Naked Witch/Crypt Of Dark Secr

In Crypt of Dark Secrets, all you get for your trouble are 4 drownings, one robbery, one naive vietnam vet, and a long and boring look at a fictional society (with a population of 4 or 5 people (one dead)) that lived in the New Orleans swamps before the Europeans arrived. These ancient ones apparently spent most of their time doing boring, hippy dippy dances. Interestingly, half of them were white. But it's not as funny as it sounds. The only interesting thing is the swamp footage. It is unfortunate this movie takes up space on this DVD, but even if you skip this second feature, you get more than you do on most DVDs. The extras, plus "The Naked Witch", directed by Larry Buchanan, the man behind such hits as "Zontar" and "Mars Needs Women", make the DVD worthwhile.

"The Naked Witch" starts out with a long introduction giving the history of beliefs about witches around the time of the Black Death, with lots of great detail shots of Bosch's famous triptych. This opening is sort of like a sensational counterpoint to the classic "Haxan". It then goes into the history of a (real!) village in Texas settled by Germans which has maintained a culture straight out of mid-1800s Germany. Once these almost-documentaries end, it tells the story of a folklorist arriving in the village to study the legend of a witch (a real German folk legend transplanted to Texas, and previously the subject of a movie in Germany called, guess what, "The Naked Witch"). All of this I found interesting enough (many viewers may find these openings boring, but imagine going to a drive-in for a horror movie and sitting through this!), but eventually, the folklorist revives the witch of the title and the real fun begins. You get to see such things as the witch dancing to bongo drums inside a cave and walking behind censorship dots which mysteriously float on the screen awaiting her arrival before she even comes on screen, and "nighttime" scenes just as brightly lit as the daytime scenes! And the witch's eyebrows must be seen to be believed!! (Divine must have based his eyebrows on hers).

The extras include some of the best movie trailers I've seen on any Something Weird compilation, and "The Hot Pearl Snatch" (I wonder if the Cramps named their song after this?), is a really bizarre and fascinating short which is completely incoherent. Despite the fact that this last short lacks "Psyched by the 4D Witch"'s psychedelic imagery, it is just as jaw-dropping. So although this is not one of Something Weird's best DVDs, and many viewers might not enjoy "The Naked Witch" as much as I did, it is still worth getting for this short.

The Crypt of Dark Secrets takes place in Louisiana bayou country. It reminded me of comic books like Swamp-Thing and Man Thing. The acting is the definition of wooden but I found the photography to be nice and the colors crisp on the DVD. The lead witch in this production is very attractive and does have a prolonged nude scene.

Then there are a ton of short subjects and witch related trailers. One of the most incoherent of the shorts is called something like the Great Pearl Snatch where forbidden Lesbian love and a lust for pearls collide in an epic rambling journey of rambling epic proportion. I don't know what it was about but it had some nudity.

Then there's the even more completely incoherent Acid Skull, which is the best short on the disk that combines LSD, a human skull, two naked girls in chains, and disco lights into about ten minutes of something. But don't worry, what ever it is, its not as bad as Moulin Rouge.

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