WE ARE THE FLESH -- Movie Review by Porfle

(Originally posted in 2017)

 

Sometimes you finish watching a movie and think, "Well, that was weird."  With WE ARE THE FLESH (2016), you may find yourself saying that after every scene.  Maybe even every single thing that happens in every scene.

The premise is simple--a very strange and twisted man named Mariano (Noé Hernández in gleefully-crazed mode) is up to something very strange and twisted in an abandoned building, and when homeless brother and sister Lucio (Diego Gamaliel) and Maria (Maria Evoli) enter the building seeking food and shelter, they enter into Mariano's world.  What follows is complete and utter madness.

Mariano's madness is expressed verbally through his incessant wild-eyed philosophizing, which lays bare the inner roilings of his squirming id.  Since philosophy and madness can be an unsettling combination, this alone is enough to leave us reeling. 

Fueled by endless exuberance and made manifest with a manic industriousness--in which he forces his two unwilling charges to participate--the result is a nightmare of horror and perversion limited only by a wholly unfettered imagination.

What follows is a dizzying cinematic freefall into the most extreme depths of depravity in which such things as incest and necrophilia are only the start.  This is filmmaking on a subconscious level, with no limits or boundaries. 

The abundant amounts of sex and violence are both graphic and grotesque.  In fact, once this film gets cranked up, very little occurs that isn't shockingly, disturbingly grotesque. 

 

Needless to say, this film is not--I repeat, NOT--for everyone.

Eventually I reached a point where I stopped trying to evaluate WE ARE THE FLESH on a technical level--that this is writer-director Emiliano Rocha Minter's first feature film is something of an artistic marvel--and just found myself trying to endure it.  Most of it is very hard to get through, and I couldn't wait for several of the scenes to end. 

Comparisons to other filmmakers come to mind.  I kept being reminded of the work of Spanish surrealist Fernando Arrabal, whose images are similarly outlandish and disturbing, and that of David Lynch during his willfully strange ERASERHEAD days. 

The joyful reveling in the grotesque also reminded me of PINK FLAMINGOS-era John Waters, while some of the imagery that's just plain out-there seems like it could've been conceived by a deranged Stanley Kubrick tripping his head off on LSD. 



Much of the story takes place within a giant fabricated womb, writhing with naked bodies caked in blood and filth and engaged in acts so degrading as to give even the most jaded viewer second thoughts about whether or not they should even be watching.  I began to seriously question if doing so could by any stretch of the imagination be described as "entertainment." 

So there you have it.  WE ARE THE FLESH, whatever else it may be, is a stunningly effective descent into the underbelly of cinema which, depending on your individual tastes, tolerances, and/or convictions, has the power to either rivet or repel. 

As for me personally, I didn't enjoy it, but I don't think I was supposed to.  And I'm a little relieved that I didn't.

 

Spanish w/ English subtitles / 80 minutes / 1.85:1

Los Angeles Theatrical Release:
Friday, January 13, 2017
Laemmle's Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre
8556 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

This title will be released on Blu-ray and DVD February 14, 2017

WE ARE THE FLESH -- Movie Review by Porfle

WEREWOLF SHADOW and CURSE OF THE DEVIL -- Two Paul Naschy Wolf Man Reviews by Porfle

 

 

Originally posted on 6/26/08

 

 

I grew up seeing pictures of Paul Naschy's werewolf character in "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine and, since Universal's Wolf Man was my favorite monster, I always wondered what Naschy's Spanish version would be like. Now, with the special edition DVD releases of 1971's WEREWOLF SHADOW (aka "La Noche de Walpurgis") and 1973's CURSE OF THE DEVIL (aka "El Retorno de Walpurgis"), I finally get to see what all the howling was about.

WEREWOLF SHADOW opens with a scene reminiscent of the first minutes of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, as two medical examiners summoned to check out the dead body of Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky character (the Spanish equivalent of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s "Larry Talbot") foolishly remove the silver bullets from his chest, bringing him back to hairy, fang-baring life. Flash forward a bit, and we join Elvira (Gaby Fuchs) and her painfully-cute cohort Genevieve (Barbara Capell) in the French wilderness searching for the lost tomb of legendary vampire woman Countess Wandesa Dárvula de Nadasdy. They run into Waldemar, who is living in isolation with his demented sister Elizabeth (Yelena Samarina), and he invites them to stay in his villa while he helps them with their search.

Needless to say, they eventually uncover the tomb and release the revived Countess (Paty Shepard), who turns Genevieve into a vampire and then sets her sights on Elvira. But a lovestruck Waldemar, armed with the same silver cross that first killed the vampire woman back in the old days, comes to the rescue, turning into the Wolf Man just in time for a climactic werewolf vs. vampire woman showdown.

Naschy's outlandish werewolf makeup and bug-eyed overacting make for a really fun monster, which is quite the opposite of his effectively restrained demeanor as Waldemar. Gaby Fuchs, on the other hand, is almost comically expressionless most of the time. As the vampire woman, Paty Shepard wears flowing black clothing and runs around in slow motion a lot. My favorite non-werewolf character, though, is Genevieve, simply because Barbara Capell is just so gosh-darn cute.

