Eurociné, a
name that can induce fear in even the most hardcore sleaze collector - mostly
because the extremely uneven quality and movies that often dares to be so
boring that it's hard to understand without having seen them. It takes some
time to get used to their slow pace, cheap sets and non-existent scripts - some
once in while they strike gold and Exorcism is one of those surprisingly
complex and interesting projects. Without a doubt one of the most personal
movies Jess Franco ever made, so personal it could be a double bill together
with Bo-Arne Vibenius 1975 classic Breaking Point, a movie that shares a
similar gritty and nasty atmosphere. But where Andreas Bellis Bob Bellings just
is an office rat who goes over the boarder of insanity, Jess Franco's adult
author Mathis Vogel has been there for a very long time...
Bored upper
class is enjoying a simulated black mass including a human sacrifice. Something
for the rich and famous to tickle their boring lives and hopefully tickle their
sex-lives even more. But in the background the defrocked priest and now adult
author Mathis Vogel (Uncle Jess himself) is slithering around taking detailed
notes about the masses. He's still a strong believer and wants to save these
poor women from Satan - and the only way to do it is to slaughter them as a
sacrifice to God!
When I
first saw Exorcism many years ago I found it to be a cheap-looking and sloppily
made soft porn thriller - and it still is! But now the flat cinematography and
cheap lightning actually gives the story an aura of even more sleaziness, a
realistic tour de force for Mr Franco and his woman, Lina Romay. In almost
every Franco-review I write I always comes back to the fact that Franco is a
great storyteller, especially if there's a story he cares about and then it
doesn't matter at all of the budget is ultra-low or the sets is falling apart
in the background. In Exorcism he uses the backstreets of Paris , old basements, run-down hotel
corridors like very few others. It's hardly beautiful and the focus is, in many
cases, somewhere else than on the main goal - but the story works and Franco,
who never been a brilliant actor - but very special, fits perfectly in his
tightly buttoned coat and sleazy haircut.
The hook in
Exorcism isn't really the serial killer story, which is very well-made and
nasty, but the look into the minds of the bourgeois who's tired of their
pathetic lives and seeks excitement in live sex-shows with blood and S&M.
The movie starts with one of those shows, but we're not told directly and when
we start to understand that it's just a show we're also understanding that
we're in the same boat as the bored rich - we seek pleasure, but Franco tells
is it just fake and he wants to tell us the real story behind it all - the madness
of Christianity.
I
understand that Exorcism isn't for everyone, but if you can look beyond the
exploitation you'll find a very interesting serial killer drama, a showdown
from Franco's point of view with the people he most of all like to poke fun at:
the fakes and hypocrites, the cowards who chooses the simulated dramas instead
of the real deal.
2 comments:
I love Exorcism, it's a grand piece of trash.
J.
Great review. I almost picked up the Synapse disc a few weeks ago (during a sale on Synapse titles) but skipped it (instead, finishing off my Schoolgirl Report collection). Damn, I wish I had grabbed it now. Next time for sure after reading this post...
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