The Man with the Severed Head (1973)

I've poured a couple of whisky's in my poor, poor body and now I'm gonna try to write a few words about The Man with the Severed Head, aka Crimson. Forgive me if it's incoherent! This is an interesting movie 'cause of several reasons: it stars Paul Naschy, one of my favourite horror stars and it's also produced by Eurociné, the legendary cheapo production company owned and controlled by Marius Lesoeur (and later his son Daniel Lesoeur). They're mostly famous for a couple of extremely cheap Jess Franco production but also the notorious Zombie Lake, a movie poor Jean Rollin directed just because Franco never appeared to do his job!

A band of thieves gets in big trouble after their leader gets a serious brain injury after a failed robbery. To save him they go to a famous surgeon, who happens to don't have any working hands after an accident, to make a god damn brain transplantation! They need a new brain of course and kills some other gangster - who happens to be a raving psychotic - good choice, lads! Anyway, they make the transplant, but of course everything goes wrong!

It has some good parts - but mostly really bad and boring parts. The best thing with the production is the awesome cast, from Paul Naschy in a supporting part and the always excellent Claude Boisson and the reliable character actor Víctor Israel, who also gets killed in the masterpiece Horror Express. Olivier Mathot has a bit of an underwritten role, but he's a welcome presence in any of these movies. The women are there to look pretty and nice, but has very little to do - it's a man's world, as usual.

What's good with The Man with the Severed Head is the brain-transplant part, which is something from an American fifties horror movie or maybe one of Franco's Dr Orloff adventures. It's cheesy and fun and colourful with a cool lab and a lot of unrealistic science explained in very serious ways. The rest is, unfortunately, not that good. This is one of those movies you'll watch because of the cast and nothing else. Well, at least if you're an un-experienced Eurociné-viewer. For us who love, adore and worships this very special production company this is one their most slick and expensive (well, everything is relative)) productions with some really nice cinematography, good directing by Juan Fortuny and a script that holds together, even if nothing much happens.

The biggest disappointment with it is how they take a fun premise and they never do anything good with it. If I did a movie with a brain-transplant I would let the patient run amuck really good and not just run around like a drunk reality soap contestant and not do much more than that. Why not let him roam the French countryside, perform some creative kills and THEN die. Now the final is just a bad episode of some German detective-show.

The Man with the Severed Head is only for us who needs to see either everything starring the talented Paul Naschy or produced by Eurociné. You rest... well, stick around and I'm sure there will be something more interesting for you to watch. 

Frontier(s) (2007)

When I first saw Frontier(s) I didn't think much of it. It reminded me too much of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and all the other similar redneck-slashers. But I liked the style, the visuals, the actors - but then I forgot about it and it wasn't until now I picked it up again, after the mastermind Cinezilla reminded me of it the other day. I can't say it's up there with Inside and Martyrs, two of the best horror movies to ever come from France, but it's still a gritty, violent, dirty and shamelessly exploitative - but with a message - dares to not fancy around the grey zones of morality. This goes a lot further.

Paris is in flames and the riots are spreading after a dangerous right-wing extremist leader won the election. Fascism is nearer than usual and no one is safe. A group of young rioters, several of them Muslims, escapes into the countryside and takes shelter at a weird, old hotel. Soon they realize that it's owned by a family of degenerate right-wingers, Nazis and racists (well, it's all the same to me!) who wants to create, in their own little way, a new breed of Aryans. It's time for our young heroes to hit back before they're killed and eaten!

What the heck, it worked a lot a better now - for several reasons. Lets go back to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper's original classic. What we have there is almost a story where we partly, in a macabre way, is on the side of the killers. For some it's a satire over the working classic hitting back at the spoiled youth. Could be, but I think it's mostly a primitive look at what happens to a country when it's fucked up by right-wing governments, war, cynicism and religion. It's a movie with a message open to discuss. Frontier(s) have a very similar story, but set in the countryside outside of Paris where our victims is a bunch of small-time criminals, protesters and their friends - escaping from the riots and the police and instead of coming to the welcoming arms of hard-working country folks, falls directly into a nest of those Paris don't want to talk about, the racists, the facists, the dark past of France, the neo-Nazis... the evil that everyone ignores because they're cowards.

There's no grey scales here. The nazis, the racists, are the evil ones - and they're directly born from the original Nazis, with ideas and a lifestyle from the source of it all. There's no stupid ways of saying "oh, they're just misunderstood and under-educated blahablaha" - no way, they're fucking evil. Just evil. And that makes Frontier(s) a lot more powerful than the last time. We're living in a Europe which now is rapidly going back the fascism of the thirties and forties and no one seem to care. People are to damn lazy. In the Frontier(s) family we have a cop, we have a old-school Nazi, we have a country-side brute and a bunch of women who do everything to defend their Aryan genes. But at the hands of the people, those who can't accept the rise of the fascism in Europe, there's of course only one way to deal with these people...

Like Samuel Fuller's White Dog there's an ending that leaves no room for forgiveness or understanding, and I'm grateful for that. It's us or them. But hey, that's a lot of politics... and this is mainly a horror movie and one damn brutal one. It's without a doubt one of the most violent French movies I've seen with a huge amount of gore and blood and just very painful beatings and stabbings. It all looks quite good also, even if it's a bit too much after a while - because if you're going to do a splatter movie you need to have a good story to tell also, believe it or not.

That's the only weak thing with Frontier(s), it's too generic. We've seen much of it before and some of the scarier ideas (like what's down there in the underground) is left unexplored an could have been milked even more to boost the horror and not just the violence. It's a good movie with some amazing performances and awesome gore + an interesting, semi-apocalyptic atmosphere. Well worth revisiting!

Blackaria (2010)

Here's a short review, but it's a move you have to see instead of reading this silly text!

