The Naked Witch (1961) User Reviews

Well, I be damned.

[lastliberal-853-253708 · 4/10 · 11 February 2011]

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?

Woof!

[Score_The_Film · 4/10 · 9 May 2007]

This is dreadful, folks. I can't add much to what other reviewers have said. There is WAY too much narration in this film. If you need to narrate 60% of your film then you need a serious re-write of the script. The film opens with a 9-minute history of witches documentary-style (the only thing good about it are the paintings used). Then the story begins. I kept wondering why it was called THE NAKED WITCH when I've seen the witch but I haven't seen her naked (except for some black bars covering her naughty bits) until the 44 minute mark - just about 15 minutes before the movie ends! And what do you get? She baths in a pond (ala a nudist video scene where she just frolics in the water) while The Student watches in amazement for about 5 minutes. I guess they figured they had to justify the "naked" part of the title. It was laughable, really.

The opening music was stolen from Bernard Herrmann's score to THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Sadly, that lasted about 3 minutes and then for the rest of film we get nothing but a poorly-improvised organ score. Oh science, it's awful. All the mind-altering substances known to man couldn't set that straight.

This is bad all the way around. I watched Something Weird Video's print. I did listen to one of the two commentaries which was somewhat interesting hearing what the producer's role was and the struggles he had to overcome. Pretty funny at times. Certainly more interesting than the film. The double feature DVD also has CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS (1976) which is surprisingly good. You also get the usual boatload of extras including several shorts and probably a dozen trailers (most with a New Orleans theme). The disc is worth picking up just for the extras.

Cheap, but interesting

[Henry_W_Jones · 4/10 · 26 June 2011]

I gave this only 4 stars -- only! -- because of the exceptionally low production values, acting, writing, etc. I mean, as a film it pretty much sucks. OTOH. . . . .the underlying theme is, I think, quite intriguing.

As noted, the young college man unearths the Naked Witch (only naked for parts, sadly) who then proceeds to kill the descendants of the townspeople who had her executed as a witch. But the paradox is that she wasn't (apparently) a witch: her lover set her up to avoid a scandal because he was cheating on his invalid wife with her. So she was wronged, quite badly, by the townspeople.

Now, after she is resurrected and begins her killing spree, one is left to wonder -- along with the college student hero -- whether to pity the Witch (who now apparently has witchly powers) as justly seeking revenge for being wronged. It's an age old "sins of the father" question, as old as Shakespeare. And it's complicated by the young man being seduced by the Witch's obvious beauty (and nekkididity) but also having an eye for the young daughter who is next on the list. He even mentions this in the narration, wondering whether to feel pity or hatred for the wronged Witch. It really is a fairly profound story if you can get past the problems.

Wish they hadn't blanked out the nakedness, not only because, well, hey, who doesn't want to see a (quite attractive) naked woman, but it's done so poorly in places (a fuzzy black bar) that it's just irritating. I think the blurring of the naughty bits in other parts is a more recent editing. I suspect the black bars were done much earlier. Either way, it would be nice to have a fully restored version to watch. Seems like it would be a great story for a remake as well, although I would guess it's probably been done elsewhere.

Hot dang, that thar witch really is nekkid!

[ofumalow · 5/10 · 10 January 2010]

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.

Let's go to Luchenbach, Texas with Larry Buchanon and "The Naked Witch" . . .

[lazarillo · 20 August 2009]

I can understand why some people wouldn't like this movie. It's very low-budget and goofy, it has plot holes you could drive a truck through, and when it comes to the (not-so)Naked Witch herself even the unedited version is incredibly tame by today's standards. However, I LOVE this kind of regional, low-budget film-making. This early Larry Buchanon flick, was actually filmed entirely in Luchenbach, Texas, a small town founded by German settlers and later made famous by a Waylon Jennings/Willie Nelson country song. And it makes a GREAT setting for a low-budget horror movie. With the cheesy voice-over narration, Buchanon even manages to anticipate later 70's regional exploitation movies like "The Legend of Boggy Creek" and the whole bigfoot/ "In Search of" craze, and even many more modern-day films about local legends like "The Last Broadcast" or "The Blair Witch Project" (although don't hold the last one against him).

A college student comes to modern-day (as of 1961) Luchenbach, Texas, to research the legend of the "Angry Widow", a widowed woman who was skewered by the superstitious 18th century German settlers of the town after being betrayed by her craven married lover. In a rather ridiculous plot twist, the college student decides to dig up the body of the widow for some reason and remove the stake from her heart. The "Naked Witch" then rises from the grave to take her revenge on several locals who are related to her original tormentors. But when she threatens the pretty daughter of the innkeeper, who our rather dimwitted hero has fallen for, it is up to him to find the mountain pond where the pretty young witch is skinny-dipping and drive his stake into her (and then he has to figure out a way to kill her!)

