Killer Barbys (1996)

From http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51G9788WMCL.jpg

Dir. Jesus Franco

Reviewing this, it may actually cause more damage to the film if I suddenly tried to use film studies glossary terms of 'style' to describe my enjoyment of it. This'll be a circumvention on myself since there is always a danger of defending one's enjoyments against imaginary detractors. Shame as it's called too, but there's no reason for it to exist. Can't I just admit I enjoyed the film? Why not for once? Admit to being turned on by the female nudity? I'm a heterosexual male so why not admit it? Admit to liking the goofy special effects and cheapness compared to other Jess Franco films? Yes, and say that it's still a Franco film despite this. There is of course this issue of celebrating something like this subconsciously to rebel against good taste, politically correct films. But taste's subjective, I've loved films both progressive and far more so than more celebrated politically correct films, and even the idea of what is politically correct is questionable when it doesn't always work in what it was intended to do. The only shame that exists for me is that the British DVD I viewed it on was English dub only. While its amusing, it's not seamless to the static noise of the original film, and is completely awful. Enjoyable so, but embarrassing for the film's sake. As for the film itself, I feel no shame enjoying it on this viewing. Honestly, while Killer Barbys is a drop down from Franco's best, is still memorable and considerably better than a lot of films like it from other directors.

(Real life) pop punk band Killer Barbys, name modified here because of Mattel, find their Mystery Van dying on them in the middle of nowhere. Their trademark are Barbie dolls tied up as van decorations, and on microphone stands, in improvised tape bondage gear, and the red haired, scantily clad lead female singer to wave a chainsaw around. She's the heroine, sometimes dressed in a Spiderman crop top. Two male members, the first with a beard and long hair, the other, the closest to another key character, with clean shaven features and has a higher pitched voice in the English dub. Both of them always go on about sex, the dialogue more ridiculous in the dubbing. The final two members, a male member and a female dancer, prefer to stay in the van and actually have sex continually rather than merely talk about it, to the point of seemingly staying the entire night there in coupling. A mysterious older man, who passes by the van, says he can get a toll truck for them by the next morning, and that they can all stay at the castle that he is servant of, that of a Countess who may be over a hundred years old or more. As established before the titular band are introduced, staying in this castle is probably a very bad idea, Lady Bathory reasons why it's so.

A very slim, simple plot - a common trait of a Franco film - the director concerning himself with mood, violence and sex. Mood, as with the best work of the director, is all encompassing. Characters, like the main heroine in this film by the end, find themselves wandering adrift in corridors and open areas, and very long camera takes are done that feel longer then they should be. This is my first from the winter period of the late director, divisive even amongst his fans, where it's said there was a considerable decline. A period, as co-funded European horror cinema was dissipating, where Franco was being helped financially by his own fan base. The lower production quality and, if translated accurately from the original audio track, dialogue do show this is a bit of a drop from Vampyros Lesbos (1971) or Succubus (1968). But despite these problems, it's a film like this that shows me how good Franco was. The band are picked off one-by-one, leading to the lead singer having to get out of the castle as the Countess makes her appearance. Along with the servant, there's another man living in the back, who prepares (clearly rubber mould) corpses for the Countess to drink the blood of and who has two dwarfs, both genders, as "children" who help and get the spoils, human ears to those dolls hanging up in the Mystery Van. The plot has very few twists and turns within it in terms of the events I've described going any further from this. What's more important is the content surrounding this thin plot. Sexual pleasure and blood are the main plot momentums, as is the case with other Franco films.

