Die Sklavinnen

Jess Franco's 1976 exploitation film "Die Sklavinnen" (also known as "Swedish Nympho Slaves") is a run-of-the-mill entry in the director's extensive filmography. While it delivers the expected dose of sleaze and nudity, the overall execution is lackluster and fails to leave a lasting impression.

Franco's direction is competent but uninspired, relying heavily on gratuitous nudity and softcore sex scenes to compensate for the paper-thin narrative. The acting performances are mediocre at best, with Romay's over-the-top portrayal of the villainous Arminda being the only noteworthy aspect.

While the film does deliver on its exploitation promises, it lacks the edginess and boundary-pushing elements that made Franco's better works stand out. The torture and confinement scenes are tame by today's standards, and the overall tone is more campy than genuinely disturbing.

In the end, "Die Sklavinnen" is a forgettable entry in the exploitation genre, offering little more than a fleeting dose of titillation for fans of the genre. It's a passable time-waster for Franco devotees, but unlikely to win over new converts or leave a lasting impression on casual viewers.

We all the know the Jess Franco template for this mid-period run of his films: plenty of nudity, over use of Lina Romay (who must always be nude), re-used vaguely tropical sets and an element of blatant sexploitation.

Well Die Sklavinnen fits all those requirements. If you think you have seen the film before, then you probably have. We have seen it all (with the same cast) in Ilsa the Wicked Warden, Women in Prison or Barbed Wire Dolls.

There is in fact only one slave, Martine Stedl, who is taken hostage and sexed and drugged up by Romay. Drama is provided by her implausibly fat father who apparently wants her back. Romay is the baddie and gets tortured a little, but it is all pretty tame. Reasonable amount of FFN, but we wouldn't like it any other way.

So, one of the lesser Franco outings. Don't expect wall to wall confinement or an outbreak of mass slavery. But hey, I still don't get bored of these early films, so who cares?

Swedish Nympho Slaves (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Also known as DIE SKLAVINNEN, this Franco production was one of many produced by Erwin C. Dietrich, which would allow the director a larger than normal budget. The film centers around a father and his goon (Franco himself) who paid five-million dollars for the return of his kidnapped daughter. The daughter was never returned so they kidnap a whorehouse (Lina Romay) owner who might know where the missing girl is. I've always said that this era of Franco films are among my favorite as the bigger budgets allowed him better cinematography, great scores and some better than average stories and best of all were the beautiful tropic locations. This film here pretty much has all of that stuff with the expected amount of sleaze, sex and non-stop nudity from various beautiful women. I really found the story here to be a lot more entertaining than many of the director's films because I actually began to care about the mystery of what happened to the girl and I must admit that I really enjoyed Vitor Mendes in the role of the father. I found him to be pretty good in the role but so was Franco playing his typical type of character, which means he spends most of his time slapping around Romay. Speaking of Romay, she's as hot as ever and has no problem slipping into her role. Martine Stedil plays the kidnap girl and she's easy on the eyes as well. Eric Falk has a small role here as well. Walter Baumgartner did the nice music score and his brother Peter was in charge of the cinematography, which once again featured the trademark Franco zooms. I'm sure those who hate Franco will continue to do so but fans of pure sleaze should find plenty to enjoy here. With a running time of 75-minutes, the film goes by at a fast pace and it's trashy enough from start to finish to make it worth viewing.