A couple of days ago I reviewed François Gaillard and Christophe Robin's Last Caress, and I was very impressed. Well, until I saw Blackaria - and then I got even more impressed! What we have here is a full-blown, story-wise, perfect tribute to an Italian giallo. The big and major difference between this and Last Caress is that Blackaria looks cheaper - but also feels more like a real movie and not just a series of very cool murder-sequences stitched together with a very thin, red thread of pretend-o-story.

A young woman is having visions and dreams of people - and herself getting killed by a wild-eyed woman. She's convinced she will be the last victim when the killer appears in real life, slashing her way through the cast!

That's it. I don't want to write more, but the story is actually more complex than this with some excellent touches of Dario Argento, Brian De Palma and mindfuck-thrillers like Roman Polanski's Repulsion and The Tenant. The absence of a nice country villa and apartments instead makes it looks cheaper, plus the photography has not the same sharpness - could be shot on DV and the other one is shot in HD? What makes it strong is the wonderful, simple script with the most necessary. No silly storylines of padding or boring romance.

Interesting enough I think the acting is better in this film than Last Caress, it feels more natural and I guess it's because there's more to work with for the actors. The woman playing the killer looks like a fucked-up, crazy, Daria Nicolodi and her killer-look is absolutely fabulous! They couldn't have done it better in seventies!

Blackaria also boasts a lot of violent, graphic killings. Most of them echoes Lucio Fulci with extreme nastiness (including, of course, a slit eye and even some violence against a breast). But the surroundings, the set-ups, feels a lot more like Argento. The effects also look very good, like from the golden age of gialli, filmed with style and talent.

Both Last Caress and Blackaria is extremely good and well-made tributes to our favourite genre, and the DVD release from Njuta Films is a MUST! You can buy it a Diabolik DVD for example, if you live outside Sweden. And yes, there's English subs!

Last Caress (2010)

I've wished to see a good, talented tribute to the Italian horrors of the 70's, for a long time now. Matthew Saliba's short movie Amy's in the Attic failed miserably and I kinda gave up hope after that - until I, earlier this year, saw the trailer for Last Caress and Blackaria and my pulse started to beat a little bit faster. 

Now Njuta Films has released an excellent package - Last Caress, Blackaria, two short movies ( Die Die My Darling and Under the Blade) plus the splendid soundtrack! And it also have English subs for those who's not familiar with the ancient language for Swedish! Today I've watched Last Caress and what's it all about? Not much really, but who the frakk cares!

In a scene similar to the opening sequence in Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (and Blood and Black Lace) one character is killed after murdering another character and the story is on. A man wearing sunglasses and a spiked metal glove breaks into a country villa, on the hunt for a mysterious painting. Shortly after four victims... eh, characters, arrives for a weekend of booze, sex and occultism. The man with the sunglasses starts killing everyone off in his hunt for the painting and a chance to meet someone from the past...

Last Caress is more or less a series of extremely cool murder set-pieces. Yeah, that's it. And I love it. It's probably the most relaxing movie I've seen in a long time, with gorgeous (and sometimes sloppy) photo, a bit uneven editing and actors that's very natural in one scene and extremely stiff in one. But that's how it is with very small, cheap, indie-movies. Directors François Gaillard and Christophe Robin knows what the giallo-fans want and packs the story with references and stylish sets. The blood is flowing, the gore is graphic and there's enough nudity for everyone who might appreciate it.

Honestly, this is neither a technical or artistic masterpiece, but it works surprisingly and the strong passion and love for the genre is there. Compared to Swedish indie-movies here we have actors or actually works with their characters and understands it's a movie and not reality, but the French has always had a different approach to art and understand it to the fullest. To create a giallo-mode isn't only about light the wall in the background with red and green, it's about flow and editing, the choice of actors and themes like art and culture.

I wish someone could give these awesome filmmakers a bigger budget and give them time to construct a more complex, but not less bloody, story. They are worth it, we in the audience are worth it. So go on, invest in them!

Blue Rita (1977)

Jess Franco is back on Ninja Dixon. I wrote about a week ago that I wouldn't write any new Franco-reviews for a while, but here he is again. The reason is that when I'm very down the works of Franco is the best movies to make me feel better again. I've never been interested in Blue Rita mostly because I thought was a normal softcore romp without any redeeming qualities, but when I finally started to read more about it I saw that it's actually more fun than I first though. Produced by the Erwin C. Dietrich (and according to some sources Robert de Nesle also), Blue Rita is a fun little spy-thriller behind all that sleaze and nudity...

At the Blue Rita Bar there's a secret organization lead by Blue Rita (Martine Fléty) and her team of lesbian strippers/killers. They lure important politicians, journalists and other power-hungry men to their bar to drug and torture them, only to get their money and secrets - the latter something they can sell to other countries to the highest bid. Oh, she torture the men by exposing them to a chemical that makes them absurdly horny and then she teases them with her women! But what she don't know is that there's a spy among them, a female Interpol agent who's there to expose their dirty business!

Blue Rita was a big surprise. I still can't say its a masterpiece or anything, but here we have a fun and tongue-in-cheek thriller set in an extremely stylish (but cheap, like everything else in this film) bar and a script that's not just humping, but has a few fun twists. The set design and visual approach from Uncle Jess feels like one of this more kitchy 60's films, like The Girl from Rio - but instead of an exotic country and lots of locations we have here a very grey Paris and a couple of glittering plywood sets. Even of the script was more than I expected it to be this is more of an adventure in style than anything else. The sex-room, for example, is painted totally white with only transparent, blow-up furniture! Only in the mind of Jess Franco.

