The Naked Witch

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...

This early Larry Buchanan opus is barely feature length at 59 minutes, yet it requires considerable padding to get even that far: It opens with a nearly ten-minute pseudo-documentary prologue discussing the history of witchery (and making use of a lot of Hieronymous Bosch imagery), then follows that with travelogue footage and an explanation of how a Texas small town remained a largely German-speaking one, over a century since its creation by German settlers. (This is accompanied by shots of flaxen-haired children in traditional garb dancing, singing and skipping around, very much kitsch like the German part of Disney's "It's a Small World.") Then our handsome collegiate hero tells us in voice-over-- there's not a lot of actual dialogue in this movie--why he's driving to this outback. He's researching a thesis paper on the region, notably its own witchcraft legends and persecutions.

Other people have described the minimalist plot well enough. What should be pointed out, however, is that "The Naked Witch" is--as the title suggests--more a "nudie cutie" masquerading as a horror movie than anything else. The witch does indeed appear nude-- raised from the dead, she's nekkid, and wanders around teasingly semi-hidden by shadow, shrubbery and fences until she literally rips off a dress from the heroine. (At one point the witch actress was apparently over-exposed, because a crude black bar appears on screen to cover her naughty bits.) Later the hero spies her skinny-dipping in a pretty murky-looking river, and we see her topless for quite a stretch. She seduces him, and they have a sort of sex scene--of course not at all explicit, but it's still rare for a movie of this era to make it so clear that intercourse has occurred.

Anyway, this quirky sexploitation/horror melange--with its violence so discreet as to be almost non-existent--is amusingly odd and too brief to become boring.

The Luckenbach Witch (Working Title)

Music by Bernard Herrmann played during the prologue introduction, featuring the creepy background music from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951).

A 10-minute-long gory presentation by Gary Owens. Then a monologue while driving through hill country.

A student studying witches in the German area of Texas has a stake in rejuvenating "The Luckenbach Witch". Will he become witch-chow? Is it revenge time? Does the witch really show off her birthday suit? Or is she wearing 100-year-old tightie whities? Do we care? What is at stake?

No need to watch again.

You would think a movie that is less than an hour long couldn't be boring and filled with time killing nothingness but you would be very wrong. The first ten minutes of this horrible flick is a narrator explaining the history of witches while they show old paintings. Then we meet the main character who takes turns explaining the the non-story with the narrator. The guys car runs out of gas and he just leaves it and never goes back for it. Did I mention they constantly say it's dark when you can clearly tell that it's not? I hate that. Never watch this movie, trust me.

To be fair, this low budget film should be viewed from the prism of its time, but even so, I don't recommend wasting any of yours on viewing it. Frankly, I didn't watch it all the way through, which is something rare for me. 1961 was a pretty repressed time in our country, and I think the main object of the film makers' intent was to titillate with the idea of a naked female character. I have a hard time believing that the protagonist didn't take a change of clothes on his journey, nor could I believe that the bedroom was 18th century. I regret that "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" is no more, as this film would have been great for them to spoof. This movie is worse than Seasonal Affective Disorder. Do yourself a favor and avoid it at all costs.