They're creepy and they're cooky...and witchy. And naked? Titles are often misleading, as we'll find out soon.
Our first witchy feature is The Naked Witch,and probably the less said about it, the better. In fact, it was so bad that it put me off watching the second feature, Crypt of Dark Secrets for about two months.
Which is too bad, because Crypt is so spectacularly wonderfully bad that it made me all kinds of warm and fuzzy.
Crypt is filled with all kinds of fun characters - (it's also the movie with the actual naked witch in it) most of who apparently studied at the 'passionless delivery' school of acting.....I could read the back of a cereal box out loud with more excitement and nuance than these people..but, hey, never let it be said that I let wooden line delivery spoil my enjoyment of a movie!
We have Damballa - she likes to dance around a blue eye in the woods, shift back and forth between the land of the living and the land of the ....something or other, practice CPR naked, and oh yeah, sometimes she likes to turn into a snake and slink around the woods and the waters of the bayou. (Or maybe the filmmakers just had a lot of stock footage of a snake in the swamp and wanted to put it to good use)
Gypsies, tramps, and thieves.......We have this dude, who tells us about the legend of Damballa, because the sheriff asked him to look it up. Guess what, he's found it, in a book, and with pictures!!
We have the sheriff, who's asking questions about the legend of Damballa and how it concerns a mysterious island that a Vietnam vet named Ted has recently moved on to...an island that nobody has managed to last MORE THAN ONE NIGHT on!!!
Our sheriff is also apparently fond of this facial expression:
Because he uses it ALL. THE. TIME.Sheriff decides he really needs to see this island and the man who's managed to live there for MORE THAN ONE NIGHT (!), so he and Deputy Buck (Yes, that's really his name) decide to head out into the swamp to check it out. And it's really important that the sheriff do this because.....because.......okay, fine, because I DON'T REALLY GET WHY.
But maybe what they find there is worth the trip to the swamp:
Ooh, cutoffs!!
I'm starting to get a better picture of maybe why this trip was so 'important'.
Mr. Hot Pants (Ted) invites them in for a beer, and we find out he's retired from the army, and oh yeah, there's some black haired chick that he always sees swimming near the island. But the Sheriff tells Ted that the Postmaster told him that Ted used to be in the army, and the Banker told him that Ted doesn't have an account with them! (WTF kind of town is this ANYWAY??) So the Sheriff is all concerned about the money that Ted might have just laying around the house.
After the friendly visit, Ted decides to change clothes, walk around the island, and strike random poses:
All in a day's work.....But the sheriff must have gotten Ted thinking about all that money in the house, because the next thing we know, Deputy Buck is taking Ted to the bank (introducing him as Ted from 'Haunted Island (!)....where a riveting discussion involving check cashing and opening savings accounts takes place:
It's worth the price of admission, folks.Antagonist Alert! This unsavory character is hanging around the bank, and while I'm sure the fascinating discussion about savings accounts went right over his head, the talk about Ted keeping money at home in the bread box did not:
Not only does this dude have possibly the worst fake Born on the Bayou accent ever;, he also has a dumb friend that he takes along to try to break into Ted's house and steal his money.
However, the plan goes afoul when the friend almost drowns in the water after he gets out of the boat, starts to wade to shore - announcing he's going to go look for the house - then turns around and starts TO WADE INTO DEEPER WATER.
Guess what, he almost drowns.
I would have let Mr. Dumb Ass drown, but his friend saves him, and they regroup and come up with Plan B with the help of Mr. Fake Born on the Bayou's Wife. 
She must be the brains of this operation because she announces that there's only one way to get away with the crime:LEAVE NO EVIDENCE.
Holy Shit. Who knew that the way to get away with crimes was not to leave any clues linking you to the actual crime?
But Damballa is apparently looking out for our friend Ted, because she's keeping an eye on our dastardly trio:
No need to be subtle at all.....Then for whatever reason, our friend Ted decides to visit the Voodoo Woman, who's sitting around throwing arrows into the back of some shirtless dude:
Because we needed more characters thrown in the movie without any introduction whatsoever.Hi, I'm Ted from Haunted Island, and I hate buttons.
The Voodoo Woman lets Ted know that the mysterious woman on his island will reveal herself to him at the proper time.
Hope it's soon, because our three favorite criminal masterminds are now ready to attack. They leave Ted floating in the swamp and steal his money.
But Damballa's got Ted's back, as our friends find out when they try to count their
loot and find that it bleeds:
In case you can't tell from this picture, Ted's 'fortune' apparently amounts to a handful of TEN DOLLAR BILLS.And as she uses her naked CPR method to revive Ted:
(I call it 'naked CPR' since when this scene was on, Papa Cash asked me, "Is she performing chest compressions with her ______ ?"
(insert your favorite word for ahem, 'femaleness' here)
Meanwhile, the crooks take the bleeding money to Deputy Buck and confess that they've not only robbed Ted, they've killed him and left him in the swamp. To which the Sheriff has this response:
Told ya he's fond of this expression.Finally, the Sheriff decided just maybe they should investigate this crime and check on Ted, so they mosey on over (seriously, there's not one iota of urgency in this action) over to the island to check things out.
Apparently, the Red Cross needs to add Damballa's pelvic resuscitation technique technique to their class, because it works. Not only is Ted alive and well, Damballa takes the time (ALOT of time, believe me) to tell Ted the story of how she ended up being the conduit between worlds and why Ted needs to know this.
Ted, per usual, is impressed:
FINALLY Sheriff and Deputy Buck make it to the island to check on Ted. Not only is he fine, Damballa's hanging out at home too.
Did this man ever meet a button that he LIKED?
The rest of the movie involves Damballa enlisting the Voodoo Woman's help to punish the criminals for what they attempted to do, because .....well, just because she can, apparently. The spell is cast, Damballa dances some more around her favorite blue eye, and YES! the Voodoo Dolls get brought out:
The three meet their end in the swamp, and Damball and Ted meet with one of Damballa's friends from the other side. Did I forget to mention that Ted's the Chosen One? Chosen of what or why, I have no idea. Whatever.....
Shit, since you haven't been buttoning anything for the first hour, why start now?
So there's some ceremony that has something to do with something and people dance....which leaves Ted to spend his shirtless days making out with Damballa on the island.
Crypt is really the treat of this double feature. The Naked Witch is tedious and barely worth watching. Not only is the quality pretty bad, but the majority of the movie is done in voice over.
Here's the plot in a nutshell. Dude from college is doing research on the history of witchcraft in a small town in Texas (known for being a hot bed where the history of witchcraft is concerned, right?), he finds some book, he finds a grave with this hot mess in it:
And Bango Presto Whamo, he does some shit and then the witch comes back to life. Which leads to one of the more riveting scenes:
Divine checks her manicure.And if watching a woman stare at her hands while she turns them over and over sounds interesting, then by all means, watch the rest of this piece of crap, because you just might love it.
This leads us to the 'naked' part, I guess, since it seems the witch just might be naked as she makes her way from her grave back to her friend who woke her from the dead.
Naked? Maybe....maybe not....either way, who gives a crap? Anyway, she finally finds some clothes and then goes around killing people...or something.... I just really didn't care and I couldn't really tell you any of the details of the last twenty minutes or so.
Like all Something Weird DVDs, the disc is filled with extras including shorts about voodoo, witchcraft, and dancing, along with a whole bunch of trailers. ALL of which are more fun and interesting than any part of the Naked Witch.
-Mother Firefly
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