Expect a lot of boobs, ass and pussy from the female actors, but also some dicks and ass from the not-so-attractive male cast. I must confess I have a soft spot for Eric Falk, the tall karate-freak that did a lot of sleaze during the seventies and early eighties. He's probably most famous or his hilarious performance as the nudy, karate-kicking nazi-biker in Mad Foxes. In that one he acts like he's gonna die tomorrow, but he's not bad at all in Blue Rita. He's also in the most stylish scene in the whole film, when he and his bodyguards visits a Eastern European restaurant and it all ends with a fun fight outside.

I've read at least one review of this movie that claims that Franco has very little talent when it comes to staging action sequences, and yes, I can agree on that. The odd thing is that the action in this movie, while very short and not so spectacular, isn't bad at all. Especially the fight outside the restaurant and some of the shooting at the end. It's simple yes, but it also works better than a lot of unnecessary editing.

Blue Rita is a lot more fun than you could imagine. It's a nice sleaze-movie with a fun cast and lots of cool sets and clothes. It's shallow and stupid, but made with passion and love for the art of cinematic storytelling - even if the budget wasn't there to help out in the end. 

Sinner - Diary of a Nymphomaniac (1973)

This starting to sound very repetitive, but Sinner - Diary of a Nymphomaniac is yet another film by Jess Franco that literary stunned me with it's quality. Made for the same producer as Countess Perverse, another fine movie, this Robert de Nesle production is totally opposite when it comes to atmosphere and concept. Countess Perverse is a stylish, comic-book, sleaze-movie and Sinner is another dark, strongly sexual drama that feels very personal. After the death of Soledad Miranda it seems like Franco changed his viewpoint on filmmaking for a couple of years, the stories got more serious and darker, maybe even more depressing, but also a lot more personal.

I don't want to reveal so much about Sinner and how it begins, but it's a brilliant way to start a movie and sets up for a downbeat story about a young girl's descent into a living hell. Linda (Montserrat Prous) arrives to Alicante from a small village, with ponytails and an innocent, childish dress. She drifts around in town until a man starts to follow her, and it ends with him sexually abusing her in a Ferris wheel! Soon after she ends up as the lover of Countess Anna de Monterey (Anne Libert) and her spirals into a mess of sex and drugs... soon she can't take it anymore and plans a revenge on the man that once raped her...

Sinner feels so modern, so fresh. It feels like one of those French indie movies, very arty, but never loosing it's grip around the exploitation parts of the story. The beginning, especially, is among the best I've seen in a Franco movie. One sequence is a loooong take of a man following Linda, handheld camera, in the middle of the unsuspecting crowds. It ends in the Ferris wheel and a beautiful edited sequence that shows nothing - but tells it all. Its rare, I think, to see a morality tale from Uncle Jess, but here it is - the dangers of sex and drugs, without getting annoying or stupid. It's just Franco's way to tell this kind of story.

There's a lot of nudity and sex in Sinner, which doesn't come as a surprise, but I must say that the most impressive thing is the fine performances Franco gotten from his actors this time. It's easy to sleep yourself through a sexploitation movie, but everyone from Montserrat Prous as Linda to Howard Vernon in a very edgy performance as a sleazy hippie-doctor makes very impressive jobs. Manuel Pereiro, who plays the unlucky Mr Ortiz, gives his character some depth and layers, instead of the normal sleazebag any other hack would transform him to.

Sinner is one of those oddities that's hard to set a specific genre on, but I would say it's a dark drama and one of the finest I've seen from Mr Franco. The DVD from Mondo Macabro also makes the glorious cinematography by Gérard Brisseau shine, in all it's brown and yellow shades, very seventies and very "here". It very rarely feels like a movie, more a very intimate documentary about a fucked-up life.

This is another movie that once again proofs the genius and talent of Jess Franco and I urge you all to buy it and support both the legacy of Franco and Mondo Macabro, the distributor. 

Ninja Dixon Talks: Commando Mengele (1987)

My first - and maybe only - audio review! And of course I had to talk about one of my favorite flicks, Andrea Bianchi's Commando Mengele! Hope you like it. If I'm not too crappy I might do it again :)

Les Documents Interdits (1989-1991)

Here you have something very interesting and the cause of some controversy even today. Les Documents Interdits (The Forbidden Files) is 12 (and later 13) pieces of film and video collected by filmmaker Jean-Teddy Filippe between 1986 and 1989, all dealing with the unexplained and the paranormal. My partner G saw some of these on Polish TV during the end of the eighties and was really scared and if you search the internet for the address 1036 Sun Ave you will still find discussions about the mystery behind the footage.

The thing is, of course, that everything is fake. A complete hoax conducted by Filippe to show what a powerful medium television is and how easy it is to plant "fact" into the viewers. This was officially declared when the 13th episode was released in 2010, if I've gotten the facts correct. So what the hell is this? This is something you should experience, preferably after the night has entered, maybe alone or with someone dear to you.

It starts with 12 episodes, both found footage and documentaries. We witness a man rise from the water and kidnap a diver, we see a man living without food on a life boat waiting for something, filming his life trying to survive. We see a man visiting a friend and going out in the desert where something makes contact. A wonderful documentary tells the story about Tibor Nagy, who with the help of a UFO, travelled the moon with his car. Cyborgs in Russia, a ghost hunt who goes wrong, live on TV. Episodes telling us about the unexplainable.

Les Documents Interdits is so well made. We're travelling all over the world, in several languages, sometimes the stories seem connected - sometimes not. The water, people who disappears into nothing and SCAR (an organization) comes back from time to time, like an outerworldly conspiracy. Sometimes it's funny and absurd, like the Russian cyborg who get stuck with his hand in a window - or touching like with the aged Tibor Nagy and his trip to the moon. The older episodes is eerie and strange, almost too intimate to look at. Personal tragedies that can't be explained.

This is without a doubt a project that's well before it's time. Sure, you had Cannibal Holocaust, Zelig and Spinal Tap - but this is very far away from these very cinematic experiences. This is the first time we see something that The Blair Witch Project later tried to do, with maybe the exception of the UK TV-movie Alternative 3. Jean-Teddy Filippe also succeeds with doing this because he never fails to let his ego win. There's not credits, not "Look what a fucking brilliant filmmaker I am!"-bullshit. This is hardcore found footage the way it should be.