I'm not going to claim this is great film. If you want a big-budget, go see the latest "Transformers" sequel, or if you want sex, go rent a porno. But I found this quite entertaining despite some illogical plotting and a very perfunctory ending. And this is only the second best film to ever be shot in Luchenbach--even better is Larry Buchanon's later film "Strawberries Need Rain". These kind of films aren't for everybody, but you like this kind of low-budget, off-Hollywood, slice-of Americana film-making, you shouldn't miss this.

Terrible

[13Funbags · 1/10 · 28 May 2017]

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.

Look ...No Clothes!

[BaronBl00d · 4/10 · 27 May 2001]

I am disappointed. I am dismayed. I am disgruntled. I began watching this video thinking I was about to see the first film of horror/cult icon Andy Milligan(still have not seen one of his films) only to see that it was directed by Larry Buchanan. It seems that in 1964 there were two...yes, that's right TWO films made and both titled The Naked Witch. Why the lack of creativity on someone's part I know not, but until I began watching this film and then researching it, I was in the dark on this tidbit of information. Not only that(and this information came courtesy the other reviewer on here) it seems that the version of The Naked Witch I watched(say that fast ten times!) has two versions as well, yes, that's right TWO versions, one in black and white and one in color! Well, I bet you can guess which version I saw. Thanks Sinister Cinema! I ended up seeing the old distorted black and white version with the poor audio and the scratchy film quality. While I was watching, I was contented that this was the best quality available, but now I know it comes in a pristine print put out by Something Weird Video and in COLOR! Now, I must get the color print to watch, even though the movie is by no means great. As I write this review, I want you to bear in mind that I did not see the best print. The story is about a student in Texas writing a paper on witches in German folklore in Texas. He meets people that are friendly but clam up when the supernatural is mentioned. Robert Short plays the student and narrates throughout the whole film, and his performance can only be described as wooden. Anyway, to make a long story short...he somehow raises the old, century-dead witch of the village who reeks her revenge on the descendants of the men responsible for burning her. The witch does rise from her grave and we see her old face(which is nothing more than a plastic mask) turn into her young face. She is of course naked...hence the title, although nothing really is very erotic about her, nor do we really see much except her shoulders. The story is decent, however, and I was entertained through much of it. For me the best part is the prologue about the history of witchcraft with paintings and narrated by Gary Owens(his first major job!) I bet they are something(as in Something Weird Video) in color!!!

It would be mostly fine if it only cared about itself.

[I_Ailurophile · 3/10 · 5 September 2023]

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.

Not nearly as naked as you might suspect.

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 21 September 2013]

Larry Buchanan is a director whose output is among the worst in movie history. Despite Ed Wood gaining recognition as the worst director in history, I really think Buchanan is at least as bad--possibly worse. Don't believe me? Try watching Buchanan's films--such as "Zontar: The Thing From Venus", "Mars Needs Women", "In the Year 2889" and "Curse of the Swamp Creature". These horrible films might even make you appreciate "Plan 9 From Outer Space" just a little bit more!!

As for "The Naked Witch", most of Buchanan's early work consisted of making porno films. While they would seem amazingly tame today, back in the early 1960s they were pretty hot stuff. "The Naked Witch" is one of these films, though there is practically no nudity in this one--at least until late in the film. As it sat on the shelf for several years, it could be that they edited out all the nude scenes--or it was just a film that offered a lot of tease and little please. And, while this may sound really nasty, the woman who took her clothes off would today be seen as quite unattractive--so you perverts out there could certainly do better!

The first portion of the film is a prologue--with LOTS of narration and up close shots of various Hieronymous Bosch paintings (often with very incorrect interpretations). This section is about witches and witchcraft and is mostly a lot of baloney--and pretty dull. Amazingly, after the credits then roll, there is ANOTHER narrated sequence! So, you have a 59 minute movie that doesn't actually start until about eight and a half minutes AFTER these prologues! Talk about filler! The story itself is mostly shot silently with voice-over added later. The music is straight from an electric organ. Together, the film looks and sounds absolutely horrible--like a home movie from the time. The story, such as it is, involves a grad student who arrives in a weird town in Texas to research about witches (and EVERYONE knows Texas is a great place for this!!). After learning the story about a woman who was killed years before as a witch, this idiot digs her up and pulls away a stake--and she becomes alive (and naked)--looking to inflict revenge on the family of the man responsible for her death. During most of these naked scenes, you really see nothing. Only later, in a long and completely out of place portion, do you see her swimming about naked for absolutely no reason.

Believe me, even with the nudity, this is an amazingly bad film. It's dull, very, very amateurishly made (MUCH more than an Ed Wood film) and is about as entertaining as watching your own mother get naked! Not for the squeamish.