From http://www.imcdb.org/i292847.jpg

Some of his key trademarks are not at their best. The usually exceptional music score is replaced here by a funny but horrifically dinky keyboard sound - you'd think synthesisers from the seventies and eighties Euro horror films, ignored for nineties sounds, could've been relocated, dusted off and used but apparently not. Location use and creating environments from what he had for his films however is still strong here. Despite the small plot, what's really of enjoyment is a lurid journey from one moment of sex or horror to another, and the distinctness of the castle location helps make the film stand out. Using it as part of his usual dream logic, where characters are adrift in rooms and almost sleepwalking along predestined routes, it exists here too. Mist covered hill, near the river, are still powerful to see even in a weaker film like this. Creepy stuffed animals, with boggle eyes or made to be like people are lingered over as is the decorations of the castle's rooms. The abattoir at the back, despite the rubber bodies, is a sparse and messy space that's riddled with blood everywhere. When it gets to the point of the heroine finding out what's going on, the film fully becomes what I love about Franco as a she wanders the hidden rooms of the castle, a literal chess room with giant chess pieces and matching black and white tiles, to a room of various body parts and curiosities in jars. This doesn't last long, but from it the tone of the film is shown, even with the plot's junky schlock, to be a dreamy one of previous Franco films even if the style is not completely the same as the before ones.

Regardless of the film's failings, it's still in my thoughts as a memorable viewing experience. Once I get past the cheesiness, although I liked the (overused) songs by the band, I still felt an atmosphere that is shared with the best of Jess Franco's work and is rarely done in other horror films. The special effects for the blood and gore were absurd but befitting, the film never taking on a serious tone that would've been deflated by the obvious failings. The sexuality was honestly appealing too; admittedly I didn't find a female character running from a man with a scythe while completely naked titillating, instead seeing it as lurid on purpose, but the rest of the sexual nature of the film, while also schlocky, was enticing. And it's worth baring in mind that, for all the criticisms Franco has had levelled at him for this, the fact that the actress playing the Countess, when she appears to the band, is not just a beautiful woman but a beautiful older woman suggests that, perversely, Franco may have had a more progressive view of sexuality and gender than many other apparently 'progressive' directors. The luridness and the few failings are probably why I had to start this review as I did, although I give up keeping any un-biased mask on and admit to having completely enjoyed Killer Barbys. It could be argued to have a cop-out ending - that its revealed to have been merely fiction with an improvised music video for the band taking place - but personally it was an emphasis that this was Franco trying to make a fun film. And it was fun to view. He still had the talent despite the big drawbacks in production of this compared his sixties and seventies work. I could care less any more about trying to write intelligent, good taste reviews and I thank Killer Barbys, and my enjoyment of it, for reminding me that individual taste has completely influenced everything I've written on this blog. That I've covered many Franco films from before this pretty much says that I've really found enjoyment in his work even here.

From http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v517/richardsplash/blog6/killerbarbys_04_zpsa9a9067a.jpg

Two Films From Jess Franco...

From http://media.screened.com/uploads/0/2709/264577-devilakasava_dvd_large.jpg

The Devil Came From Akasava (1971)

Dir. Jess Franco

Another Franco film. Different from the others yet very familiar like siblings. The same key is used with a different melody. There is a stone that is able to turn base metals into gold in ...Akasava. It also assaults the person who has contact with it without a protective suit on with radiation that kills you instantly. A paradoxical item of harm and lust, a Mcguffin if there ever was one which can yet effect the small narrative further because it can be implemented as a murder weapon too. Making it useful to use against people trying to claim it. Even then there are multiple groups who'll kill each other off the normal way, leading to secret agents and Scotland Yard having to get involved.

Small, limited sets are broken down into pieces of edited sequences. To Franco it's not the narrative that is of the most importance but the moments and the mood of them. The erotic dancing that a female secret agent (Soledad Miranda) does in a cover is of as much importance as a chase scene, lingered over for prolonged minutes until it's as much of the position of being there as well as the titillation that is of importance. It's too pronounced how Franco stretches out eroticism and violence in his films to say that they're just sluggish genre films, but a clearly disarming tone to them that encapsulates how much of this is very unreal cinema. The characters here are trapped in plot circumstance and twists that have taken place before, many times before, and the arbitrary nature of this actually makes the genre clichés fresh and entertaining. So close to being aesthetic messes, even though people may be divided with Franco's work, that they are completely unpredictable. Always abrupt when someone does turn the tables on another, but some moments, like the disposal of a body, actually show the director could as much make great scenes through conventional scene structure too. Suspicious people are actually working on the same side. Old women are not what you perceive them to be. The clichés of the sci-fi and thriller, despite the clear budget restrictions, stand out because the restricted tone prevents Franco from padding the twists out until they lose their effect. Although even then his cinematic style, mood before plot, meant that this is prevented in his films already.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii135/guessthefilm/devil.jpg

