The Diabolical Dr Z (1966)

It's time for a welcome release of some more Jess Franco on UK Blu-ray as one of the best films from his early black and white period gets a release from Eureka.

Dr. Zimmer (Antonio Giménez Escribano) has developed a technique for drilling into the brains of criminals and removing their ability to be evil, turning them into placid subservients. Zimmer’s research presentation is laughed out of a meeting with his colleagues and he dies from a heart attack as a result. His daughter Irma (Mabel Karr) is also a doctor (so this could have been called ‘THE DIABOLICAL DR ZS’) and decides to take revenge on the three doctors she holds most responsible for her father’s death. To effect this, Irma uses the brain-drilling machine and a kidnapped nightclub dancer with poisoned fingernails. 

For anyone claiming Jess Franco was a shoddy filmmaker (as opposed to making some shoddy films, which he certainly did), THE DIABOLICAL DR Z is one to show them. The black and white photography is sharp, the lighting carefully considered, and the opening scenes of the Woodside Strangler escaping from prison could look at home in a classic film noir. The plot is crazy but in the best way, and while there’s not a lot of subtext, Franco can’t help but include some of his recurring obsessions, the poisoned nightclub dancer ‘Miss Death’ aka Nadia (Estella Blain) among them.

Archival extras on Eureka's disc include Tim Lucas' commentary track ported over from Redemption's Blu-ray, and a trio of fascinating talking head pieces from a French 2018 release, with DIABOLICAL DR Z's screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere talking about his work with Franco (18 minutes), Franco expert Lucas Balbo discussing this period of Franco's film-making (16 minutes) and journalist Stéphane Di Mesnildot talking about the film (12 minutes).

New extras consist of Xavier Aldana Reyes discussing European Gothic Cinema including Caligary, Mario Bava, Georges Franju, Paul Naschy and others including, of course, Jess Franco. Samm Deighan offers a 19 minute piece on Mad Science in Gothic Cinema which is absolutely fine if you haven't read my Frightfest Guide to Mad Doctors or attended my lectures on the subject. Finally the set comes with a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film from Antonio Lazaro-Reboll, co-editor of The Films of Jess Franco.

Jess Franco's THE DIABOLICAL DR Z is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 20th October 2025

Devil Hunter Blu-ray (1980)

"Indiana Jess & The Temple of Dubious Film-making"

Warning: The following review gives away the entirety of the storyline of Jess Franco's DEVIL HUNTER. If you are the kind of person who enjoys experiencing important story points, plot twists and of course a satisfying conclusion, it is strongly suggested that you watch something else entirely, and certainly not this film. For those of you still on board, be advised / warned that 88 Films are bringing out Jess Franco's singular piece of jungle adventure tat on UK Blu-ray. Hopefully the following notes will help guide you through the sweaty, sticky, sanity-threatening trail of celluloid that is DEVIL HUNTER.

For those of you unfamiliar with the work of this particular director (which means you must be new to this site): be warned - DEVIL HUNTER is not an ordinary film. Rather it’s a bit like what you might get if a group of long-term institutionalised psychiatric patients were told to make an Indiana Jones film as some kind of weird therapy. We kick off with film star Laura Crawford (Ursula Buchfellner) arriving in a sunny coastal town where locations are apparently being scouted for her new film. Laura never gets to see them, however because scarcely has she had the chance to take a soapy bath in water that only comes up to her ankles than she’s being kidnapped! Intercut with this is a second ‘plotline’ featuring a jungle tribe of such incredible cryptoanthropological obscurity that its members look as if they are all actually members of different races entirely. They’ve chased and captured a naked lady and have tied her up as an offering to their god. This turns out to be a large googly-eyed nude man who eats her in the most unconvincing way imaginable. 