The film is marred by ultra-pedestrian direction, photography, and editing and a wildy-inappropriate musical score, and it creeps by at a snail's pace from beginning to end. Some scenes, such as the one in which Elvira's detective friend Marcel (Andrés Resino) questions the mayor of a nearby village, are almost lethally boring. Night scenes take place in broad daylight so it's often impossible to tell what time of day it's supposed to be.

But for all its faults, WEREWOLF SHADOW is still interesting to watch if you're a classic horror fan and you want to see where Spanish horror really began. Naschy's Wolf Man is a hoot, and there's an abundance of low-budget 70s-style gore and brief, gratuitous nudity--while watching it, I felt transported back to the old drive-in theater where I wasted many hours in my youth. Presented in 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the image quality is outstanding considering this is a low-budget exploitation flick from 1971--the print used looks almost flawless to me. Both the original Castilian and dubbed English soundtracks are available, with subtitles.

In addition to a large stills gallery, the disc includes the U.S. release version of the film, known as THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN. The print used here is somewhat battered in spots, which gives it more of that "grindhouse" feel. There aren't many differences between the two versions, although some of the nudity is gone, the opening and closing titles are altered, and that deadly scene with Marcel and the mayor has gone to cutting-floor hell where it belongs.

Moving on to better things, the 1973 follow-up CURSE OF THE DEVIL is a vast improvement. A prologue takes us back to the Middle Ages in which an earlier Daninsky slays the head of the Satan-worshipping Bathory clan and then executes the rest of them by hanging and burning. While being roasted alive at the stake, the widow Bathory puts a curse on Daninsky and his descendants, which will eventually include our hero, Waldemar. We join him in 19th-century Transylvania, where he lives in a castle with his loyal servants Bela and Malitza, who raised him.

After inadvertently shooting a werewolf while hunting, Waldemar finds himself the object of a gypsy curse. He's seduced into bed by a beautiful gypsy woman for his first-ever sexual experience, but she then chomps him in the chest with a wolf skull dripping with her own blood, which turns him into a werewolf. Fortunately, not everything that happens to poor Waldemar is such a total bummer--he meets a beautiful blonde babe named Kinga (Fabiola Falcón) who lives nearly with her parents and younger sister Maria, and they fall in love. But when the full moon comes, Waldemar goes bestial and starts terrorizing the countryside. And before it's all over, Kinga and her family may be his final victims.

Directed with a rough-hewn but imaginative style by Carlos Aured, CURSE OF THE DEVIL is briskly-paced and filled with exciting werewolf set-pieces, including some extremely cool transformation scenes that harken back to the old Universals. That studio's style is also represented by torch-wielding villagers and some character names (Bela, Malitza), plus some similarities to the script of the original THE WOLF MAN. Director Aured seems influenced by the 50s Hammer horrors as well, particularly CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF.

The rustic locations are excellent, and the performances this time are entirely adequate. There's some nudity here and there, as well as copious amounts of gore as the Wolf Man chalks up quite a body count during his many nocturnal outings (which are now actually filmed at night with much more creepy, shadowy atmosphere). Naschy's makeup is very different this time--it looks as though he's wearing an over-the-head mask--but he's still just as fearsome and feral as ever. Also in 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the print quality here is almost as good as in WEREWOLF SHADOW, albeit a little rougher early on, and I seemed to notice a distracting jerkiness in the actors' movements on several occasions. The English dubbed soundtrack is good, while the Castilian version seems to have a slight droning noise in the background throughout. There's no U.S. release version this time, but we do get the English and Castilian trailers (skip the U.S. one if you haven't seen the film yet--it gives away the ending).

Both DVDs also contain liner notes by "The Mark of Naschy" author Mirek Lipinski, with some cool photos and a wealth of information. The menus are well-designed, and the DVD box art has a delightfully retro look to it.

Now that I've finally seen Paul Naschy's Wolf Man in all his glory after all these years, I'm glad I did. WEREWOLF SHADOW and especially CURSE OF THE DEVIL are good old-fashioned monster movies that I'll be revisiting now and then for a long time to come. Like Chaney's Larry Talbot, Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky is the kind of werewolf that I love--no cartoony CGI, just an actual actor in cool monster makeup, giving an actual performance.

 

WEREWOLF SHADOW and CURSE OF THE DEVIL -- Two Paul Naschy Wolf Man Reviews by Porfle

HORROR EXPRESS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/3/11

 

Growing up with Forry Ackerman's "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, I tended to drool over all the tantalizing stories and pics about cool-looking horror films that, for one reason or another, I never got to see over the years.  One of those was the Spanish shocker HORROR EXPRESS (1972), which, thanks to the new Blu-Ray/DVD combo from Severin Films, I've finally gotten to experience in all its 70s-Gothic glory.

Fans of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing should be ecstatic about this pairing of the two horror superstars as reluctant allies against a deadly supernatural force aboard the Trans-Siberian Express.  It's 1906, and stuffy Professor Alexander Saxton (Lee) has discovered the missing link in an icy cave in Manchuria.  Transporting it West by train, he runs into an old rival, Dr. Wells (Cushing), and his diminutive assistant Miss Jones (Alice Reinhart).  The prehistoric creature returns to life and escapes from its crate, causing a reign of terror aboard the train which Saxton and Wells must join forces to stop.