A lot of his great virtue is that, looked down on for his apparent sloppiness and disregard of structure, it's clear he was concerned for the structure of his films, but in terms of everything else but the plots. They are transitions. He cared about the sexuality of the human body. The sharp shock of a death. Films improvised on the huff. Contrivance like the reality has been drastically changed, even if this was not even considered by the director. ...Akasava doesn't really repeat any plotting from the films I have seen, and actually stands out as a unique film so far in viewing his work, somewhat fittingly ironic because in another person's hands this is insanely generic material. In his hands he was clearly obsessed with the cinematic image inherently as it was. Plot moments suddenly happen in his work, jarring you because the scenes before were so languidly paced. His obsession with the female body, possible contentious opinion on a male director's gaze on feminity notwithstanding, was as much about canvassing the screen in the female body (the breasts, lips, skin, pubic hair, all) in close-ups that at least showed the whole female body as part of real woman and belonging to her fully. Rather than parade a questionable attitude of putting women behind a glass screen and, while letting you look, seeing it as an abstraction of titillation. Instead of what Franco did and made it matter of fact even in a softcore tone. And he at least had women who were in control of their sexuality, in both films covered here in Soledad Miranda, than mere images, even if the characters were one dimensional pulp. Of course these films were exploitation. Of course Franco could show complete apathy with some of his films. Of course some of them fail miserably or purport tedious schlock. But with the ones I've tries to defend there is always a sense, even if it was sordid or made of tired conventions, that he impassioned and wanted to bring the viewers into them with his overload of incredibly long scene times, of characters wandering through rooms and corridors trapped in a haze, stuck in the environments on repeat by this point in his films, and sexuality less of a quick porno but a long, lingering sensation.

In having made as many films as Franco did, they start to meld together, not into pointlessness of their existence, but connecting and reflecting each other. They are very much genre films sold for their nudity and (hastily composed) action in closed hotel rooms and buildings, cut off from the rest of the world, but viewing as many of them as I have has introduced me to a slowly building universe. Happy to see Howard Vernon appear, a distinct face that, while he never got to work in Universal horror films from the thirties sadly, he did get his own world of horror films through Franco and to work with Jean-Luc Godard on Alphaville (1965). Introduced again to Franco's trademark of extreme zooms from afar. How isolated those interior locations actually are, and how even the exterior ones are cut off from all in their secret narrative. Films whose stories drift along. The fact that it's difficult for me not to repeat myself with these reviews is not a detriment to the late director but the sense of films which easily splice together into a single, self referential and formed entity. When you end one Franco film, you can transition into another and continue the atmosphere of the films in the next one....

http://classic-horror.com/files/images/shekilledin-poster.jpg

She Killed In Ecstasy (1971)

Dir. Jess Franco

Same year as the first film covered. Same universe. Maybe happening in the same time frame or another reality where these people lived completely different lives from the ones in the other film. A young doctor is barred from his career by four other doctors for an experimental that, despite intending to extend the lifespan of humanity, used human foetuses as guinea pigs. He loses his mind and eventually kills himself. His wife (Soledad Miranda again in a different personality) goes about taking revenge on the four doctors. It is a small film, only seventy or so minutes, and manages to be immensely economical in structure and yet retain the trademark prolonged, languid mood Franco made his trademark, abstracting scenes by their length and keeping the camera on moments longer than most directors. What makes this film stand out is that its brisk length allows the film to never sag, yet it's still intentionally slower paced, pulling you into the film fully if you can engage with Franco's (usually) erotic horror cinema.