Laura’s kidnappers take her to the same bit of jungle (we have to work out for ourselves) and the ransom is set. Al Cliver plays hero Peter Weston who, with his Vietnam flashback-suffering phobic helicopter pilot sidekick travels to the island where the jungle is with a bag of money and instructions to come back ‘with the girl and the money’. Everything goes a bit wrong at the exchange - our heroes have to bail out of their helicopter, which isn't too difficult as it’s quite obviously still on the ground. Various cast members get shot, leaving Laura to wander through the jungle in her strategically torn dress that we’ve already seen her rather fetchingly chained up in (Franco strikes again, but not as much as he will in a bit). The googly-eyed nude monster is still wandering the island, presumably in the search for a decent pair of trousers or at least a loincloth. Al and his chum happen across a boat which, naturally, has yet another naked girl aboard. Swiftly disarming her Al then hangs around drinking beer and setting a very bad role model to the two or three people who would  have watched this on its initial release by throwing the bottle into the sea. 

He decides to try and rescue Laura. She’s been captured by the tribe of multi-ethnicity and is currently being undressed very slowly by very scantily clad village girls. It’s not long before Mr Franco cannot restrain himself and his camera falls to focus on various ladies’ ‘personal areas’. The only thing that can possibly distract him is a gratuitous googly eyed nude monster attack.

On the yacht, Vietnam Vet and Nude Yacht Girl are indulging in some Sophisticated Audience Entertainment. But whose bloodshot bulging eyes are those staring down from the deck? Yes it’s time to cut to a shot of animal’s intestines being pulled out before we’re back with naked Laura, tied up and ready to be sacrificed. In amongst all of this we’ve had possibly the worst and most unconvincing decapitated head to ever be committed to celluloid (it’s the actor lying down with some leaves around his neck) and a fight between Al and the ridiculously accented lead kidnapper that takes place in the sea and sounds as if the Foley artist didn’t have much more to work with than a small bucket of water to provide the sound effects.

The mind-bending climax (and believe me your mind will have been bent by the time you get to it - this is a Franco film that’s over 100 minutes long) has Al in a showdown with the big naked beastie, whom he eventually skewers with a stick he produces from the magical nowhere that is bad editing before chucking Mr Googly off a cliff. Al carries nude Laura down a hill and looks as if he had quite a difficult job doing it. The End.

DEVIL HUNTER is meant to be a cannibal film, presumably filmed in the weekend after Jess (or possibly his producer) saw Ruggero Deodato’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, but it plays more like a 1930s jungle adventure movie but with the usual Franco obsessions and a monster with a waggly willy (I bet that'll bring plenty of Google searches to this page).

But should you get this Blu-ray? Well, 88 Films have gone the extra several miles into the jungle that is Jess Franco's career and come back with a feature-length documentary about the man and his work, so this incarnation of DEVIL HUNTER should go straight onto the 'to buy' list of any Franco fan. Numerous film journalists, authors, critics and some actors as well (including Dyanne Thorne and Antonio Mayans) offer insights into the great man's career. For those of his fans who can't get enough insights into his working practices (of which I am one) makes 88 Films' DEVIL HUNTER a must buy.

Jess Franco's DEVIL HUNTER is out on Blu-ray from 88 Films on Monday 8th April 2019

Female Vampire aka Bare-Breasted Countess (1973)

“Classic Franco”

So where to start with this one? If you’re a fan of the works of director Jess Franco (like me) you already know you love it. If you’re not then you already know you hate it. But what to say about this for those who have yet to encounter the works of the man who pioneered the technique of ‘fade to black by crash zooming into Lina Romay’s pubes’ while at the same time creating possibly the dreamiest, most lyrical, most obsessive body of work in European trash cinema, along with about 150 other films in his filmography of nearly 200? (He’s in the Guinness Book of Records you know). 

Often the reaction when you say you like Jess Franco films

Well, how about some context. FEMALE VAMPIRE comes near the end of Franco's period of using classic horror tropes (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc) as the flimsiest excuse to fill his low budget movies with anything he wanted to (a naked birdwoman and a silver-headed Frankenstein monster, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME but done with naked women chasing each other with bow and arrow, etc etc and all glorious). 

The man himself!