I'm not saying everyone's gonna like this. It's a bit arty and very weird, especially the first episodes, very "French" if you know what I mean? The second batch of episodes seem to have a higher budget, they seems more planned and with a clear idea behind. This is both good and bad. There's masterpieces like The Madman at the Crossroads and The Ferguson Case, and less focused stuff like The Extraterrestrial. From the first episodes I would say The Witch and Ghosts stands out like stunning pieces in the found footage genre.

The 13th episode, The Examination, is out on Arte's homepage, but I haven't seen it yet. They say it's the beginning of a new season after all these years. So I'm saving it for that perfect lonely night when I need to get really fucked up before sleep.

Maybe tomorrow? Maybe next year. I don't know people, I don't know...

The Countess X (1976)

In-between his personal projects Jean Rollin directed several hardcore movies, mostly under the name of Michel Gentil. It's difficult to review a pure porn movie. I'm not watching stuff like this because I think it's exciting (and it's obviously aimed at a straight audience anyway), but Rollin is still Rollin and it's very interesting to see how he tackles something so generic and boring as a normal porn movie. Not very different than most other porn directors it seems, because it the only way it differs from the rest of the world is the language, and speaking French in a movie always makes it more natural and interesting - at least listening to!

Rachel Mhas plays a thief that takes the identity of the mysterious Countess X that no one has seen. She infiltrates a swingers party, drops some chemicals in the champagne that makes everyone extremely horny and looses interesting in anything else than sex. One man sees her putting the poison in the drinks and pours out his own champagne to be able to see what she plans to do. And of course, while everything is fucking she starts stealing the jewellery - and that's the story.

Cock. Vagina. Sex. Anal. Juicy close-ups. Gegghål. Sperm. Vaginas. Anal, sucking, licking, fucking and everything in-between. It's porn. What do you expect? I mean, this is like every other porn movie - low on story, high on disgusting close-ups. Forget that porn from the seventies was classy and tasteful, this is like a shot-on-video Mega Boobies 22 epic. Not that I've seen such a thing, but you know what I mean.

But still, this is Rollin and his talent is still visible among all the hair and sperm-eating. First of all we have that wonderful cinematography that I always thinks is brilliant in Rollin's movies. It's cheaper and nastier here, but it's beautiful. It's arty (except those close-ups) and naturalistic. Prepare for handheld camera, sometimes slightly out of focus and soft, stunning lighting. I could look at this kind of quality for hours. The directing is quite...how shall I put it? Free? Yeah, free. Some actors, not prepared when the camera comes, looks right at us, dialogue is probably adlibbed directly on the one single take that they needed for most of the scenes. I doubt this took more than two days to film.

What's more interesting is the interview included on the DVD. It's an honest and very fascinating talk with actor Alain Plumey (aka Cyril Val) who talks about his career in the porn business during those eight years he acted. The interview is filmed at the museum he owns and is the curator at, Museumof Eroticism at 72 Boulevard de Clichy in Paris. I never been in "Le Gay Paris", but now I have two places to visit there: this museum and the catacombs underneath the city!

Okey, who am I kidding? I have no idea what more to write about The Countess X. It's a must for fans of Jean Rollin and those that appreciates sex movies from the seventies - and great for us this is just out on a very nice-looking DVD from Njuta Films in Sweden. It also have English subs, so for you pervs outside Scandinavia - there's not excuse for not buying this!

Night of the Hourglass (2007)

In 2004 Salvation Films wrote this on their homepage: "Rollin says that his days are numbered. I don’t mean by that that Rollin is going to die tomorrow, but that he is going to die sooner rather than later, and because of this he is putting his affairs in order and tying up lose ends". In the same text his next movie is mentioned, titled "Transfiguration of the Night", "a dark, beautifully macabre, and in the circumstances, very poignant film. To be shot in France and Florence, and featuring the stunning and very special actress Ovidie, it promises to be a very surprising swansong to Rollin’s career."

In 2007 Night of the Hourglass came and delivered the promises above, a perfect swansong (he actually made one more movie, The Mask of Medusa - read an excellent review here) connected to his whole life, especially his cinematic life, starring French porn actress Ovidie. It took me a few years to see it, but today - five years after its released I finally took the time to see it. I felt it was something that could wake me up from the darkness, from the constant depressions that plagues my mind. I won't bother with explaining the story, it's not necessary. Night of the Hourglass is all about nostalgia, but that kind of good nostalgia that doesn't shy away from what Rollin's life was all about: telling stories. Ovidie walks through the french countryside, looking for the dead director Michel Jean (without being in the movie, Jean Rollin himself), but instead of finding him she's meeting his characters, those ghosts, vampires and oddities that inhabits his world.

We're meeting Dominique, Jean-Loup Philippe, Natalie Perrey, Françoise Blanchard and others from Rollin's past, now aged, but intercut with they young versions of themselves, from that time when everything seemed impossible. Familiar locations, props and houses appears. It's very nostalgic, but never to that point of crying and sobbing. Rollin was here well aware of his illness and obviously decided to treat his future death in a very straight way. Like he wanted everyone, including himself, to accept that this is the way it is, that damn life. In the last scene Ovidie is walking around, after burning the clock that leads to Rollin's world, and we hear a voice over how hard it is to find Rollin's grave, like it's almost lost. Maybe just a mystery like the world he created for so many years. This reminded me of Mr J's fantastic post about his search for Rollin's final resting place, a must read.