As the gorgeous Miranda stalks the screen getting her revenge, the film like his best for me so far (eg. Succubus (1968)) is thick in mood and also with real visual richness. At his distinct, Franco could still make exploitation films, quickly, that stood out in a clear auteurist style, despite being a director-for-hire in his style and hundred plus filmography, and significantly different in their presentation and said style even if work was dismissed as rudimentary. The music, having seen a lot of films, and listened carefully to the soundtracks, in these films are memorable or legitimately great, especially jazz and world music used. The films, lurid horror and erotica, are constructed around simple plots but their concerns are the sense of everything but that plot except to get to the new twist, Franco more obsessed with the decor, the naked flesh, the sense of time passing. Even the compromised aspects of these films and his working habits, having to moved through numerous countries in co-productions and making countless ones within the same year, added special traits to them that are noticeable despite only seeing twenty or so films from a hundred film catalogue. The closed, limited interior sets, usually memorably well decorated, add a real sense of claustrophobia, tight reality for these characters, especially as Miranda's character becomes much more of a stalker in a prolonged sequence of her following a doctor she wants to take revenge on. Since Franco, in the sixties and seventies at least, had a tendency to cast the same actors, many recognisable to me now despite not remembering their names, it makes the films like a reoccurring dream. The same beings repeating cycles of revenge, erotic death and horror, especially as the films repeat plot points and narratives in different presentations. She Killed In Ecstasy is a reinterpretation of Venus In Furs (1969), of a woman using her sexual body to seduce people and kill them. Even if sadly her life was drastically cut short in real life, Miranda, as a woman who transforms into a being of sexual desire who can seduce both genders, was able to be a prescience onscreen immortalised in how Franco idolised her, the same with The Devil Came From Akasava where she is seen as an employee for a spy group who can switch between the alias of a prostitute and an erotic dancer and yet seem above them in her sexuality and beauty. Howard Vernon is able to become this recognisable face in the director's work, and since Franco cast himself in secondary roles countless times, he himself became a distinct face immortalised in these films too. It's also befitting he's in his own work, making himself as much a creation of his own films, while significantly, not using them as an excuse to be a lead, but always the interesting minor character in physical appearance and behaviour, and not afraid of killing himself off with his own stories.

Together with The Devil Came From Akasava, these films' minimalist attitude to plotting actually make plot swerves and twists, even ones usually cliché, become different because they are made into unexpected moments within the long sequences of the film. The plot in She Killed In Ecstasy is slight, but if you can gauge with the atmosphere led presentation, you'll engage fully with it. Both films co-exist within the same type of filmmaking context that is clearly distinct to Franco only. Even a director like Jean Rollin, who crossed paths with him in taking over Zombie Lake (1981), who also mixed the erotic with the languid, and are put together within the same part of Euro genre cinema, has a clear difference to Franco in presentation. Contrary to the appearance given to him even by cult viewers who see him as only a schlock filmmaker, Jess Franco if he is still to be a schlock filmmaker was yet clearly his own, distinct of a filmmaker in how he presented his material and in how many of films interlink very clearly together. At this point the films are now going to be intentionally melded together by myself because, despite the difficulties a hundred film or more career in terms of trying to find it all let alone complete, I cannot look at these films without them being part of one giant concept that connects fully in their mirroring of each other. The virtues I've stated for these films can be said for others I've seen, and they all befit each other if the director's work was treated like this fully. 

http://24.media.tumblr.com/332f1760d4d85b07cf722af739cf335d/tumblr_mk754t9DZU1qzrs0co1_1280.png

Mini-Review: Voodoo Passion aka. Der Ruf der blonden Göttin (1977)

From http://imageshack.us/a/img802/1332/l9x3.jpg

Dir. Jesus Franco

Voodoo Passion is straight-up softcore. There is a story of such, but the main and consistent part of the film is the nudity of its female actresses and sex. It feels like a Franco film, a slow and deliberate pace, dream-like, but its streamlined back to the obsession with the female form more so than Female Vampire (1973). Your ability to like this film depends on your liking of mood in Franco's work. A newly wedded wife of a government official moves to Haiti, only to feel that her sense of reality is dissipating as she believes she's murdered people. As this happens, the sensuality of the local music, and the draw of both her husband's platinum blonde haired, and horny, sister and their maid servant, is becoming too much to handle.