FEMALE VAMPIRE is very, very loosely based on LeFanu’s Carmilla. Lina Romay (in a career-making performance that’s probably the most spellbinding I’ve ever seen from someone who gets to wear pretty much nothing for an entire film) is Irina, Countess of Karlstein, a vampire doomed to an eternal lonely existence who lives on the sexual bodily fluids of both men and women (Franco strikes yet again). Jack Taylor is Baron von Rathony (‘a poet’) who is basically the LeFanu character. When he  encounters the countess while she is staying at a hotel in Madeira he begs her to take him to ‘the other realm’. It all ends in tragedy, but not before lots of softcore encounters of Irina and her victims.

The most faithful LeFanu moment in the picture

If you’ve not seen a Franco film before FEMALE VAMPIRE might not be the one to start with, unless you’re not in a hurry to go anywhere. It’s very slow, and alternates between beautifully dreamlike and weird sequences, and softcore bits that go on and on and have your finger itching for the fast forward button. It IS important Franco, though, and if you’re thinking about seriously getting to grips with the man and his work, this one’s a must-see.

Lina and Jack - Euro Stars both.

Screenbound are releasing FEMALE VAMPIRE on DVD in the UK. Apart from a slightly better menu screen, the disc is virtually identical to the US region A Redemption Blu-ray, right down to the scratchy print (which runs 96 minutes on DVD compared with the Blu-ray’s 100 minutes, ie they’re the same) and the extras, which include an alternate ‘horror’ version of the film, EROTIKILL (70 minutes), a featurette in which Franco talks about the film, and Words for Lina - a tribute to the late actress by Jean-Pierre Bouysou. You get French and English language options and I'd suggest you go with the French as it adds to the film whereas the style of the English dubbing definitely doesn't. 

Screenbound are releasing Jess Franco's FEMALE VAMPIRE on UK DVD on 6th March 2017 as the first in their Maison Rouge series of Euro Cult films. 

Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

“A bizarre and bewitching combination of art house, eroticism and horror”

So let’s get one thing straight from the off. If your taste in erotic cinema is of the more prosaic LESBIAN SPANK INFERNO variety, this one probably isn’t for you, despite that marvellous, exploitative title. If you’re a fan of the more mainstream kind of vampire movie, this isn’t going to be for you either. If you love art house, but demand that there be a focus puller for every scene, you’re going to get annoyed.

However, if you’re a Jess Franco fan, you are absolutely going to bloody love this one.

VAMPYROS LESBOS is, without a doubt, one of Jess Franco’s best films, and the folks at Severin have done a fantastic job of giving it a stunning Blu-ray transfer that’s now available in the UK as well as overseas.

Linda Westinghouse (Ewa Stromberg) is plagued by erotic dreams, which she confesses to psychiatrist Dr Steiner (Paul Muller). She’s a lawyer, and her latest assignment is to travel to an island near Istanbul to discuss the details of an inheritance with the Countess Carody (Soledad Miranda). Even before she goes she is warned not to go by the creepy Memmet (Jess Franco) and when she gets there she is quickly seduced by the Countess. 

Things become a blur as Linda then wakes up in the ‘clinic’ of Dr Seward (Dennis Price) who only seems to have one other patient, Agra (Heidrun Kussin) who resembles a sexy version of Renfield. Dr Seward is obsessed with the legend of vampires. The Countess has inherited property from Count Dracula, whom she met over a hundred years ago. This being a Jess Franco film, it all ends dreamily, unpredictably, and on a freeze frame that suggests he had once again got bored.

VAMPYROS LESBOS is a fascinating art-house interpretation of Dracula, with a heavy Carmilla influence as well. Linda is obviously meant to be Harker, and Franco cleverly inverts other tropes of Stoker’s classic novel as well. Instead of a crumbling gothic castle, Countess Carmody lives in a bright, clean, modern island retreat. Instead of spiderwebs, fishing nets hang everywhere.

