE NAKED WITCH begins with voice-over narration by someone known only as "the student". The story takes place in the German part of Texas, where German kids sing German songs while running around in German clothes.

"The student's" car breaks down, so, he walks to the German village full of German people doing German stuff. He meets Kirska, who guides him around town, accompanied by more narration. Then, "the student" has a German dinner with an elderly German man who smokes a big German pipe. "The student" is researching his thesis paper about witchcraft, but Kirska explains in her Kirska way that no one wants to discuss the subject.

"The student" presses on.

He simply must hear the story of the Leuchenbach witch! He can't resist going to the graveyard and resurrecting said unclothed spellcaster! Watching her stroll around is amazing! Watch, as she saunters behind walls, gates, and trees! See her eeevil magic turn the film blotchy and blurred, obscuring her naughty bits!

Thankfully, she starts killing people.

Filmed in the style of an ancient travelogue, this is a classic example of a cinematic fuster-cluck.

To be fair, the first death, causing the water to turn red, is -almost- effective, and the witch herself is just cold and devilish enough to make the rest -somewhat- endurable. At an hour in length, it feels more like ten, with the only semi-naked part coming toward the end. The witch also does a dance!

Another harmless "nudie" movie from yesteryear...