Killer Barbys

In KILLER BARBYS, the rock band of the same name -led by Flavia (Sylvia Superstar)- happen upon a remote castle after their vehicle breaks down.

Said castle is the home of an ancient Countess (Mariangela Giordano) who happens to be a vampire, and she's very thirsty! It's not long before our heroes are being killed off by The Countess' henchman and his eeevil dwarfs!

KILLER BARBYS is another wonky, erotic spook-fest from Director Jess Franco. It contains the requisite gore, nudity, and a semi-cohesive story line.

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The Countess! She's hot, ruthless, and downright animalistic!

Gorehounds will want to stick around for the death-by-steamroller denouement...

I'd been warned this was bad before I watched it, but nothing could prepare me for just HOW bad! If this was made by some nameless hack I would have watched it and immediately forgotten about it, but as it's directed by Jess Franco, the man responsible for cult favourites like 'Vampyros Lesbos', 'Succubus', 'Eugenie De Sade', 'A Virgin Among The Living Dead', 'Sadisterotica' and 'Faceless', I couldn't help but be a little depressed... 'Killer Barbys' is absolute garbage any way you look at it and a sad low point for Franco. It's very hard to think of one good thing to say about it. Okay, The Barbies lead singer Silvia Superstar is pretty hot and their song 'Love Killer' isn't bad and rocks in a similar way to The Muffs or The Donnas. That's about it for praise. Apart from that, this movie stinks. Franco has done wonders on minimal budgets before in his long career, so that's no excuse for how poor this is. There are some talented people in the cast too - spaghetti western regular Aldo Sambrell, who will be a familiar face to Sergio Leone fans, co-star of the wonderful 'The Day Of The Beast' Santiago Segura, and Mariangela Giordano ('The Sect'). But the script is awful, the special effects lame, and the dubbing on the DVD I watched atrocious. If you hold Jess Franco in high esteem like I do, it's best to avoid this rubbish. You'll just feel cheated and sad. Highly UNrecommended!

People who say this is the worst Jess franco movie obviously haven't seen too many Jess Franco movies. This has the same liabilities of many Franco flicks--the story is formulaic, the budget is non-existent, the film-making is borderline incompetent, the acting is terrible and the English dubbing is even worse. This movie is basically an extended promo for "the Killer Barbies", a less-talented, Spanish version of The Cramps with a sexy female lead singer, "Sylvia Superstar", who makes Britney Spears appear conservatively dressed by comparison. Fortunately, their music is a lot better than Britney Spears'. Unfortunately, it seems to consist of only two songs that they play over and over again, first in a live concert, then on the tape deck of their Scooby Doo-style tour van, and then non-diegetically on the soundtrack.

After their van breaks down in the remote countryside, the band members take refuge in a creepy old castle (except for one couple who remain in the van to have sex for a ridiculously long time, before getting chased naked through the woods and summarily slaughtered). The surviving Barbies prove pretty tepid heroes actually, but the villains are pretty good--they include long-time character actor Aldo Sambrell, actor/producer Santiago Segura (unknown in America, but a cult figure today in Spain) and two creepy-ass midgets. Most impressive though is the infamous Mariangela Giordano as a Countess Bathory type who needs the blood of. . . well, obviously not virgins, but young people, in order to restore her own youth. Giordano has a very long, blood-soaked, butt-naked nude scene, which is pretty damn impressive considering she was almost 60 at the time! Of course, if you're watching this to "flip one off the wrist" as it were, you might not want to witness an actress a few years shy of collecting a pension in the altogether (no matter how good she still looks), but this kind of polymorphous perversity is what I find most interesting about Franco. Maybe it isn't very sexy, but it's a lot more interesting than watching your usual silicone-enhanced bimbos going through the motions of tediously choreographed softcore sex scenes. Call me crazy.

"Sylvia Superstar" also has brief nude scenes (which is more than you'll get from a Britney Spear's movie and you'll suffer a lot less for the privilege). Ditto with the ridiculously horny female back-up singer (at least before she is regrettably "decapitated" and replaced with what is obviously a headless department store mannequin). The special effects are laughable as usual. This is hardly "the most violent Jess Franco movie" as is claimed in the intro, but it's far from the worst one either

The rock band Killer Barbies is on tour across Spain when their van breaks down. They are invited by a dark stranger into a dark castle with a dark secret: the countess reached the age of Methusalem by drinking blood of young people. Such as... yes, rock band members. "Killer Barbys" suffers from the problems you could easily predict for a movie that is basically a mere promotion support for a band: poor acting (Aldo Sanbrell is the only exception), low budget, same old story. But it is clearly better than its sequel "Killer Barbies vs Dracula" in the whole atmosphere. The foggy castle is full of strange props like dolls without eyes, clocks, bones, barred windows... spooky! So, if you don't mind the silliness, gore and nudity, it's a "good bad flick". I dare say it even was the beginning of Jess Franco's return in the 90s when he seemed to fade away into oblivion.

Jesús Franco's late work Killer Barbys is a mixed bag to me - it got some real good fun gore and horror scenes and some schlocky, sexy fun too, but there are, sadly, some rather lengthy and boring parts too, that weaken the experience rather considerably. Anyway, Killer Barbys is still recommendable to the die-hard connoisseur of Jesús Franco's oeuvre, who just craves for new junk food, but if you are new to his work I would recommend rather other movies to enter the maestro's wonderland of trash, cheese and schlock: Count Dracula, Vampyros Lesbos, Bloody Moon, and Venus in Furs are good movies to begin your journey. Exact rate: 3.5.