And in amongst all this are some breathtaking shots. Despite the abundant nudity, Soledad Miranda is probably never more supremely sexy than when fully clothed with just a trace of blood on her lips. A white butterfly represents Linda, a scorpion in the swimming pool, tail poised, the Countess. Linda’s discovery of the Countess floating naked in her swimming pool, a red scarf draped around her neck and half submerged to resemble the most flamboyant, painterly flourish of blood you’ve ever seen in a vampire film is the kind of thing that makes you a Franco fan for life. 

Severin’s Blu-ray also has a twenty minute chat with the director about the making of the film, where you wonder quite how many cigarettes Franco managed to actually get through during the course of the interview. There’s a twenty minute piece on Soledad Miranda from Amy Brown, and the always excellent Stephen Thrower gives us his thoughts on the movie. Finally, a tiny piece entitled ‘Jess Is Yoda’ is something I’ll leave you to find out for yourself.

The older I get, the more I find myself loving the movies of Jess Franco. I first watched VAMPYROS LESBOS on VHS fifteen years ago and didn’t think as much of it then as I did watching it this time around. Of course since that time I’ve watched a lot more Franco. Someone once said that to understand one Jess Franco film you have to watch them all. Even if that’s the case, Severin’s Blu-ray of VAMPYROS LESBOS is as good a place as any to start the Franco journey.

Jess Franco's VAMPYROS LESBOS is available from Severin Films on both sides of the Atlantic on DVD & Blu-ray now. 

She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)

"Gateway Franco"

          Those of us who appreciate the works of Jess Franco know that it is a love not easily earned. You have to work at it. While there is genius and creativity and bewitching obsession in his movies, there can also be incompetence, incoherence, and mind-numbing tedium. Sometimes you even think he’s trying his best to put you off watching the film in question. 

There are, however, a few Franco films that can ease you into an appreciation of this quirky, eclectic, and sometimes fascinating  film-maker. Gateway drugs, if you will, that will allow you to move on to the harder stuff with at least some understanding of what he might be trying to say. Movies like THE AWFUL DR ORLOFF (1962), EUGENIE (1970), or THE FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973) give you an insight into his obsessions without too much in the way of somnolence, incoherence, or outright offence.

SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY is a gateway Franco film, now finally given an absolutely gorgeous Blu-ray release in the UK courtesy of Severin Films. Don’t get me wrong - if you’re new to Franco it’s still not going to be quite like any other film you’ve seen. But then those of us who love his work find that part of his appeal.

The film kicks off with jazz music over images of foetuses in jars. They belong to Dr Johnson (Fred Williams) who is looking forward to the medical council approving the research he’s been doing. Unfortunately the four members of the group don’t approve of what he’s been doing at all, labelling it inhuman and striking him off the medical register. Distraught and depressed, Johnson kills himself, leaving his wife (Soledad Miranda) swearing revenge on the individuals responsible for her husband’s death.

The rest of SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY consists of her seducing and bumping off the members of the medical council, played by Franco regulars Howard Vernon, Paul Muller, Ewa Stromberg and Franco himself, before the movie ends in an appropriately downbeat manner.

SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY can safely be shown to someone who has never seen a Franco film before. It has a straightforward plot, and while the film-making is a little bit rough around the edges, there is much here to bewitch and entice the casual viewer. Franco’s eye for curious architecture means the Johnson’s island retreat is a curious construct, and the Alicante locations look beautiful, especially on Blu-ray. Most bewitching of all, of course, is the film’s star. Soledad Miranda. Described by another reviewer as ‘someone who could eat you with her eyes’ she is the perfect actress for this and other Franco works. Beautiful, but with a perpetually haunted look that suggests there’s so much going on behind those eyes, she is, besides Franco’s direction, the main reason why the non-Francophile won’t be hitting you over the head with the Blu-ray box if you show them this one.

Severin’s Blu-ray provides an excellent transfer and comes with about an hour of extra features, including a cosy chat with Franco, Stephen Thrower talking about the making of the movie, Soledad Miranda historian Amy Brown giving a potted history of the actress’ life and career, and a short interview with Franco star Paul Muller. All excellent stuff and a very fine Franco package from Severin. Which you can also show to non-Franco-loving friends without losing them for life. 