The horrific fun gets under way right there in the station when a thief breaks into the crate, gets a load of it contents, and drops dead, his eyes a blank white.  The baggage man meets the same fate during the monster's escape, as do several other passengers in a series of lively death scenes.  Julio Peña of THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN plays the increasingly irked Inspector Mirov, who suspects Saxon himself of foul play until he meets the creature face to face.  At that point, what started out as a simple horror-adventure yarn suddenly turns sci-fi when we discover that an alien entity capable of transferring from one body to another is behind it all.



This new wrinkle, reminiscent of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" and its subsequent screen adaptation THE THING, adds a whole new element of suspenseful horror to the story as the being's victims either become possessed or have their brains sucked dry.  More weird science comes into play when Saxon and Wells do an autopsy on the missing link and discover that his optic fluid contains images of everything it has seen, including a view of planet Earth from outer space. 

Speaking of autopsies, the film features a couple which were fairly strong stuff back in '72 with graphic images of pop-top skulls and exposed brains.  Other makeup effects are good, including the glowing red eyeballs of the being's hosts and the blank, bleeding ones of its victims.  The reanimated ape creature sports a nice body suit with appropriately hideous facial features that have been partially decayed over time. 

Just when the story has already gone in a number of unexpected directions, Telly Savalas arrives as Captain Kazan to awesome things up even more.  Kazan and his fellow Kossacks barge their way onto the train and start terrorizing everyone, with Savalas having a scenery-chewing field day in the role.  All hell breaks loose after Kazan inadvertently forces the entity's hand and sets the film's chaotic and zombie-packed finale into high gear--Lee hacks his way through the living dead with a sword, Cushing struggles to unhook a baggage car full of civilians from the speeding train as it heads toward a cliff, and Telly goes all bloody-blank-eyes on us.  It just doesn't get any better than this.

Director Eugenio Martin adds a number of clever directorial touches to this handsomely mounted production, which is undermined only by some bad dubbing and awkward handheld camerawork.  In addition to the full-size antique locomotive, a very cool model train (left over from Savalas' PANCHO VILLA) chugs through beautiful miniature Siberian landscapes with numerous cutaways adding to the forward momentum of the film's pace.  An unusual musical score by John Cacavas is alternately atmospheric and cheesy.



Heading an outstanding cast, Peter Cushing's wryly humorous Dr. Wells is a fine counterpoint to Christopher Lee's stuffy Professor Saxton and it's fun to watch them play off each other.  One of the choicest bits of humor comes when Inspector Mirov remarks to them, "What if one of you is the monster?", to which an indignant Cushing responds, "Monster?  We're British, you know!" 

Gorgeous Silvia Tortosa (WHEN THE SCREAMING STOPS) is captivating as Countess Irina Petrovski, whose traveling companion is a mad monk named Father Pujardov (Alberto de Mendoza).  Resembling a cross between Jesus and Rasputin, Pujardov is the stereotypical "crazed religious fanatic" whose allegiance to the entity gives the actor a chance to go way over the top.  Also on hand are a number of Spanish character actors familiar to Spaghetti Western fans. 

The DVD from Severin Films is in 16x9 widescreen with English and Spanish Dolby Digital Mono soundtracks.  No subtitles.  In place of a commentary track there's an 80-minute audio interview with Peter Cushing from 1973 which should delight his fans.  (Cushing reveals during the audience Q and A that he got into acting mainly due to his love of Tom Mix westerns.)  We also get an introduction by Fangoria editor Chris Alexander, new interviews with director Eugenio Martin and composer John Cacavas, the film's trailer, and "Notes from the Blacklist: Producer Bernard Gordon Discusses the McCarthy Era."

Whether you're an old fan or just seeing it for the first time like me, HORROR EXPRESS is a delightfully entertaining old-school horror/sci-fi romp that's bursting at the seams with ridiculous fun.  They don't make 'em like this anymore.

HORROR EXPRESS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA -- Blu-ray/ DVD review by porfle

 Originally posted on 10/12/2013

 

The third film (the first two being THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF and PAULA-PAULA) in my admittedly limited experience with the late cinematic superstar Jess Franco, THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA (1975), aka "Les nuits brûlantes de Linda" and "But Who Raped Linda?", leaves me still trying to catch that vibe which seems to attract so many Franco-philes to the prolific director's highly eclectic assortment of films like moths to a flame.   

Still, this strange, slapdash, often tawdry exercise in exploitation is brimming with enough perverse sex,  violence, and off-kilter oddness to hold our attention even through a few seemingly interminable stretches.  It begins with a Frenchwoman named Marie-France Bertrand (the voluptuous Alice Arno) being hired by Greek millionaire Mr. Steiner (Paul Muller) to live in his beachfront villa and care for his invalid daughter Linda (Catherine Lafferière) and psychologically disturbed niece Olivia (Franco mainstay Lina Romay). 

Unfortunately,  the feeble-minded Linda will respond only to Steiner's mute manservant Abdul (Pierre Taylou),  a kindly soul who dotes on Linda while drooling over Olivia from afar.  This is exacerbated by the fact that the oversexed Olivia, although still a virgin, sheds her clothes and starts furiously masturbating at the drop of a hat.  Marie-France herself eventually gets sucked into Olivia's gravitational pull until she begins to realize how flakey she really is. 