Night of the Hourglass is for the fans, those who appreciated and supported Rollin over the years. It's pure love towards us all that cared. It's also a sign of respect to his amazing crew and cast that followed him on his adventures since the late sixties. One actress, who I can't identify, also tells a story that she was in one of his first movies, a lost movie, as a girl stepping into a train. I love details like that. And I love the love that these actors and actresses is giving Rollin by participating.

Interesting enough he never visits the beach, "his" beach. It's visible in footage from his old movies, but there's no new footage from it. But they're talking about it, and Ovidie gets the opportunity to visit the beach by stepping inside the clock - but she refuses.

...And the beach continues to be a fairy tale, a place we only can visit in real life - outside the movies. I will, one day. I promise.

To drink a glass of red wine to the honour of Jean Rollin.

Dr. Orloff's Monster (1964)

There's no Dr Orloff in Dr. Orloff's Monster, but still the sinister Dr Fisherman (Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui) delivers a new diabolical experiment for our pleasure. Many years ago he found his wife in bed together with his brother, and he killed his rival and transformed him to a Karloff-esque killer-zombie/mind-controlled freak! Why? I'm not sure, but probably some kinda revenge and to kill helpless showgirls in the nearby villages! One day his daughter in law (Agnès Spaak) comes to visit. She's never seen her father, but soon understand that's something is terribly wrong in the spooky castle mansion and the now constant drunk wife of Dr Fisherman, Ingrid (Luisa Sala), clearly wants to tell her the truth... if she's not stopped first!

Except a crazy scientist this has nothing to do with the Orloff-mythology, but the story and settings - and more or less everything - reminds us of Orloff. The only thing missing is Howard Vernon as our favorite antagonist and instead the competent, but less charismatic, Jess Franco-veteran Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui and his huge beard puts in a good performance as the crazy doctor. He's showed up in more than a few of Franco's work from this time, but often in smaller parts - and I'm not totally sure he works 100 % in such a big part.

The script is well-written and works fine, but is a bit too generic and never comes up in the earlier levels of craziness Franco and Orloff. Hugo Blanc as Andros, the mind-controlled zombie gives us an excellent performance and is eerie and spooky and even looks kinda scary with his static movements and plastic-looking face. With his black polo the comparison with Karloff as Frankenstein's monster isn't far away and the fact is that Andros is a more complex character than I first could imagine. I especially like his interactions with his daughter, which is very tender and beautifully shot.

Ah, and Uncle Jess is in the movie also, as usual - this time in one of his favourite parts, a piano player, this time blind and getting killed by the monster!

In a way Dr. Orloff's Monster is one of those less personal movies from Franco, even if it's very similar to earlier works. Almost like the producers, Eurociné (called Eurocineac in the credits) in this case just made an order of an Orloff-like movie and Franco never put his whole heart into the projects.

But it's a well-made thriller with some surprisingly graphic nudity and nice set-pieces when the zombie is killing showgirls and creating havoc in a club. The cinematography, direction and editing is as usual top-notch. It's just the passion that's lacking.

Exorcism (1979)

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.

The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966)

Me watching a Jess Franco movie often ends in a huge amount of superlatives. I always seen Franco has a master storyteller and depending on the budget the visual style of the movie differs from century to century. The sixties was a fantastic period on Franco's career. He churned out semi-gothic classics, kitchy spy adventures and sleazy dramas like there was no tomorrow. The Diabolical Dr. Z very effectively follows his adventures with Dr Orloff and Baron Von Klaus, feels like a spin-off to Orloff - the character is mentioned and his scientific work as a surgeon is used in one of the twists.  But Franco pulls off a great and original twist, worthy of Hitch - and beware of spoilers - Dr Z is just a MacGuffin, it's his daughter that we should focus on.

Yes, the Diabolical Doctor Zimmerman (Antonio Jiménez Escribano in a deliciously over-the-top yet sensitive performance) dies quite fast, just after showing us one brutal human experiment. His daughter Irma (Mabel Karr) decides to take revenge on the people responsible for his death and fakes her death and uses his technology to take control over her maid and a serial killer the good doctor earlier took control of. But the final masterpiece is Miss Muerte (Estella Blain), an exotic dancer with long sharp nails who can lure the stupid men into Irma's trap!!!

There's absolutely nothing bad with this movie. I've said it before, way too many times, but when Franco had the resources he created something very similar to perfection, without getting pretentious and boring like Kubrick. He mixed his favourite exploitation themes (female revenge, surgery gone bad, Orloff) with a stunningly beautiful and arty thriller. The set-pieces is nothing short of spectacular and the kills are similar to what the Italians did in the seventies, but not as gory of course. Shadows and light, rapid editing and a clever use of music makes this one stand out from the rest of the bunch. The most impressive sequence is the fist-fight between Philippe (Fernando Montes) and Hans Bergen (Guy Mairesse), which stats in the basement in a fantastic one-take fight through a long corridor, and then cuts and goes up into the mansion. If I ever make a movie again I will steal that idea, and it will make be rich sooner or later.

I often hear complains about the acting talent of Franco. As usual, because I'm Fred and I'm Ninja Dixon at the same time, I can't agree on this. Here Franco has a quite big part, as one of the polices trying to solve the murders and makes a great team together with composer Daniel White as Inspector Green. Boy, they seem to have a lot of fun and it shows - both on them and the resulting movie and wonderful jazzy score.

Masterpiece is a word I use all to often, and I'm gonna use it again here. Because The Diabolical Dr. Z IS a masterpiece, (another) one of Franco's fantastic movies from the years that some people claim was his best. I can't agree on that either - that the sixties was his best - but this is a masterpiece.

See, I used "masterpiece" no less than three times in that last paragraph. It's worth it, believe me.

Il était une fois le diable - Devil Story (1985)

From Sheep Tapes comes Devil Story, which probably is the weirdest and stranges horror movie ever to come from France. Or horror, it's hardly scary. Just filled with odd scenes directed by Bernard "One Take" Launois, bound together with the thinnest red thread I've ever seen. It's pure insanity and the best way is describe this movie is to use that word and make everything so much clearer:

Incredible strange.