Beware of the sexy witch with the censorship bar over her naughty bits

[Woodyanders · 3/10 · 20 October 2016]

A witch (striking brunette Libby Hall) who was staked to death in Luckenbach, Texas gets resurrected by a college student (bland Robert Short). The witch seduces and murders the descendants of her persecutors.

Writers/directors Claude Alexander and Larry Buchanan not only crucially fail to create any essential tension or spooky atmosphere, but also fumble the ball with absolutely stultifying results by letting the meandering and uneventful narrative plod along at an excruciatingly sluggish pace. Worse yet, Alexander and Buchanan get bogged down in far too much tedious long-winded exposition. Alas, this film even fails to deliver the trashy goods with the promised extensive gratuitous nudity given the movie's title, with the stunning Hall running about with a crudely drawn in black censorship bar covering her naughty bits and even sporting a pair of white panties (!) underneath her black sheer negligee during a seductive dance set piece set in a cave (fortunately, Hall still gets to show off some of her sizzling stuff while swimming nude in a river). On the plus side, the competent cinematography offers a lot of nice shots of the lovely Texas countryside, the shuddery organ score by Ray Pigeons hits the shivery spot, and fetching blonde Jo Maryman makes a favorable impression as the sweet Kirska. A real snoozefest.

Cheap and cheerful

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 21 June 2017]

THE NAKED WITCH is a VERY low budget and slightly scuzzy exploitation picture with horror and supernatural touches. It's about a tourist travelling around a desert town (the acting is typically wooden) who learns of a local legend about a witch terrorising the area. Before long he comes upon a beautiful and frequently nude young woman, whom he flirts with, but of course she turns out to be the titular witch and the story goes from there. With co-direction from the infamous Larry Buchanan, this is very much a cheap and cheerful effort, featuring some female nudity but very little else in terms of standard production qualities.

Flash, bang, wallop, it's alive!

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 28 October 2023]

Mesmerizingly awful horror film complete with dreadful organ music in the background, this is saved from being a complete bomb by way of the introduction narrated by Gary Owens of "Laugh-In" fame that goes on and on about the creation and destruction of witches in the dark ages. Heard over shots of classical gothic paintings, it's a nice history lesson that is sadly interrupted by the movie.

So superstitions of the dark ages followed German immigrants all the way to the Texas countryside where an alleged witch was buried with a stake in its heart. A stranger in town somehow opens the grave up, removes the stake from the crystallized corpse which proceeds to grow back to its human appearance. Shocking things are happening, the biggest that I stayed awake for it all. Poor color and tinny sound may convince others which try it not to bother, but the amateurish acting will most likely do the trick.

Crazy, mixed-up movie

[Bou · 17 July 2011]

This poor movie can't make up its mind whether it's a history lesson, a romance, a scary movie, or a nudie cutie, and it ends up being none of them. Thankfully, I didn't waste money on this flick (unless you count opportunity cost, and I suppose I should).

In blatant padding to fill out an hour, we're subjected to repeated details of a Bosch depiction of hell, while a narrator---Gary Owens, no less!---maunders on about witches. (Wish I knew who the narrator was of the single line following Owens's speech--he's familiar too.) Our history lesson ends and our geography lesson begins when the ostensible hero of the film haplessly runs out of gas outside of Luckenbach, Texas, whose roots we learn about ad nauseam. I nearly ran away when the German-singing tots appeared, but I hung in there to watch a possible love interest develop with the hotel owner's daughter. The appearance of a black peignoir set was promising . . . but no.

The witch of the film's title wants (and gets) her own romance (well, okay, lust-fest) with the hero, but though the camera lingers long on the naked witch swimming, so does the little soft-focus bubble over all her naughty bits. For the nudie-cutie enthusiasts out there, she does cavort later in the aforementioned sheer peignoir, but with the sudden and unexplained appearance of white underpants, and you have to suffer through something like liturgical dance as well. (And just where did the music in that cave come from, anyway?) The movie has about as many walking scenes as "The Beast of Yucca Flats." The voice-over narration seems unending, but maybe that's okay, because the German accents are atrocious, as is most of the dialogue. The acting is . . . well, let's just say the annoying children are given a run for their money by the rest of the cast.

And while one does give a bit of credit to the film for its sympathy for victims of witch trials, both literal and figurative, the end makes me want to slap the hero. The "naked witch" comes back to life after centuries of death, exerts mind control, and kills a few folks, and yet he wants to know "Was she really a witch?" Well, DUH.

This movie should get lost too.

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 7 August 2023]

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).

Really Awful "Naked" Witch

[Michael_Elliott · 16 October 2015]

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.

"There Are Those Who Say It Was All A Dream!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 1 June 2021]

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...

Worse than Seasonal Affective Disorder; don't view it!

[scott8823 · 13 November 2011]

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.