FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Bare Witch Project
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, you don’t want to see absolutely everything, especially if there wasn’t that much there to begin with…
The Naked Witch (1961)
Distributed by: Alexander Enterprises
Directed by: Larry Buchanan
When we looked at Haxan last time, it was noted how the film maker tried to have it both ways, about how witches were both handmaidens to the devil and wronged women in need of justice. It was an argument with itself that took close to two hours to unspool on screen, making some choices in its narrative that were worth digesting afterwards.
Now imagine, a film that tries to do the same thing in only one hour (if even), made by a director who sure as hell was no Benjamin Christensen, making one big narrative choice that required no time to contemplate; such recklessness would lead to this film:
We’re treated (for lack of a better term) to a long intro about the evils and horrors of witches, in between full-screen cards reminding us what the subject is:
The description of witches, narrated by of all folk Gary Owens (in what looks to be his first theatrical credit), is all about their horrible power on behalf of Satan, and how they used their abilities to do great harm to people during the ‘Dark Ages’, which the ‘Middle Ages’ became thanks to their sorcerous rampages, as depicted in paintings from the time that accompany the screed.
Which of course, no. That’s not how the Middle Ages unfolded or how the Dark Ages were (mis)named. And as far as the pictorial evidence, it all seems to come mainly from two works, the panels of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and “The Haywain Triptych” by Hieronymus Bosch, which had nothing to do with what the voice of “Beautiful Downtown Burbank” was going on about.
And the thing of it is, this sequence of total fabrication runs for nine minutes, before the credits even begin. It takes up 15 percent of the film, though as you sit through it, it feels a lot longer.
We’re then asked to wait further as the credits to come on, introducing the mood with what are supposed to be nighttime shots (but are clearly shots taken during the day with a blue filter over the lens) with whole title cards for our main leads, which features as the titular witch Libby Hall and (in their only credited roles) Jo Maryman as “Kirska Schoennig” and Robert Short as “the Student.”
Yes, our male lead has no name. Sadly, the actor couldn’t just be called “the Actor,” having to live with the shame every time the film came up in conversation…
For a student, he sure does talk a lot. More precisely, he narrates the film as we’re watching, which he does badly, following along with him as he goes through this mess, also badly.
You ultimately find out if you can stay awake during his ramblings that he’s visiting central Texas, principally the areas where German settlers came in the mid-19th century, to do research on their rituals and beliefs. Apparently there is some scholarship on the subject that he wants to get in on, thinking that he can find something interesting about them through his research, over and above what prior scholars have found.
He ultimately hears about the “Luckenbach Witch” from Kirska, who tells him this in the hope he’ll want to consider some extracurricular activities if he’d just pay attention, ifyouknowwhatImean. He reads the account of the person known as “the Widow Witch”…
…apparently our lead isn’t worthy of her own name, either; make of that what you will…
…and how she was accused of being a witch by the man who was having an affair with her, Kirska’s ancestor, which allowed the man to get rid of the Widow before she became a complication.
Our Student thinks this will help him prove his thesis, that witches were just scapegoated women, before he gets the bright idea of looking for the spot the witch was buried. Sure enough, he finds it, her skeleton pinned to the ground with a stake through her heart-
Hang on a second, lemme look this up… Um, uh-huh, no, she’s only a witch, not a vampire; eh, whatever…
So, he removes the stake, and our poor victim soon revives, with plenty of flesh glomming onto her bones. Flesh, and only flesh; there’s a reason this film has the title it does…
Or so we have to assume, as for most of the film there’s either a flimsy negligee or a fat black splotch added to the film to hide her body. We only really get what we’re offered in the title when the Student finally finds her at the swimming hole, long after she flees into the night and starts casting spells that allow her to kill every descendent of the man who narced her out as a witch.
Which is one of the bigger problems facing this film. It tries to give our witch sympathy she doesn’t deserve; if she were accused falsely of being a witch, she shouldn’t have the ability to come back from the dead and cast spells as she goes about murdering everyone. And after nine minutes of Gary Owens telling us what monsters witches are, is anyone going to have the ability to sympathize with her?
Our witch is certainly worth watching, though, for more than just swimming in the nude. Hall is the only actor on set who showed up for the shoot and not only took it more seriously than everyone else on camera, but seemed to revel in her character. She looks like she’s having a ball getting into being a witch, the only presence on screen that doesn’t feel as stiff as the petrified stake that pinned her character down for a century. The rest of the cast barely deliver their lines consistently, unable to focus their gaze for more than a second as their eyes wander off in confusion and boredom.
Not helping things is director/writer/editor Buchanan. His script is even more talky than The Yesterday Machine and only half as witty. And his habit of staging conversations on screen where one person is in the shot while the other delivers lines out of frame is just sad.
One thing that gets pointed out is that this was Buchanan’s first genre film, very early in his career, and that it pales compared to his later output. Considering that later output included Attack of the Eye Creatures and Mars Needs Women, it’s hard to find anything complimentary in that statement…
To its credit, this first-time film made back its production costs a few times over, an easy feat considering the budget was only $8000 (about $52,000 in today’s dollars). The film that made Buchanan Texas’ answer to Sam Arkoff relied heavily on a woman who seemed enthusiastic on screen, even without any clothes on.
Which is probably a kind of magic in and of itself…
NEXT TIME: When we continue Season of the Witch, we go in a different direction; not only are people keeping their clothes on, they’re going to get oh so family-friendly (and the good kind of family-friendly, to boot)…
