(Streamed via Drive-In Classics)
A conman dressed as a preacher (Keith Larsen, who also co-wrote and directed) on the run from the authorities goes to a small island inhabited entirely by witches. Their leader is the sultry Cassandra (Kathryn Loder from The Big Doll House), who has a pretty sweet deal going on as she lives in a castle full of hot women who perform rituals that require them to execute intricately choreographed dance moves while wielding samurai swords. The preacher sets his sights on fleecing the women for all their worth, but he soon learns they have other plans for him.
Night of the Witches starts off with a great, surprising, and funny scene where the phony baloney preacher threatens a woman’s soul with damnation for fornicating on the beach. He then conveniently gets rid of her boyfriend before worming his way into her pants. Every time he rants and raves about Jesus, a hilarious sound effect of a choir chanting, “AMEN!” is dubbed into the action. (Remember the “Randolph Scott” chorus from Blazing Saddles? It’s kind of like that.) That’s your first tip-off this won’t be your average run-of-the-mill horror flick.
The movie works in fits and starts, but it’s pretty amusing and memorable, even if the seventy-four-minute running time sometimes feels much longer. Some of the subplots bog things down a bit, like when Cassandra and her minions off a Sydney Greenstreet impersonator in a witchy ceremony. The humor is a little uneven too. While Larsen’s antics are funny, the supporting comic relief characters and fast-motion scenes are lame and ill-fitting.
Since this was the late ‘60s/early ‘70s after all, there’s a lot of astrology-inspired horse hockey involved as the witches refer to the men by their zodiac signs. Loder, who has a sexy Barbara Steele quality about her, makes all the stuff with the witches work. Whenever she and Larsen are on screen, it’s fun. Too bad there’s a boring third-wheel romantic lead who kind of mucks thing up about halfway through.
Overall, Night of the Witches is just weird enough to be memorable. It’s not necessarily weird enough to be good, however. It didn’t exactly cast a spell over me, but I enjoyed myself most of the time.
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