Not enough gore, but still OK.

Shabby editing.

A man shooting at a horse for half the movie?

Not especially smart story.

I never got bored.

Total madness.

You need this movie!

Yeah, you need it. Buy it here or barf blood for three minutes! And if you want to barf blood for three minutes and still don't want to buy the movie, I predict your thumbs will jump to the wrong side of the hand. Like in the movie.

Have a nice day.

Esmeralda Bay (1989)

After a series of hardcore movies and obscurities that never seem to have seen the light of day Jesus Franco was on the go again with several movies with bigger budgets and bigger stars, Faceless, Fall of the Eagles and finally Esmeralda Bay. Eagles and Bay is typical Eurociné productions, but with a more ambitious feeling. Maybe they had a richer financer in the background somewhere, who also demanded more for the money. I know "real" Jess Franco fans tends to dislike Franco's more commercials projects, but I think they are excellent proof for what an excellent storyteller Franco was. Sometimes mainstream is needed to show us that part of a filmmakers talent.

It's actually quite similar to Fall of the Eagles, but set in the fictional country of Puerto Santo. We follow businessman Wilson (George Kennedy), who deals weapons with the local rebels and Robert Forster as Madero, the leader of the military police on the island. In the middle is the good-hearted banana republic-president Ramos (Fernando Rey) and the rebels, among them Ramon Estevez and Brett Halsey, all fighting for their own cause. The Americans want the military crushed and have planted their own under cover agents in the middle of this little war, and everything leads to the battle of Esmeralda Bay...

I have to admit that it's a bit boring in the beginning, but as soon as the intrigues starts Esmeralda Bay becomes an involving thriller-drama with some nice stock footage action at the end. In smaller parts we have Lina Romay (and she's excellent as the pathetic mistress of Madero), Antonio Mayans and Daniel Grimm, all doing great jobs with the material they have. George Kennedy is a pro, and so also Forster (who works together with his name-nemesis, "Robert Foster" - aka Antonio Mayans) who have a lot fun and energy has the intensive military leader.

Franco is an obvious hired gun here, to lead the ship to harbour in time (which he also does in the movie, in a cameo as captain of a boat) and make the producers happy. But with the time and money he had, and a great cast, he also delivers a good - if a bit generic - war drama with gorgeous cinematography and - for once - real squibs (Eurociné have a tendency to prefer non-squib shootings in most of their movies). There's really no depth in the story, but it's easy to see where Franco put his talent - in the drama parts. Few other movies can have so boring dialogues and still be interesting to watch.

Esmeralda Bay is out on a good-looking Spanish DVD, fullscreen and with English dub. It's cheap and worth buying.

Fall of the Eagles (1989)

I'm a man of emotions. I can't stand people who actually know something more about a filmmaker than the filmmaker himself. When it comes to Jess Franco there's an interesting and recurring opinion that some of Franco's movies are not Franco at all, but just something he did because he got a big pay check. Well, fuck you all. Franco has always mixed an artistic sensibility with crass commercialism. Why do you think he zoomed his camera to every pussy in the frame? He probably liked it himself, but he (and his producers) also knew that pussy sells tickets. It's that simple. So when Franco directed some of his more mainstream productions, like Bloody Moon or Faceless (both excellent movies, especially the latter) certain fans just couldn't stand that he did something that even a normal horror fan could appreciate. I tell you know and for the first and last time, Franco's style hasn't changed much at all. Faceless is as much Franco as The Awful Dr. Orlof, and even Franco considers Faceless to me a full-blown Franco-movie! That brings me to Fall of the Eagles, a Eurociné-produced WW2-drama released in 1989. A movie that has been blamed for not being Franco enough for years. Let me tell you, that's as wrong as it can be.

Not that the story in Fall of the Eagles is something special, but it has a few interesting ideas. First of all, it's set in a storyline where Germans are the "heroes". I mean, there's good Germans and there's bad Germans as usual, but even the baddies has a lot of character and are multi-layered in a way that an American filmmaker never could have done it. Like several of Umberto Lenzi's WW2 movies this is also about the war coming and splitting up friends and enemies all over Europe, and how they deal with the war, love and politics. The main patriarch is the old businessman Walter Strauss (Christopher Lee) and his talented daughter Lillian (Alexandra Ehrlich) who decides to do her duty for the Fatherland and joins the much to the dismay of her father, who are a convinced Nazi, but don't want her to sacrifice her life. His best friend is an open-minded woman, Lena (Teresa Gimpera) who maybe, maybe not, transforms his life when something is happening. Lillian is in a love-triangle with the young and optimistic soldier Karl Holbach (Ramon Estevez) and SS officer Peter Froehlich (Mark Hamill), but ditches them both to do her part in the war....

Like always, Franco is a drama-director and he's not that really interested in the war itself, only what it can do with people. And to my surprise, because I was fooled by the negative words, this is a very nice drama, directed with Jess Franco's same talent for subtle character-developments and gorgeous cinematography by Jean-Jacques Bouhon (who also shot Faceless). I love how Franco let the faces talk, for example the last ironic scene when Lillian is staring empty in front of her while the cigarette smoke of American soldiers caresses her face. Fall of the Eagles is just one part silly WW2 film, but the bulk of it is traditional European arthouse-drama with an intelligent deconstructing of the German family, not necessary in a negative way, because we're talking humans here. Not Spielbergian stereotypes.

Another interesting detail is Captain Anton (Daniel Grimm), a gay Nazi officer who actually is damn nice and wants to make good - but fate wants something else. His homosexuality is discussed very shortly and he's a bit upset that a woman calls him queer, because he's can't approve of such a degrading word of what he is. "I'm just a nice guy pretending to be bad because no one respects a nice guy." Another tragedy of war, but in a smaller scale.

