Die Marquise von Sade

Doriana Grey (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Art-house and porn collide in this extremely bizarre and mildly poetic film from Spanish director Jess Franco. A young woman (Lina Romay), with vampire like qualities, lives alone in a castle where a new reporter (Monica Swinn) comes to do a story on her. It appears Doriana needs to suck the life out of various men and women, in a sexual way, in order to stay young but she gets none of the sexual feelings out of it. Those go to her sister, also played by Romay, who is locked up in an asylum where she goes through various sexual fits whenever Doriana is with someone. If you've seen VAMPYROS LESBOS or even FEMALE VAMPIRE then you know what to expect with the "sucking life out of someone". Being Franco, this is done with sexual heat and this time out it crosses into hardcore range. I think a lot of hardcore scenes are rather ugly and unerotic but I think that's the point. The rather ugly sex scenes really make you feel the fact that Doriana isn't getting any pleasure out of the situations either. Franco likes to give graphic close ups of the sexual act and his way of filming them is rather ugly and dull but I mean both of them in a good way. I personally prefer FEMALE VAMPIRE but this is still a rather surreal film that mixes both genres. Romay turns in a fairly good performance even though I think she goes way too over the top with the locked up sister. Some of her "masturbation fits" are also a bit over the top with Franco's slowed down camera but outside of that there's not too much to complain about. The hardcore scenes will certainly keep a lot of people away but then again, Franco's name alone keeps a lot of people away. This isn't a pretty film but it's not suppose to be and that's where the films magic really is.