The film's title is a misnomer since the only "hot night" Linda has is the one in which Olivia sneaks into her bedroom and rapes her.  This sexually voracious nutcase also ravishes an incredulous Abdul in return for him sneaking into Mr. Steiner's room and retrieving the key to a bedroom he keeps sealed.  Here,  years ago, the adolescent Linda witnessed her uncle murder the man who was having an affair with his wife Lorna, who later committed suicide.

This rambling,  almost  stream-of-consciousness story is, like so many of its kind,  the framework on which to hang a succession of perverse sexual situations that build to a violent climax.  Much of the running time consists of Franco languidly caressing Lina Romay's nude body with his camera, whether she's rolling around in bed pleasuring herself or forcing herself sexually on some unsuspecting victim.  Other nudity includes a sunbathing Linda and some glimpses of Marie-France's ample form, in addition to a sequence in which Mr. Steiner chains a naked Abdul to a wall and canes him severely as punishment for "touching" Olivia. 

There's more to this story, however.  The first 2,500 copies of Severin Films' Blu-ray/ DVD combo set also include a third disc containing what they call the "rare alternate banana version" of THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA.  This is the hardcore French cut, with much more nudity and graphic sex which Franco lensed himself since he knew that such scenes would be added anyway.  Some scenes are merely reshot with the actresses exchanging the same dialogue in the nude rather than clothed, while Romay's masturbation sessions, as well as her lesbian encounters with Alice Arno and Catherine Lafferière, are much more up close and personal. 

The term "banana version" is derived from the scene in which Olivia rapes the helpless Linda--here, she uses the fruit in question as an impromptu phallic substitute, drawing a stream of vaginal blood (which doesn't score too high on my eroto-meter).  Elsewhere, her heated coupling with Abdul now includes some dreadfully unappealing fellatio that's shot in such extreme closeup that the camera often meanders around in a mish-mash of blurred flesh. 

Missing from the "banana version" is an entire comedy-relief subplot about a rotund police inspector (Angelo Bassi) and a female tabloid photographer who are staking out Mr. Steiner's residence.  (This was added to the softcore version to fill in the gaps from all the deleted X-rated material.)  An entire murder scene is gone as well, making the ending somewhat less violent. 

While the softcore print, from a 35mm source, is fairly good with occasional flaws (some of them a bit jarring), the "banana version" seems to have been dubbed from a finely-aged videotape copy complete with choppy editing,  bad sound, and awful picture quality.  Still,  it is in the original French with English subtitles, whereas the edited version is badly dubbed in English--lips sometimes move without accompanying dialogue, and the mute Abdul's grunting noises are similar to those of the closet monster in THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE. 

Severin Films' Blu-ray/DVD combo set is in 2.35:1 widescreen with English mono sound (French on the subtitled limited-edition disc).  Franco fans will enjoy the two bonus interviews, one with the director alone and another with both him and his beloved muse Lina.  David Gregory (director of "Ban the Sadist Videos!") offers a short segment with genre author Stephen Thrower discussing the film.   In another brief clip,  we see Franco receiving the Fantastic Fest Lifetime Achievement Award with Lina by his side.   Some outtakes--mostly of Olivia and Abdul's sex scene,  plus Alice Arno rolling around naked in bed--and a trailer round out the extras.

Jess Franco's most impressive quality, to me, is how prolific he was--a compulsive, seat-of-his-pants filmmaker who didn't lavish a lot of time and care on his films, giving them a hit-or-miss quality which makes them, at the very least, interesting to watch.  THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA is that, but not much more.   Unless,  of course,  you're tuned into that special Franco vibe that has so far managed to elude me.

THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA -- Blu-ray/ DVD review by porfle

TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 9/2/2017

 

I continue to find the cinematic output of prolific Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco to be a mild diversion at best, as in VAMPYROS LESBOS and SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY.  (Or at worst, as in PAULA-PAULA.)

But whatever it is about Franco's work that has attracted so many avid followers over the years, they're likely to find it in his 1980 softcore-sex-and-spy potboiler TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES, aka "Ópalo de fuego".

As usual, Franco shoots with a half-artistic, half-artless style that's slapdash one moment and somewhat striking the next--owing some of the latter, it seems, to good fortune.  The shaky zooms and pans characteristic of his work go hand-in-hand with some shots that have sort of a rough-hewn arthouse look.

Franco's lifelong love Lina Romay (THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA) stars as Cecile, an exotic dancer whose year-long prison sentence for "indecency" will be erased if she agrees to go to the Canary Islands and spy on some suspected sex-slavers for the French secret service. 

Cecile agrees and, along with her beautiful but airheaded dancing partner Brigitte, is soon occupying a posh hotel suite next to the mansion of main suspects Mr. and Mrs. Forbes.

They also end up dancing (if you can call it that) in the Forbes' swank nightclub where Cecile's contact, Milton, also works.  Milton's one of those "is he or isn't he?" characters who's gay one minute and straight the next, and some comedy is derived from Brigitte becoming infatuated with and practically raping him.