There's not nudity, but if you aren't lazy and willing to dissect the movie you will find it's a lot of Franco-esque undertones. From the frail love-triangle, the father that refuses - not something you would see in a Hollywood-movie - to abandon his believes in the Arian race, the deathbed-marriage, the nightclub-singing and a lone Nazi playing organ in a church. Just those small poetic moments that Franco is a master of. But this is also commercial war-movie, but I think all war-scenes are lifted from other movies (among them scenes that also showed up in Franco's Oasis of the Zombies), but are edited into the newly shot footage in a good way. If you're not used to European exploitation or having basic knowledge in film stock and editing you would probably never notice the change of quality or rhythm in the editing.

The actors are also very good, especially Christopher Lee who makes an amazing performance - maybe the best he's ever done with Franco and probably the best he did during this part of his career. A surprise is Ramon Estevez, Charlie Sheen's older brother, who makes a fine job as the young ambitious German soldier. Mark Hamill, an old favorite of me, is good to - but it makes me wonder how the hell he could go from Star Wars to Eurociné in just a couple of years? Either it was a conscious choice or he just had a very bad agent.

Fall of the Eagles is released in the Czech Republic under the title Pád Orlů, and it's a good and cheap DVD. Slightly letterboxed, often good colour and sharpness. Probably taken directly from Eurociné's master-tape. Hardly BD quality, but well worth buying (for example from here!).

Attack of the Robots (1966)

Here's a fine little movie, Attack of the Robots, directed in 1966 by maestro Uncle Jess Franco and starring the one and only Eddie Constantine (and a cameo from his son, Lemmy Constantine also). Made during the big spy-craze during the sixties when every company wanted their own Bond-style movie. Attack of the Robots makes references to Bond and is well aware of what it's suppose to be, but it's not only a fun Bondish action movie, it's a seriously good movie who should be seen by much more people out there, not only fans of Franco.

Eddie Constantine is Al Pereira, a secret agent and an ex-alcoholic who lives a nice life pretending not to be a secret agent any more. Until a dangerous crime organization led by Sir Percy (Fernando Rey) sends out robot-esque assassins to kill the worlds most important leaders in politics, religion and other unnecessary bastards. They aren't really robots, but controlled with an electronic device in their glasses and it's all connected to their blood type. So Al Pereira is sent to Spain to investigate, and is directly contacted - a bit brutal - by a Chinese crime organization who also wants to get the technology to control people. Soon Al is hunted by the Chinese, the Spaniards and his own bosses wanting him to close the case once and for all!

Witty and charming are two of the words I could use to describe this movie. Other words are "great looking", "funny" and "tongue-in-cheek". This is, much like The Girl from Rio, a movie that spoofs the spy-genre and do both with respect and with comedic perfection. Franco and his co-writer, Jean-Claude Carrière, plays with every cliché in the book and do it so well. My favourite scene is when Pereira is presented the gadgets, an exploding umbrella, electric gloves, exploding cigar, a flute that could crush glass with it's sound and he just looks scared, because every gadget is so damn dangerous for him also! Another fine scene is a send-up on the typical "arriving to a new country with postcard-stock footage on the beautiful city" which here ends in Pereira only finding an packed tourist-bus with extremely dirty windows, which shows us nothing for the beautiful scenery outside. It's like a scene from a Marx Brothers movie!

But Attack of the Robots it's not just fun and games, there's a lot of nice fistfights, and some more advanced fighting from the "robots", especially when they meet the Chinese in Pereira's hotel room where both gangs are set to kill or kidnap him. This also ends in a scene where our hero needs to hide dead bodies from a sexy woman trying to seduce him.

And yes, of course Uncle Jess makes a cameo as a jazz-pianist. Important detail!

The movie was shot on a low budget but looks great and has a lot of action, stunts, comedy and fun actors and it never gets boring. A very competent movie and another proof of Franco's skills as a storyteller. The only way to see Attack of the Robots, except old video tapes, is the DVD-R from Sinister Cinema. It's taken from a 16 mm print and looks good, but is heavily cropped on the sides - but it almost seems like Franco have that in mind because it still looks good even if some of the shots are a bit cramped. This is clearly visible in the credits, but except that it's a good way to see the movie.

Ten Little Indians (1974)

Harry Allan Towers produced three versions of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, and in 1974 he made this version using the exact same script as the 1965 version, just changing the setting to the Iranian desert. I’ve also been waiting a long time to get a chance to see this movie. It was released a couple of years ago in the UK, but I just waited a bit longer and a little while ago Swedish company Studio S released it. Most reviews I’ve read over the years told us to stay away from this boring piece of shit. This just made my interest even stronger, and I’m happy to say that it’s not as bad as some people have claimed before. It’s just not very exciting.

Not surprising, the same bunch of characters arrives to another location, this time a luxury mansion far out in the Iranian desert. What makes them special is that they are a fantastic collection of great character actors: Oliver Reed, Maria Rohm, Gert Fröbe, Adolfo Celi, Charles Aznavour, Richard Attenborough. Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom and the voice of Orson Welles! They are lured there by the mysterious Mr U.N. Owen (get it, Unknown) who accuses all of them of murder. And whenever one of those silly Indian statues are found broken, someone is being killed… you know the story, and you probably also know the killer if you seen one of the other versions!

But I won’t reveal who’s the killer, I promise.

So, as usual I bring you the good stuff first – because that’s the most important. I never review movies I totally dislike, that’s just a waste of time for be and for you. What’s good is the gorgeous setting, which looks and feels impressive and fits the story excellent. I was afraid it would be to far-fetched (I like scary, deserted islands like in the original story) but the spooky mansion and the wilderness around it worked perfectly here. Peter Collinson is a good director, and crafts a competent thriller around a script that delivers very little surprises. He also shy’s away from the violence and gore, something that this movie would have needed to be something special.

