Now that I've written another book and recovered from some horrible thing, I don't know what, I watched a new obscure film. And it is a camp riot!
The film opens with Rev. Ezra Jackson (writer/director Keith Erik Burt), a rugged man, on his donkey in northwestern Mexico (I think), finding an empty car and two teens on the beach canoodling. He approaches and lays a fire and brimstone rap on them, doomsday, damnation, and then invites himself to lunch. When the boy runs off with a spear to get another fish, Jackson starts flirting with the girl. "Put your hand on the side of God," he says. He gets pretty far, then steals the kids' car.
There's some weird honkytonk rowdy romp type music, like "Dukes of Hazzard," as Jackson escapes and is pursued by cops with Slowpoke Rodriguez voices.
Meanwhile, an effeminate, flamboyant man named Mr. Greenstreet is on his boat, ignoring the two dancing girls in bikinis and glancing at shirtless hunk Frank Evans. Frank is trying to sell this island, his job, but Greenstreet eyes this secluded house off the coast. "Something strange is going on in that house."
There's a weirdo cult of women on that island, Frank explains. They rent what was formerly the Governor's house, making money by reading fortunes, and sometimes men who go there never come back. He had a friend once. Still, "They're weird, but they're harmless." Lots of groovy music. Greenstreet, intrigued, takes a boat to the island. Meanwhile, Cassandra is doing star charts and apparently staring into the sun with a telescope. She blows a conch to summon the girls. Greenstreet arrives, and finds the most gaudy, ridiculous neon realm this side of the Octagon. Look at this!
This is not what comes to mind when one thinks of a secluded coven of witches. There's a dragon's head, girls doing sword dancing, Moog!, interpretive dancing, prayer to Jupiter. Seeing this, you realize how much opportunity was wasted with that The Wicker Man remake.
Anyway, the ladies sort of woo Greenstreet, not entirely seducing him. They tell him his exact birth date, his star sign, the coordinates of where he was born, drug him with a drink from a smoking goblet, intone the stars. They turn the hourglass, and soon he dies. In a ceremony, they then put him upside down on a plank, cut the ropes, and let his body fall into a grave.
Elsewhere, Jackson is still on the run from the incompetent Mexican cops, that rascal. He encounters Frank, who tells Jackson about the island. The reverend is intrigued, calls it "the will of God." Cassandra does more charts, blows the conch, calls the girls. Mars rises in Jupiter's fifth house. "The signs are in our favor!" They're awaiting the opportunity to go to a new land, with trees, where they can worship. To own, not rent.
Jackson, a scorpio, arrives with Frank, both invited to dinner. Jackson lays his con about God. Cassandra responds, "We believe in God. Hundreds of them." "The Lord have mercy on your Pagan souls!" A total cutie with short hair named Athena flirts hard to a receptive Frank, even though he is there to collect the man he dropped off earlier. This place has a real Phibes quality, with a man slave playing organ music and ornate, weird interior design.
Athena, smitten, drinks a smoky concoction in the neon dancing room, intoning, "Make me now this mortal's love queen." Athena and Frank romp around the compound, go swimming. He loves her, but is still curious about Greenstreet. Jackson, meanwhile, snoops around, witnesses a burial of some sort, and then finds a cache of cash, a huge wad. He also tries to have his way with Athena, using charm and aggression. "Don't be afraid. I'm a man of the Lord!" Before he can get too far, though, cops arrive and Jackson is arrested.
That done, there's more sword dancing, more rituals, more properly groovy music. They're preparing for a "levitation," another body being buried in ceremony. Athena, in robes, explains to Frank that it is much kinder the way they killed him than the horrible death he was going to have, as foretold in the stars. She's smiley and sweet. "We didn't murder him. We just re-arranged the date of his death."
Anyway, Frank, who the entire time is being pressured by his boss to sell that island, has the brainstorm of selling it to the ladies, but they have to buy by midnight. "That's the witching hour!"
Just as the girls are mobilizing to leave, our favorite preacher, having escaped from jail, arrives, entering with a wheel barrow. He's dug up the dead man, and brought him inside, signing a hymn. "Sagittarius here didn't quite make it to Jupiter." He sits on the body in the barrow, and makes threats. He wants all their money, the millions being used to buy their new island home. They don't think they did anything wrong, so all this talk about the police is just silly to them, but Cassandra, giving little nods to her lieutenants, acquiesces.
While Jackson explains that he's taking over, and accepting the money as retroactive pay, he is brought to the neon dragon smoke room and given a goblet. "Drink to the unholy alliance." The girls explain that actually they're preparing for a levitation. In fact, their man slave is already digging a fresh hole.
It ends with Frank and Athena together, and all the girls laughing over Jackson's grave, leaping over it, celebrating their fortunes.
Night of the Witches is incredible. Reverend Jackson is the kind of fun character you love to hate, and is played perfectly. He makes for a pleasing steady anchor in a film that is, to be generous, odd.
The tones are sometimes weird. It has goofy backwoods music, but also weird space synth. They're witches, but not like any I've seen before. They're fascinating, but ultimately one-dimensional. They are sweet and righteous, and want to go from renting to owning property. That's it? The main hunk, Frank, keeps an atmosphere of intrigue going, trying to find out what's going on there, but really he's a puppet and we already know what happened. It's just the details.
The film itself looks like shit. It was probably transferred from one film type to another, and then cropped, and then cut, and then transferred to video, which wore down, and then made digital. It's so bleached and blurry, you'd think this was Italian, but it's an American production. (Those are usually better tended, having less distance to travel to the drive-in.)
Still, everything works in its favor. It takes itself seriously, while being seriously weird. The production, its aesthetic, is delicious. If you've been looking for a mash-up of Dr. Phibes and, I guess, Django, then here it is!
Night of the Witches has 40 votes on IMDb HERE. It doesn't seem to be on video, but it's available for free on YouTube right now, and you can stream it on a Roku channel called Drive-In Classics. But be warned, there it breaks into 1 min. worth of four commercials every 5-8 minutes, inelegantly.
