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.

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.

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.

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.