Franco, in fact, seems to enjoy juxtaposing such lighthearted scenes with those of rape (the Forbeses breaking in a new captive meant to be sold as sex slave to some perverted millionaire) and sadism (a captured Cecile being sexually tortured by evil Forbes henchwomen who enjoy inflicting pain).

While there's certainly nothing here on the level of one of the "Ilsa" flicks, some scenes are quite startling in their strong content compared to the almost innocuous spy antics of the rest of the film.

For the most part, however, TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES is pretty unremarkable as either comedy or suspense thriller.  While passable entertainment for the patient viewer, many scenes tend to drag, even those meant to be erotic (as when Mr. and Mrs. Forbes hash out their weird marital sex problems).

The film's main appeal, as it were, is a likable performance by the voluptuous Romay, portraying a character whose lack of spy smarts is made up for by tons of spunk and a kind of fearless innocence. 

Some political intrigue and a couple of shocking murders (with more of that jarring torture which seems almost out of place) build to a fairly lively action climax involving members of a hippie/biker commune who have taken a liking to Cecile and decided to come to her rescue.

The 2-disc set from Severin Films (with reversible box cover) contains the movie proper on Blu-ray disc, in both English and French with English subtitles.  In addition to a trailer and some silent outtakes, the bonus menu contains interviews with Franco and film composer Daniel White, along with an informative and insightful look at the film by Stephen Thrower.

Disc two (DVD) is the alternate cut of the film entitled "Ópalo de fuego" which differs considerably, containing much that is missing from the longer cut while also lacking many of its key scenes, especially those of a sexual nature.  The reason for this odd alternate cut is a mystery even to Franco expert Thrower, making it an interesting novelty.

Generally speaking, this tepid spy adventure barely gets by on Lina Romay's charm and a wealth of nudity and twisted eroticism.  But as a Jess Franco film, TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES will no doubt be of great interest to those who find the study of both him and the evolution of his filmography to be an object of endless fascination.

Buy it at Severin Films

TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 1/24/11

 

 

Incredibly prolific Spanish filmmaker Jesús "Jess" Franco has a devoted following, but the uninitiated might be puzzled as to why after watching THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF (1973).  It's not an awful film, just exceedingly bland.

Montserrat Prous plays Melissa Comfort, an heiress who has been paralyzed from birth.  Plagued by a recurring nightmare in which she wanders the darkened mansion as a little girl and witnesses the violent death of her late father (Franco himself in a cameo role), Melissa is placed in the care of eminent psychiatrist Dr. Orloff (William Berger) by her aunt, Lady Flora Comfort. 

It soon becomes apparent that there's a plot against Melissa which may involve members of her own family, including her Aunt Flora, step-sister Martha, and perhaps even Dr. Orloff himself.  Melissa is aided by faithful servant Mathews (José Manuel Martín) and a concerned neighbor, pop star Sweet Davey Brown.  But when people around her start dying off one by one, it may be only a matter of time before she's next.  The question is--who's really doing the killing?

 

 

The third of Franco's "Dr. Orloff" films, this is remarkably tame stuff for someone known for his exploitation flicks.  The slow-moving story features the occasional murder, but all are quick and relatively bloodless.  Aside from an incidental glimpse of nudity during one of the killings, there's nothing here that one couldn't find in a standard made-for-TV thriller from the era.

A reliance on handheld camerawork and shaky zooms gives the film a crude look, although it's hardly unwatchable.  Franco does display a few flashes of imagination in his direction and keeps things moving along well enough that patient viewers won't have much trouble sticking with it to the end.  The story itself is utterly predictable and there's little actual suspense until the mildly exciting finale, all of which is accompanied by a melodramatic organ and piano score.

Performances are adequate for this type of movie, though it's admittedly hard to judge the actors' dialogue delivery since I understand very little Spanish.  William Berger isn't all that sinister as Orloff and is, in fact, pretty dull, even when we get a closeup of those titular eyeballs.  Montserrat Prous is okay as Melissa--more interesting, though, are Loreta Tovar and the lovely Kali Hansa as spoiled socialites Martha and Aunt Flora.

 

 

 

As Davey Brown, Robert Wood is notable mainly for his awful 70s wardrobe and insipid singing.  His scenes with Edmund Purdom as Inspector Crosby, in which Davey struggles to convince the policeman that something rotten is going on in the Comfort manor, give the film what scant comedy relief it has.  Franco regular Lina Romay appears briefly as Davey's girlfriend.

The DVD from Intervision is full-screen with Dolby 2.0 Spanish mono soundtrack and English subtitles.  Picture quality is good although that Eastmancolor doesn't age very well.  On my copy, the subtitles disappeared for a few minutes around the 46-minute mark.  The bonus feature is a recent 18-minute interview with Jess Franco. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF is a nice low-budget effort that's fairly painless to sit through if you keep your expectations low.  Just don't expect it to be very sinister. 

THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF -- DVD Review by Porfle

PAULA-PAULA -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/29/11

 

For his 209th movie, prolific Spanish director Jesús "Jess" Franco has made what he calls "an audio-visual experience" entitled PAULA-PAULA (2010).  In literal terms I suppose that's an accurate way to describe it, but holy cats, is this thing boring.  You could probably have an equally rewarding audio-visual experience by putting an album on and watching a lava lamp for an hour.