Severin's UK Blu-ray and DVD of Jess Franco's 
SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY is available now.

Bloody Moon (1981)

Jess Franco’s 1981 slasher movie makes it to UK Blu-ray with a gorgeous print that’s so pristine it almost feels wrong watching it. But I did anyway. People exhibit widely mixed feelings about Mr Franco’s work, and I have to say I’m firmly on the side of people who love him, except on the days when his not-so-great stuff becomes an utter trial to watch. Thankfully that’s not the case with BLOODY MOON, which is a thoroughly competent slasher picture. This being Franco, however, it’s not without its quirky moments.

A rare slightly tasteful moment. Oh hang on it's brother & sister. Sorry.

We begin with scar-faced Miguel’s sister telling him he must leave her alone. Oh yes, you have hand it to Franco, we’re not even a minute in and we’ve already got potential incest involving the disfigured. Well done on the distaste-ometer that man. Not content with leaving things at that, Miguel pinches a Mickey Mouse mask and heads off to a nearby party, where his Disney-masked charm succeeds in him picking up a girl and taking her back to ‘Chalet 13’. They’re well into the heavy petting and the mouse mask has yet to come off, so presumably she doesn’t work for the Disney legal department. When it does, however, there’s lots of screaming and Miguel stabs her to death.

Does Disney know about this? 

We’re in Spain for this film, by the way. I have no idea quite how the legal system works there but it must be jolly lenient if all you get for your crimes is five years in the psychiatric clinic of Dr Franco (yes it’s him on screen). All the therapy seems to have done is make his facial scarring worse (perhaps they missed with the ECT applicator pads). Still, he’s happy to see his sister again (so the treatment probably hasn’t solved that little problem either) and they return to the school where Miguel committed his crime.

BLOODY MOON does have its unsubtle moments. About 90 of them.

It’s now the hastily (and cheaply) labelled School For Attractive Young Ladies To Study Languages. Or something like that. Pretty soon, conjugating the Spanish verb for to be is the least of their problems as the girls start being murdered in a variety of gruesome ways. Best, and certainly most ludicrous of these, is the old ‘head taken off with a rotary saw’ trick that was one of several scenes that caused this to be banned by the BBFC back in the day, presumably in case it caused the uncontrollable youth of Britain to go around sawing the heads off mannikins. It all gets very, very giallo as the film goes on, with a suitably daft ending that really doesn’t provide a good excuse for all the murders at all (one would have been sufficient, surely?).

This bit happens before the picture above. Obviously

BLOODY MOON actually isn’t bad for Jess Franco. Everyone else in the entire world may have a bit of trouble sticking with it because of a few shortcomings, not the least of which is the music, which often sounds like the demented bowel rumblings of someone who’s eaten an especially dangerous curry. The dubbing is indifferent but the locations are interesting. Best of all is the print itself. As I’ve said above, BLOODY MOON really doesn’t deserve to look this good. The print is pretty much pristine, with the odd scratch here and there and a few tiny lapses into poorer quality for the gory bits, but I have to admit I was surprised at how good this looked.

Bloody hell.

Severin’s Blu-ray comes with a short featurette interview with Franco which is charmingly cosy - a bit like sitting down to talk with your chain-smoking grandad about his career in the world of filth for fifteen minutes. I certainly chuckled a lot, both during BLOODY MOON and the featurette, and if you’re kindly disposed to Jess Franco, you will too.

Severin's Blu-ray release of Jess Franco's BLOODY MOON is out now.

Devil Hunter (1980)

It’s time to settle down for yet another slice of not-exactly-quality exploitation courtesy of Mr Jess Franco. This marks the fourth of his movies I’ve written about, which only leaves me about 195 to go, or as many as I can manage before, a bit like my old DVD player, my brain finally gives up and refuses to cope with the strain. Until then, however, I intend to keep going as for some reason I actually find something worthwhile in a Franco picture and DEVIL HUNTER is no exception.

