Virgin Witch - 1972

This is similar territory as the sexploitation movies I liked, Zeta One and Invasion of the Bee Girls.  What both of those movies were though, upon further thinking and reflection, were plot heavy and they were sexploitation with a reason and with a strong reliance on the other things going on as well.  Most sexploitation films are not anywhere near that developed, plot heavy, high budget, or innovative.

Virgin Witch is one of these not-as-developed movies.  It's got the ingredients, sure.  Lots of nudity, lots of sexual tension, some okay dialogue and actors, and a plot that suffices to get the girls to take their clothes off.  What it lacks though is the entertainment factor beyond the breasts.  It is more sex than the two previously mentioned films I liked, here we have a couple scenes of girl on girl touching and kissing, we have two male/female sex scenes, etc.  So it's not just the casual naked ladies we're used to in movies so far.  But the thing is, once you've seen it, once you get over the thrill of the flesh, there's no depth to the film.

The plot, as I said, is mostly nonexistent.  Twin sisters Christine and Betty go to a photo shoot at a castle for the weekend.  There is a cult there, or rather a witches coven.  The coven wants to recruit Christine into the fold and coven master Cybil has lesbian desire for her.  But Christine kind of has alternate ideas, and soon starts to dabble in her own black arts and what she can do with them.

In a way it makes me wonder if these movies that were so-called "warning us about cults" actually made people want to be involved in cults more? You get to bang tons of hot chicks.  When you're not bangin them you still get to see them naked like all the time.  You get to see and/or be involved with some hot lesbo action.  You get to kill people, or at least watch people get killed in insane or at least interesting ways.  You have a lot of money - at least in the 60's and 70's cults these weren't backwoods hillbillies, they were the upright people who had money, nice homes, expensive clothes, etc.  Not to mention the extra-sensory powers or perceptions you might get. Hell, sounds pretty good to me! Where do I sign up?

I notice that in love scenes in general it seems that sometimes they purposely avoid touching breasts, crotches, etc.  I think this is for two reasons.  One, the actors don't want to "go there" and if it's not specifically asked for by whoever then why would they touch those?  Second, I think they want to keep those body parts visible to us the audience so that we see them and are titillated by them.  You know, if we see a hand groping a breast then we can't see it and we're upset.  But in general I think it's more a style.  A basic thing that started long ago and hasn't changed.  Also, having actual touching and sex occur is what separated movies from porn.  Thus, it's like, "this is what a movie will show" versus touching is "what a porn will show".

With Deep Throat coming out the same year as this, I wonder if this came before or after.  I immediately want to say after, but then why would you go see this?  This is like taking the one thing that made Deep Throat succeed so much-  the sex- and then removing it. But this would not be the only film to try and copy Deep Throat but not be anywhere near as hardcore.  Even Deep Throat 2 wasn't hardcore.

In the end, this movie was sexy, but boring.  Hot, but too long.  Only see it for the nudity.  The nudity can have a full star though.