The story begins with a distraught, disoriented Paula (Carmen Montes) being taken into custody, apparently for having killed her friend who was also named Paula (Paula Davis).  Under questioning by a female officer (a briefly-seen Lina Romay), Paula-1 claims not to have done it although she hated her.  Then she lets slip that she has tried to kill her numerous times without success.

Later, we see Paula-1 dancing naked in a room, aware that a young police sergeant is peeking through the door.  If I had to choose a favorite part of the movie it would be this scene, since Carmen Montes is beautiful, has a great body, and isn't moving in super slow-motion.
 

Intercut with this are flashbacks of Paula-2 dancing in an apartment.  She wears a belly-dancer's outfit and undulates in front of a silver mylar backdrop, moving ever-so-slowly as a mirrored split-screen effect turns her body into abstract shapes.  Sitting in a chair in a revealing dress, Paula-1 watches her with fascination.  From this point on, the pace becomes practically glacial.

About halfway through, Paula-1 relates a brief story which will come into play at the end.  Then the two Paulas finally get together for about twenty minutes of mild softcore sex, all in maddening slow-motion that had me struggling to stay awake.  (This is the first film I've seen in ages that literally put me to sleep.)  After some more split-screen effects, PAULA-PAULA mercifully ends pretty much the way we expect it to.

This is the sort of thing you might've stumbled onto a roomful of stoned hippies watching back in the 60s while muttering "wow, man..."  With much of the film's running time consisting of plotless, enervating visuals, I began to appreciate the hot freeform jazz score by Friederich Gulda which plays continuously with no direct connection with the actions onscreen.


The DVD from Intervision is in widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound.  Language is Spanish with English subtitles.  Extras consist of three Franco featurettes--an introduction to the film, a more detailed discussion of it, and, most interesting, the venerable director's thoughts on the state of contemporary filmmaking.

According to the titles, this is based on Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde story, but it might as well have been based on "Green Eggs and Ham" for all the relevance this has to the film.  Although PAULA-PAULA seemingly aspires to be a cinematic equivalent to its frenetic jazz score, what it basically amounts to is Jess Franco dicking around for 67 minutes.

PAULA-PAULA -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE LAST CIRCUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 10/12/11

 

You don't watch Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia's THE LAST CIRCUS (2010) as much as you're propelled through it.  Frenetic, intensely melodramatic, and way off-the-wall, it's like a Jackson Pollock painting with broad splashes of humor, tragedy, beauty, and violence. 

After a cool main titles montage, we find ourselves in a circus in Spain circa 1937.  The clowns' performance is interrupted by militia pressing men into service to fight in the Spanish Civil War.  Next thing we know, there's a clown in drag wading into a platoon of National soldiers with a machete, in the midst of a spectacular battle in the streets.  Already we know that this isn't going to be your average movie.

His son, Javier, grows up to be a sad clown in a circus dominated by Sergio (Antonio de la Torre), a "happy" clown who is the children's favorite despite his savagely violent nature.  Javier (Carlos Areces) falls in love with Sergio's gorgeous acrobat girlfriend Natalia (Carolina Bang), who is fond of Javier but perversely excited by Sergio's abuse.  When the clowns finally clash, all hell breaks loose.

A visual feast, THE LAST CIRCUS takes us on a dizzying tour of baroque circuses, blazing battles, and off-kilter urban tableaux where mad clowns with machine guns terrorize the citizenry.  Javier's attack on Sergio leaves him with a face that would make the Joker wince--thus ending his career performing for children--while the increasingly psychotic Javier's gleeful self-mutilation gives him a grotesque, permanent clown face meant to strike fear as he goes on a ramapage of revenge against the world. 

Areces, a portly, plain-looking actor, deftly takes his character to this drastic stage after first appearing as a normal and deceptively meek-looking man gradually driven to violence to protect his Natalia.  After his attack on Sergio, he becomes a wild man in the forest and ends up actually biting an elderly General Franco in one of the film's most weirdly comical moments, after which he transforms himself into the homicidal clown monster. 

As Sergio, de la Torre gives a raw performance that takes on added richness once his facial disfigurement makes his character even more volatile and unpredictable.  Most exhilarating for me, however, is the statuesque Carolina Bang as Natalia.  Whether performing her circus acrobatic act, dancing in a Kojak-themed nightclub in front of a giant portrait of Telly Savalas, or making love with passionate abandon to her beastly boyfriend Sergio, she's utterly captivating.  You can't blame Javier for being obsessed with her to the point of having heated delusions in which she appears as a shimmering religious icon.

The film is technically dazzling from the direction and photography all the way to a heart-pounding score by Roque Baños.  The great SPFX include lots of well-done CGI and green screen culminating in a thrilling cliffhanger climax atop a towering monument with Javier and Sergio doing battle over their mutual love Natalia.  The sequence owes quite a bit to films such as THE CROW, BATMAN, and a few others that may come to mind while watching it, with one sweeping camera move after another producing vertigo-inducing thrills as the story builds to its peak. 

