The Naked Witch - 1961

Welcome back and a warm round of applause to Larry Buchanan, a man who I simply cannot decide if he is talented or not.  This is my third Larry Buchanan film after It's Alive and Curse of the Swamp Creature.  This was also an early nudie film, one where the big appeal was to see a actual real live topless girl!  Oooh!  Flock commence!  That was rare in the day though, and this movie was successful.

A student is driving out in rural Texas, researching some German communities that have settled there, as part of his college synopsis.  Wow, what a fucking boring synopsis?!  Study of German settlers in Texas?  Jesus fuck, that there is some good insomnia cure.  Anyhow, he goes to this tiny town and talks to a family.  They have a young girl about his age named Kirska, and she is attracted to him and wants to help him.  He specifically is asking about witches, which is a big hush hush in the eyes of the parents, so the student (he didn't have a name to my memory) has to figure out a lot on his own and from Kirska.

Soon enough, Student man stumbles upon a grave of a witch.  She is buried with a stone dagger of some sort dug into her, and obviously the guy takes the dagger out.  The witch rises from the grave, he runs away, and she is out seducing and killing people.  She is, as the title says, naked.  Leer away, young men, as the shots show next to nothing for the next 45 minutes!  That's right, you don't see anything for a super long time.

Finally, we get to the topless swimming scene about 10 minutes away from the end.  It does go on for quite a length of time, I will say that.  Here's an extremely bad photo of some nudity:

The girl has a nice body, and it's only a tad creepy to think this was shot 55 years ago, and this woman is either dead or extremely old.  *One minute of research goes by* She was apparently in a film in 2015, so my guess is that she is still alive.  Say she was in hear early 20's here, 22, that makes her 77 now.  I wonder how those titties are looking these days?

Movies like this led to Hollywood changing their rating systems time and time again, and honestly this is a very early example of a real film (not a short, not a exploitation thingy, not a nudist film, etc) where nudity was involved.  In that way you could say it was progressive, even though it's not like this film was really "known" then or now.  The Hays Code was enforced and was not allowing any real nudity until 1968, so this was a under the radar little exploitation flick that got away with it by being independently made and shown.

Other than that piece of info on this film, it was a pretty traditional early horror film.  There is some tension, the characters are okay, and the film flows with a decent amount of timing.  Without the nudity it's still watchable, and it would have to be because the nudity is only there for about 5 minutes.  The actors are okay, and the film doesn't look that shitty.  It's minimal, about 4 main characters, and nothing really noteworthy about it.  Which, for Larry Buchanan, is slightly disappointing.  But still, I'll recommend it.  3 stars.