If there’s one thing I’d never have expected from a Jess Franco film, it’s a Robert Bresson joke. And yet that is essentially how this one begins… fortunately Franco soon remembers this is a film by him, and so even references to classier films and filmmaking (to say nothing of humour; the rest of the film is played fairly straight) go out the window almost immediately; The Diabolical Dr. Z. is nothing if not a Euro-exploitation B film, and a fair example of that sort of thing. This is kind of an early version of She Killed in Ecstasy, in some respects; in that film it’s the wife of the experimenting doctor who takes revenge for his death, and in this one it’s the doctor’s daughter. However, in this case she’s employing her late father’s mind control technology to do so, which is a twist the latter film avoided (Soledad Miranda was enough by herself there); the film struck me as a bit giallo-ish apart from that, though that might be because of Daniel White’s score which sounds awfully similar to some of the music on a DVD compilation of giallo trailers I have… Dr. Z. is also blessed with camerawork by Alejandro Ulloa, alas that he never worked with Franco again cos Ulloa could’ve elevated some of his later works if this is indicative (he would also have films by Lucio Fulci, Sergio Corbucci, Eugenio Martin and Paul Naschy to his credit). It’s not a film about which there’s an awful lot to say, really, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s a Monday night, I don’t need anything heavy, I need an efficient Euro-exploitation B film, and Dr. Z. gave me what I was looking for on that front.
You can click to enlarge these screengrabs I took:
You must be logged in to post a comment.