The DVD from Magnolia's Magnet label is in 2.35:1 widescreen with English and Spanish 5.1 soundtracks.  Subtitles are in English.  Extras consist of international and U.S. trailers and the featurettes "Making of The Last Circus", "Behind the Scenes Segments", and "Visual Effects."  The latter reveals an extent of green-screen usage throughout the film that I was unaware of while watching it. 

One of the most welcome surprises of my recent viewing experience, THE LAST CIRCUS is a mad rush through a thoroughly skewed adventure bursting with goodies for the eyes and the mind.  You may not like it as much as I did, but I can't imagine anyone being bored by it.

THE LAST CIRCUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE 7TH DAY -- DVD Review by Porfle

A slow, thoughtful suspenser from Spain, Olive Films' THE 7TH DAY (aka "El 7º Día", 2004) lights the fuse early and lets it burn gradually toward what we fear will be an explosive conclusion.

The atmosphere is deceptively calm and pastoral at first as we join the inhabitants of a small village in Spain going about their everyday lives, the earthy traditions of the old barely giving way to the impatience and impetuous yearnings of the young.

Our main focus is young Isabel (Yohana Cobo), who is telling the story after the fact.  She recounts how a boy and a girl from the Fuentes and Jiminez families have a whirlwind affair that results in the girl falling madly in love but the boy ultimately brushing her off.

The girl is crushed to the point of madness, and her highly unstable brother Jerónimo (Ramón Fontseré) takes drastic action by stabbing the boy to death. As he heads to prison for an extended term, the two families enter into a blood feud that results in violence and death on both sides.

The juxtaposition of such heated passions with such a relatively peaceful setting emphasizes the feeling that we're seeing a healthy organism suffering from a horrible, spreading virus.

The Jiminez family, a struggling young couple with three lively, lovely daughters, is accused of the most heinous crime for which the volatile Fuentes clan plots a catastrophic revenge, aided by the early release of the increasingly insane Jerónimo.

And yet for most of its running time THE 7TH DAY holds back on the action, letting its story unfold so gradually that we remain transfixed throughout, waiting for things to come to a head.

We see Isabel, the oldest Jiminez daughter, falling in love with a bad boy herself and going through the usual teenage angst.  Other stories of small town life are told, familiar dramas that have unfolded since time began.

Meanwhile, the Fuentes family is anything but benign and normal in their simmering hatred, which is stoked mostly by a bitterly vengeful woman and her sociopathic brother.  Wielding shotguns and spouting hate, the Fuentes family gives in to their blinding madness at last during a village festival in which no bystander is spared their wrath.

Performances are good and director Carlos Saura has fashioned a beautiful-looking film with an elegant visual style.  The acoustic musical score is superb.

Subtle and matter-of-factly told, the story of THE 7TH DAY is tragic in that the innocence and promise of its younger characters must suffer the consequences of a long-simmering cauldron of hatred set to boil by events beyond their control.  The final sequence is utterly shocking, and we're left wondering how, or even if, life will go on for the survivors.


YEAR: 2004
GENRE: DRAMA
LANGUAGE: SPANISH (with optional English subtitles)
LABEL: OLIVE FILMS
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 100 min
RATING: N/A
VIDEO: 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio; COLOR
AUDIO: STEREO
EXTRAS: NONE

THE 7TH DAY -- DVD Review by Porfle

CRIES OF PLEASURE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 2/19/20

 

I guess I've seen about a dozen or so of the many films directed by Jesus "Jess" Franco (VAMPYROS LESBOS, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY, COUNT DRACULA)  during his prolific career. And while nowhere near the expert many of his fans are, I can say that one never knows quite what to expect from him.

It all depends on Franco's budget, collaborators, various other factors, and, most of all, whatever mood he happened to be in when undertaking a particular project.

With CRIES OF PLEASURE (1983), Franco must have felt like skirting the boundary between two familiar themes: the twisty intrigue tale with elements of murder and betrayal, and the softcore sex romp in which he could indulge his penchant for long, meandering passages with naked people exploring each other's...well, long meandering passages.

It begins a bit like SUNSET BOULEVARD, with one of the main characters already floating dead in a swimming pool. The narrator, ironically, is a simple-minded mute named Fenul (Juan Cózar) whose only job is to wander around the mountaintop Spanish villa strumming on the guitar to provide background music for his master, Antonio (Robert Foster).

Antonio, a wealthy, arrogant young playboy, has a live-in lover and maid named Marta (Jasmina Bell) who later claims to have been raped by him at age 12 but remains desperately in love with him and serves as a sex slave.

Meanwhile, his beautiful houseguest Julia (Franco's longtime muse Lina Romay, THE HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA, SINFONIA EROTICA, TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES) is about to meet his equally lovely wife Martina (Rocío Freixas, THE SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF), who that very day is being released from an insane asylum.

That's just about all the set-up the director needs to get cracking on yet another torrid tale of lurid lust and maniacal madness, all of which will commence right after the characters are all properly introduced and thrown into a succession of those long, meandering passages.

These are all shot in very extended takes as the camera lingers artlessly but intently over various combinations of nude, writhing bodies while occasionally wandering out the window to take in some of the Spanish oceanfront scenery.