But if you can live with the generic execution you will find Ten Little Indians to be a good little mystery (which unfortunately uses the Agatha Christie-scripted happy ending that was used in the stage version) with a fucktastic cast! I mean, this the highlight of the movie. Adolfo Celi, one of the finest of Italian character actors, Gert Fröbe and Herbert Lom, Attenborough plus a younger hotter cast: Oliver Reed (not sensational, but good), the beautiful Maria Rohm and the awesome Elke Sommer. It’s a cast for film nerds and only this will make this a recommendation from me.

I shouldn’t forget the great score by Bruno Nicolai either! I wonder if this is released on CD? Talking about the music, even Charles Aznavour gets his own song number (which is not surprising, because that’s what he is – a singer). Felt old-fashioned in a good way.

To be honest, if you want to see a brilliant verson of Ten Little Indians watch the Soviet version from 1987, Desyat Negrityat (my review). That’s a very faithful adaptation, maybe the only version 100% true to Christie’s original vision. But until then, this one delivers cozy entertainment for Saturday mornings and that day you need to stay home because of a nasty cold.

Deep in the Woods (2000)

Made some years before the big French horror-boom, Lionel Delplanque’s Deep in the Woods is almost forgotten. Could be because the international distributors successfully hid it under a generic slasher-campaign and dumped it directly on DVD. The lack of the excessive gore that made the French famous is also probably one reason for this movie to be hidden away from the horror fans. But it still is one gorgeous movie, violent and with more Giallo-vibes than slasher!

A young troupe of actors is invited to a secluded castle belonging to millionaire Axel de Fersen (François Berléand). They’re there to perform for the grandchild of de Fersen, an autistic boy named Nicolas (Thibault Truffert). The only one else in the castle is Stephané (Denis Lavant), the slightly perverted handyman. Obviously something is wrong and after Nicolas stabs himself with a fork, the evening is over and everyone resides to their rooms. Except the killer, who finds the wolf-costume used in the play and starts killing them one by one…

This sounds like normal slasher-routine, and to a point it is. But the visuals are so stunning, the kinder trauma leading up the murders is nasty and the atmosphere is very European. The killings are more stylish than gory, even if everything is quite graphic of course. I love the way Delplanque uses the Red Riding Hood-theme, from small details like the doll that is important to the killer, to the play that the actors are performing. The killer is dressed like the wolf, and it has a very fairy tale-style. Mystic, almost dreamlike.

Not all questions are answered, which for me makes it even better. I don’t like to have everything written in big letters. For example, the police sneaks around the forest looking for a serialrapist/murderer, but it’s never clear if this is one of the characters we meet. Sure, it could be one of them, but it’s never told out loud.

In a cameo we also see Marie Trintignant, the daughter of Jean-Louis Trintignant. Three years later she died, killed either with purpose or by accident by her rockstar-boyfriend, Bertrand Cantat.

An underrated predecessor to the bigger and more popular French horror movies, and it’s a stunning work of horror – maybe not the most violent, or original, but well worthy it’s place among the best of its kind.

Humains, Mutants & Vertige

Three French horror movies saw the light of day during 2009. Not only those three of course, but three that have some similarities and isn’t mentioned so much in the horror community. In a way I can understand why, because neither of them will change the world or French cinema – but at least one of them is very good, and one very bad – and then we have one in between.

First out is Humains, with a very competent cast - Dominique Pinon and Philippe Nahon for example – and a nice concept. Our team of scientists is set out to some remote valley in Swiss to try to find more remains of Neanderthals, to prove that they died much later than everyone thinks. Of course everything gets fucked up after a car crash and our heroes – together with a hiking family – is stuck in the wilderness together with a gang of very alive Neanderthals who just want to have some fun.

This could have been great, but somehow the director and team decided to skip all the gore, make the monsters look like something out of a Disney-movie and also add a not so surprising twist in the end which we’ve seen around one thousand times before. It’s more of an adventure movie, but remove the gore-less kills and you will have a family movie. Pinon and Nahon leads a very competent cast, though they are not the leads – but that, and the amazing location, is the one and only selling point of Humains. Which is a pity, it had a lot of potential.

Mutants is a much more interesting movie. Set after the outbreak (where almost everyone has been infected by some rage-virus and acts like bloodthirsty zombies!) and first we follow a small group people that quickly becomes smaller after a couple of bad choices. In the end there’s a only two people left and they hide out in an old hospital far out in the forest. One of them is bitten…

Here we at least someone who tries to make something new. The outbreak-part of the movie is the same old shit, but instead of focusing on that we’re treated with a bleak and depressing journey to save someone that’s infected – and it ends with a lot of bloodshed and thrills! I don’t want to say to much about Mutants, it’s a good movie but different from the others in a very good way.

Last, but not least, we have Vertige (or High Lane as the English title is). We follow some young folks hiking in the mountains and of course they’re gonna do some dangerous mountain climbing too. But of course something goes wrong and they’re stuck far out in the wilderness with a god damn cannibal chasing them down one after one!

This is feels a lot like a French Wrong Turn, but with mountain climbing and set in Croatia. Now, I like it. It’s far from a bad movie and it’s very well acted and excellent direction. But it has the same problem like for example Dying Breed, we’ve seen it before and it’s getting a bit boring. It’s easy to say what’s gonna happen and that’s of course the only big failure of this movie. The climbing scenes is amazing by the way, and me, who hate heights, it was a true ordeal to get thru those scenes. Not a bad movie, just a bit to generic.

So you all see, three movies set in amazing, fantastic, beautiful landscapes with a few people against Neanderthals, mutants and cannibals. It’s a perfect trio, but in the end very similar to each other. Mutants stick out as the best one and the only one I will recommend to 100 %!