For those of you unfamiliar with the man’s work: be warned - DEVIL HUNTER is not an ordinary film. Rather it’s a bit like what you might get if a group of long-term institutionalised psychiatric patients were told to make an Indiana Jones film as some kind of weird therapy. We kick off with film star Laura Crawford (Ursula Buchfellner) arriving in a sunny coastal town where locations are apparently being scouted for her new film. Laura never gets to see them, however because scarcely has she had the chance to take a soapy bath in water that only comes up to her ankles than she’s being kidnapped! Intercut with this is a second ‘plotline’ featuring a jungle tribe of such incredible cryptoanthropological obscurity that its members look as if they are all actually members of different races entirely. They’ve chased and captured a naked lady and have tied her up as an offering to their god. This turns out to be a large googly-eyed nude man who eats her in the most unconvincing way imaginable. 

Laura’s kidnappers take her to the same bit of jungle (we have to work out for ourselves) and the ransom is set. Al Cliver plays hero Peter Weston who, with his Vietnam flashback-suffering phobic helicopter pilot sidekick travels to the island where the jungle is with a bag of money and instructions to come back ‘with the girl and the money’. Everything goes a bit wrong at the exchange - our heroes have to bail out of their helicopter, which isn't too difficult as it’s quite obviously still on the ground. Various cast members get shot, leaving Laura to wander through the jungle in her strategically torn dress that we’ve already seen her rather fetchingly chained up in (Franco strikes again, but not as much as he will in a bit). The googly-eyed nude monster is still wandering the island, presumably in search of a decent pair of trousers or at least a loincloth. Al and his chum happen across a yacht which, naturally, has yet another naked girl aboard. Swiftly disarming her Al then hangs around drinking beer and setting a very bad role model for the two or three people who might have watched this on its initial release by throwing the bottle into the sea. 

He decides to try and rescue Laura. She’s been captured by the tribe of multi-ethnicity and is currently being undressed very slowly by very scantily clad village girls. It’s not long before Mr Franco cannot restrain himself and his camera falls to focus on various ladies’ ‘personal areas’. The only thing that can possibly distract him is a gratuitous googly eyed nude monster attack.

On the yacht, Vietnam Vet and Nude Yacht Girl are indulging in some Sophisticated Audience Entertainment. But whose bloodshot bulging eyes are those staring down from the deck? Yes it’s time to cut to a shot of animal’s intestines being pulled out before we’re back with naked Laura, tied up and ready to be sacrificed. In amongst all of this we’ve had possibly the worst and most unconvincing decapitated head to ever be committed to celluloid (it’s the actor lying down with some leaves around his neck) and a fight between Al and the ridiculously accented lead kidnapper that takes place in the sea and sounds as if the foley artist didn’t have much more to work with than a small bucket of water to provide the sound effects.

The mind-bending climax (and believe me your mind will have been bent by the time you get to it - this is a Franco film that’s over 100 minutes long) has Al in a showdown with the big naked beastie, whom he eventually skewers with a stick he produces from the magical nowhere that is bad editing before chucking Mr Googly off a cliff. Al carries nude Laura down a hill and looks as if he had quite a difficult job doing it. The End.

Once again I find myself watching a Franco film, once again it’s really not very good, and yet once again I could not take my eyes off this. It’s meant to be a cannibal film, presumably filmed in the weekend after Jess (or rather his producer) saw Ruggero Deodato’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, but it plays more like a 1930s jungle adventure movie but with the usual Franco obsessions and a monster with a waggly willy. And on that alliteration, which I hope I never have to repeat on this site, I leave you with the totally predictable opinion that DEVIL HUNTER is the usual mesmerising experience for fans of Jess Franco, and it absolutely shouldn’t be watched by anyone else. 

Mansion of the Living Dead (1982)

Like the STAR TREK movies or James Bond, the films of Jess Franco can only really be measured against themselves in terms of quality, his world of cinema being the kind of unique place where you know within about ten minutes whether it's your sort of thing or not.

MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD is middle-grade Franco. Not as fascinating as SUCCUBUS or LORNA THE EXORCIST, but nowhere near as dull, meandering or incompetent as his worst stuff. For a Franco film there’s a surprisingly straightforward plot, even if it is told in Franco’s rather oblique style.

Hundreds of years ago the Spanish Inquisition had a headquarters on Grand Canaria. One of the atrocities they committed was to stake and burn a young woman, who cursed them with living death until one of their number could find true love with her reincarnated form. 

Now that’s not a bad backstory as far as these things go. Unfortunately, in MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD, none of this is revealed until close to the end of its sometimes ponderous 89 minutes. Up until then it’s Mr Franco on a bit of auto-pilot and goes something like this:

Four topless waitresses arrive at a hotel in Grand Canaria in search of sun, sea and sex. Despite the hotel looking as if it could cater to at least three hundred people, there is no-one else there apart from hotel manager Carlo (Robert Foster). The girls think nothing of this and set off to their shared rooms to indulge in the usual sort of sapphic softcore groping that those familiar with Mr Franco’s work will either fast forward through or will have fast forwarded to get to (I dread to think who those people might actually be). The only other man on the island appears to be loony Marleno who spends his time singing and sitting on a strategically-placed dustbin on the beach.

One of the girls goes for a walk and wanders into a nearby abbey. We hear her screams and that’s the end of her. Meanwhile Mabel (Mabel Escano) goes for a bit of nude corridor wandering and bumps into Carlo, who promises he’ll meet up with her tomorrow but now he has to ‘go and feed someone’. The someone turns out to be a naked lady he has chained to a wall in one of the hotel’s rooms in a decidedly kinky subplot that also surprisingly, and unexpectedly, permits a bit of relevant backstory. Mabel ends up wandering into the abbey and is set upon by undead monks sporting either rubbish skull masks or Halloween-style makeup. She is sentenced to death, and this being a Franco film that means having her clothes torn off and being repeatedly raped in the kind of tasteless scene that again hopefully the viewer with taste will be fast forwarding through (if any Franco fans can be described as such). Lina Romay, playing Candy, turns out to be the reincarnated girl and Carlo is the undead monk who is supposed to fall in love with her. She kisses him, peels his face off and he falls over and turns to dust (I think - there obviously wasn’t the effects budget to show this and that’s hardly surprising seeing as there doesn’t seem to have been a budget for clothes for any of the actresses either considering the amount of nudity in this film). Lina runs away and the film ends.

As I’ve said above, MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD isn’t terrible Franco. Anyone unfamiliar with his work will of course think it’s simply dreadful, and they should be advised to steer clear. For the Franco fan, however, there are a few items of interest. Franco’s eye for filming architecture serves him well in getting the most out of his off-season hotel setting, with creepy empty corridors and lots of shots of the exteriors that manage to evoke that otherworldly weirdness that seems to come effortlessly to him. The few cast members are doubtless a result of budgetary reasons, but there is a genuine sense of loneliness in this film which, coupled with a revisiting of Franco's themes of obsessive love and necrophilia that he explored more enticingly and enigmatically in works like SUCCUBUS (1967) means it’s not a complete waste of time. But as I've already hopefully spelled out - if you’re not that familiar with the man’s work, this is one occasion when I would advise you to stay well away.

Exorcism (1975)

I don’t know what it is about me and the films of Jess Franco. A bit like a woman you know is bad for you but whom you can’t resist, they draw me back time and time again, even though while I’m watching I have a sort of guilty feeling that I should be spending my time doing something far more worthwhile. EXORCISM is a 1975 effort of his that was also know as DEMONIAC in its more horror-orientated ‘unerotic’ form (although I’m not sure you can call the more complete version I have just seen erotic), and came out in Europe under the wonderfully sleazy title THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME. In fact, like many of Franco’s films, it’s quite possibly had more titles than people who have actually seen it, or at least people who stayed until the end.