The sex itself is technically softcore but sometimes threatens to cross the boundary into hardcore. As with many sequences of this kind, things tend to get monotonous (I've personally gotten to the point where I find just about all sex scenes boring), although Lina Romay's many fans will certainly have a visual field day here.

What makes CRIES OF PLEASURE more than just another sexploitation flick, however, is the queasy undercurrent of sadism, perversion, and ultimately murder that pervades it all. 

At least one participant in all this carnal decadence will be tortured to death, and somebody plans to murder someone else before it's all over.

While the extended sex scenes are furiously performed and at least marginally erotic, the most worthwhile thing about it all (for me, anyway) is how Franco's barebones plot, based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, is revealed to us in broad, deliberate strokes that keep us attentively waiting for its resolution.

When CRIES OF PLEASURE does hit that final chord, it's just kinky and off-kilter enough to elicit a sigh of satisfaction that we've made it through yet another unpredictable Jess Franco fever dream with the feeling that, somehow, it has been time rather well spent.


Special Features:

    In The Land Of Franco Part 1: Stephen Thrower Tours Multiple Franco Locations in Portugal
    When Donald Met Jess and Lina Part 1: Filmmaker Donald Farmer Interviews the Power Couple in 1993
    Jess Franco’s Golden Years: Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of ‘Murderous Passions & Flowers of Perversion – The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco’

CRIES OF PLEASURE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

NIGHT OF OPEN SEX -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 2/21/20

 

From the title and cover art, I thought NIGHT OF OPEN SEX (Severin Films, 1983) was going to be one of Jess Franco's more experimental and largely plotless indulgences.

But sure enough, there is a plot, and a pretty passable one at that, although it has its work cut out for it competing against Franco's endless cinematic explorations of his beloved Lina Romay's bouncy naked body.

We first meet Lina (HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA, SINFONIA EROTICA, TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES) as Moira, a popular local harlot who draws big, enthusiastic nightclub crowds just by writhing around onstage in various states of undress while wantonly pleasuring herself.

Naturally, she's the perfect choice for sleazo conman Vic (Miguel Aristu) to recruit in his plan to trick a dying Nazi general (Albino Graziani, MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD) out of a hidden cache of gold by having her pose as his niece.

But first Vic and Moira must kidnap the real niece, Tina Klaus (Carla Simons), and get her to divulge the general's whereabouts in one of those scenes where Franco flirts with torture porn.

It's also a flirtation with real porn in that it contains some vaginal penetration, albeit with a hot curling iron as Moira proves she's as cruel as she is beautiful.

This early scene is brutal and rather shocking, especially since Moira is a character we're meant to like as we follow her sexual and materialistic exploits, some of which are in a humorous vein, for the remainder of the story.

The rest of the film is a series of near-hardcore sex scenes focusing on Moira flailing ecstatically with various partners including her blonde girlfriend Eva (Lorna Green, MACUMBA SEXUAL) and a moustachioed stud named Al Crosby (J.A. Mayans, CANNIBAL TERROR), who first abducts Moira and then teams up with her to search for the gold while finding time to engage in endless frantic couplings.

The aforementioned plot keeps chugging away during lulls in the sexual action and actually becomes somewhat intriguing as Moira and Al work to decipher the Nazi general's cryptic clues and make their way through lush seaside scenery where a hidden mansion awaits.

Adding to the suspense is another male-female duo on the gold hunt, and their sudden appearance during Moira and Al's climactic sexual frenzy, which is stoked to new heights by the sight of a big stack of shiny gold bars, augments the film's twisty and rather amusing finale.

Franco (COUNT DRACULA, VAMPYROS LESBOS, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY), who makes a brief cameo appearance while tied up and gagged, is in relatively good technical form here with some steady camerawork and ideal locations. 

My favorite part is the opening, a gorgeous extended shot through the windshield of a car cruising down an oceanfront boulevard lined with lightposts beneath a dark, cloudy sunset. The entire film looks good considering the low budget and Franco's tendency to work fast and loose.

NIGHT OF OPEN SEX is neither the director's worst (so far I would nominate PAULA-PAULA) nor the best of the comparatively small number of his scores of films that I've seen. Non-Franco fans will likely find it lightweight and slow, even boring. Lina Romay fans will get a severe case of eyestrain. I found it interesting (Franco is always interesting) and fun.


Buy it at Severin Films

Scanned in 4k from the original negative

Special Features:

    In The Land Of Franco Part 2: Stephen Thrower Tours Multiple Franco Locations in Portugal
    When Donald Met Jess and Lina Part 2: Filmmaker Donald Farmer Interviews the Power Couple in 1993
    The Night of Open Jess: Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of ‘Murderous Passions & Flowers of Perversion – The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco’

NIGHT OF OPEN SEX -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Dracula & Renfield's Duplicate Death Groans (Spanish "Dracula", 1931) (video)

In the Spanish-language version of "Dracula" (1931)...

...the same death groan was used for both Dracula and his minion, Renfield.

Listen when Renfield's body hits bottom.

Now listen to Dracula when he gets staked.

But who groaned first?

It was Bela Lugosi in the English version.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!

Dracula & Renfield's Duplicate Death Groans (Spanish "Dracula", 1931) (video)