A prime example of cheap, independently produced fodder aimed at the undemanding 1970s drive-in audiences, BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD is also more appropriately known as TERROR CIRCUS, CAGED WOMEN and NIGHTMARE CIRCUS, as there’s no “dead” (as in "living dead") and not much naked. The film’s credited director is one Alan Rudolph, a protégé of Robert Altman who went on to have a prominent career and has since disowned this bleak maiden effort.

Three attractive showgirls (Manuela Thiess, Sherry Alberoni, Gyl Roland) are en route to Las Vegas when their Ford station wagon breaks down in the middle of the highway. The next morning, a seemingly pleasant fellow named Andre (Andrew Pine) offers to help out and gives them a ride back to his homestead, which accommodates a lofty barn. Andre is really a disturbed individual with a sorted history, so he imprisons the trio of travelers in the barn, chained up with a handful of other young ladies who have crossed his path. The women are treated like pets in a circus, and to make the situation even wackier, since the barn is right next to a nuclear test site, Andre’s father is a raging killer mutant who is kept locked up in a tiny shed.

Bargain basement, bizarre, misogynistic, ludicrous and at times satirical, BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD is the kind of movie that’s over before you’ve had any time to really think about. The star of the film, Andrew Prine, was at the time in a succession of horror and exploitation roles, convincingly playing nutcases in SIMON KING OF THE WITCHES and THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS, so it’s no surprise to see him here dressing up like a ringmaster, taunting helpless scantily clad dames with leopards and boa constrictors, and whipping them relentlessly as they crawl about dog-collared like animals – in other words, this is a must-see for Andrew Prine fans. With brief glimpses of gore, and even briefer glimpses of female nudity, the film is padded with Andre having delusions that one of the imprisoned women is his long lost mother (who apparently skipped town after his father’s unfortunate “accident”), failed attempted escapes by the hapless prisoners, and the subplot of an overly concerned agent (played by Chuck Niles, “Ivan” the black-coated zombie from Jerry Warren’s TEENAGE ZOMBIES) coming to look for his three missing showgirl clients. Jennifer Ashley (TINTORERA, INSEMINOID), a drive-in movie queen in her own right, can be seen as a hippyish, spaced out captive.

Legend Films has released BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD in a non-anamorphic letterboxed (approximately 1.85:1) transfer. The print source is extremely clean, with little markings and blemishes, and colors always look stable with accurate fleshtones. There is occasional softness and grain, with some instances of motion jerkiness, but overall the image looks fair. The mono audio has its share of hiss and distortion, but it’s not distracting enough to make dialogue unintelligible. This DVD release appears to be the complete version of the film, as the aforementioned nudity (missing from some previous video releases) is present here.