A character knocks on a door wearing one kind of coat and then enters the room dressed entirely differently. A girl gets out of bed in closeup only for the long shot to show her getting out of bed again. The camera wobbles, goes out of focus, into focus and then out again. That is, of course, if it’s being touched by a living person at all and not just left in a corner to seemingly randomly record whatever might pass for acting in whichever hotel room has been rented for the purpose. Scenes either begin or finish on close-ups of ladies’ pubes, and when  they don’t there’s a fair bit of crash-zooming in on them in the middle. 

To his critics (of which there are many, including me on the days when I’ve got a bit exasperated with his work) the above is probably a reasonable summary of Franco’s oeuvre, never mind this film in particular. What’s a shame here is that the plot of the film is actually quite interesting, and in the hands of someone capable of taking a bit of time and care could have been a superbly subversive commentary on censorship and freedom of expression.

Franco himself plays Paul Vogel, a demented defrocked priest who writes saucy stories for ‘Venus’ publications. He overhears a conversation between Lina Romay (of course) and her editor about attending a black mass. Actually it’s a saucy show Lina and her lady friends put on for debauched millionaires, and we’ve already seen one over the opening titles (which, by the way, give up and go away before a directorial credit ever appears).  Vogel spies on the show, goes even more mental than he was before, and starts to kill everyone involved, believing he’s doing the Lord’s work because he can absolve his victims of their sins as they die, thus ensuring their passage into heaven. 

I may be damning Franco with faint praise here, but his ability to make attractive naked ladies not at all erotic in scene after scene of  soft core gropiness must require some kind of special ability. What it also does is keep your mind on the plot (and the technical gaffs and mistakes of which there are a few), make you feel just as disturbing a voyeur as some of the audience members in the movie, and also remind you that no matter how bad Franco gets, for some reason he always has the most amazing eye for locations - some of the buildings he picks out for this film are fabulous examples of architectural flamboyance. 

I spend too much time watching Jess Franco films. I probably spend too much time writing about them, too, and this won’t be the last time. But those are my sins and I feel I shall have to live with them. Just as long as some demented priest doesn’t come along to show me the error of my ways.

Countess Perverse (1973)

Movie directors are a strange breed. At one end of the spectrum we have auteurs like Stanley Kubrick, who made one film about every five years, or Terrence Malick, whose output consists of one movie every eleven years or so.

In 1973 Jess Franco made eleven films, not counting the three that he didn’t finish.

It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that quite a bit of his oeuvre from this period comes across as a bit rushed, a bit improvised, and a bit all over the place. COUNTESS PERVERSE is a brisk (78 minutes) sexy version of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Howard Vernon and Alice Arno play Count and Countess Zaroff who own an island where they hunt naked girls and eat them. The girls are procured for them by another couple and their latest victim is Lina Romay. And that’s about it for plot. Most of the running time is taken up with a lot of nudity. In fact if you’re not into attractive ladies with no clothes on (and not always by themselves) you may find there’s a quite a lot of fast forwarding to be done here. The climactic hunt doesn’t actually get going until about twenty minutes from the end but when it does you have to admire Franco for having such an audaciously crazy, sexy idea. Basically, naked Alice Arno chases naked Lina Romay around the island. The Countess is armed only with a bow and arrow and Lina has nothing but the platform heels she’s been allowed to keep on after yet another session in the bedroom. This sounds ridiculous but is actually more effective than it sounds, and I certainly haven't seen anything like this done anywhere else (not even in a Franco film but then there are quite a few I haven’t seen).

So is the film worth watching? Well, the world is divided into those who are Franco fans and those that aren’t, and this is a twain that is unlikely to meet. Those of us who see some value in his films will stroke our chins and nod as we see another fantastic piece of architecture filmed in an unsettling way, and the long slow boat trip where the camera wobbles all over the place will be viewed as Franco’s attempt to capture something weird and moody about the landscape rather than the actions of a desperate man trying to fill up the running time of his five-page-script film. I actually quite liked COUNTESS PERVERSE but then I’ve seen quite a few of Franco’s films now, and apparently the more you watch the more you have a chance of understanding even one of them. I only have about a hundred to go now, and on the basis of this I’ll probably keep at it for the moment.