Tag: Jess Franco

She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)

From one German film to a… very different one. The Century of Cinema project was probably doomed to feature some unabashed trash, let’s face it, and frankly unabashed trash doesn’t come much more unabashed than Jess Franco. I actually had it in mind to rewatch Vampyros Lesbos for it, but then I thought, why not go instead with one of his that I haven’t seen? Why not cross something else off my absurdly large to-watch list, especially something I’ve had waiting for so long that I bought it on DVD rather than blu… Hence, therefore, tonight’s second film, which seems to be generally considered one of Tio Jess’ better films and I’d probably agree with that myself. Plotwise, we’re dealing with a fairly simple revenge plot: doctor who’s been doing some unorthodox experiments is struck off the medical register and kills himself as a consequence; his grieving and evidently no longer 100% sane widow goes on a quest to kill the four doctors responsible for striking him down. Nothing too complicated in the plot department, but I don’t suppose anyone comes to Franco for the plot (they also don’t come for a serious discussion about the ethics of Johnson’s research and if the board wasn’t actually right to reject him, which is good cos the film never offers anything of the sort). In this case, they’re coming for the unfortunate and tragic Soledad Miranda:

Ms. “Korda” is nothing if not a singular presence throughout the film, in her various states of dress and undress; I recall saying once on my old blog that I have trouble judging the quality of acting performances when they’re not done in English—I don’t know if that’s her voice on the soundtrack or not, cos I don’t know how well or if she spoke German—but in this case I think I can actually make an exception. This was really good. And face it, no one comes to a Jess Franco film for good acting either, but for once you get it here. I really should’ve watched this a lot sooner than I did. Going to invest in a blu upgrade, at any rate.

Bloody Moon (1981)

Thought it was time for a bit of Tio Jess, and an authentic video nasty to boot (it was also banned in Germany until as recently as last year, per IMDB)… by my count I have now seen 19 Jess Franco films, which many would say is 19 too many; this was his contribution to the early slasher trend, and it was actually kind of instructive watching this after Terrifier cos I can see just how far low budget gore effects have come since Franco made this. The setpiece killing involves the “saw of death” of the German title, and it’s fucking ridiculous; I know Franco was working on minimal budgets even for that time, but still, Damien Leone could probably have whipped up something ten times more realistic for just spare change… anyway, the setting is a young women’s language school, where one of the resident staff is a deeply scarred (mentally and physically) young man who killed one of the students there five years earlier. Could he be responsible for the mysterious killings happening now that he’s back? Or is he just a rank red herring? Bloody Moon is shittily written and performed even by Franco standards, and the dubbing is awful even for that time; if you know enough about Franco’s films to imagine what a Franco slasher might be, you’d probably envisage something like this and be correct. Although Franco does inject a bit more interest into the formula with an incest sub-angle and a child getting killed along the way too (alas, there’s also what I feel certain was an actual animal killing too… ugh)… I will give the film points for casting Olivia Pascal, cos I have a thing for dark-eyed blondes however terribly they’re dubbed, but otherwise… you know, it’s a Jess Franco film, and you probably know what you’re getting into with it. Don’t really know what else to say.