What could come off as a "voodoo is bad" film, under the belief that she's being manipulated and with voodoo dolls laying around the house, actually turns out to be immensely different. Baring in mind it feels less like French softcore than the older film, but more Euro softcore, with said sister whose continually nude and lusting over her brother's wife, it's very much a reimagining of Franco's own Nightmares Come at Night (1970). There's shades of Female Vampire too in at least one moment. Far from feeling like Franco tritely repeating himself, it's actually cool that he was riffing on his own work repeatedly in different tones and styles. It helped that he never made the same type repeatedly each time - which may have made this sort of thing too much when he had the expansive filmography he had - and the interconnectivity of it all, that characters are doomed to be repeating the follies of previous Franco characters, is engaging as an idea in taking his whole filmography as one giant film. It comes off as befitting a musician whose main obsession, jazz, could be as much about repeating sequences from previous work and taking it into new improvisions. The thin plot for Voodoo Passion is enough for Franco to push his female protagonist through a series of scenarios where erotic and bloody incidents take place out of her hands. It also becomes apparent, even if depicting its setting as exotic, that Franco is on the side of the Haitians just because he leaps on the opportunity to use the environment's musical rhythms in his film's score instantly, mixing it with jazz as the film progresses. A lot of the film is people being taken away by the beats of the music, equal opportunity nudity by the bucket load, the entire film more of a musical piece than a narrative. Long stretches, when it's not the softcore sex, is lengthy moments of dance, of characters wandering rooms and outside, the entire eighty minutes or so a vast lengthy atmospheric piece.

Its definitely a weaker Franco piece. It does feel long trying to exist only on its nudity and music, not even a basic plot. Nightmares Come at Night (1970), which it takes its inspiration from, was drawing on an abstract air and slightly more complicated narrative. Admittedly the films which repeat tropes from his previous work, that I've seen so far, have felt weaker, though I don't dismiss those films at all, just that in this case, Voodoo Passion is definitely the weakest of the two. It mainly rests on its erotic material and it has to be viewed through that mainly. Is it sexy? Titillating? I confess to being attracted to every woman onscreen, and to Franco's credit the women (and men) are of many shapes and sizes, and that his actresses, even if lusted over, at least had a distinctness and charisma to them that made them more human than vacant. For a man who could get very scuzzy, the film is actually a lot more held back too despite the wall-to-wall nudity. Its solid visual appearance probably  explains this - this is not The Devil Hunter (1980) which does feel scuzzy - and for simple titillation this film is far and above most softcore of now, which is legitimately worse than something like this in quality in so many ways. Whether you can appreciate this film for that or not is entirely of a subjective opinion in this case rather than with other Jess Franco films.

From http://eutorrents.ph/imagehost/images/derrufjvj.jpg

Videotape Swapshop Review: The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962)

From http://wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-a/awful_dr_orlof_poster_07.jpg

Dir. Jesús Franco

Another Videotape Swapshop review, and more Franco. Like a reliving high, I can jump back to reviewing another of his films and always find something of interest. Only my own inconsistency with using Jesús and Jess for his first name is going to give me grief one day if I don't get a consistence first name moniker for him in my writing, especially when I'm LONG before ever getting through a quarter of his work. I was thinking about starting on another director, next year, that I felt I had barely seen work from and wanted to compensate for the embarrassment, but I had to choose a director whose filmography is over the hundreds as the first, meaning I'll be with Franco for a while at the same time. Its damn great to be watching his works which is the thing I'll be going to in my mind every time I think this, and I only wish I started becoming a fan of his while he was still alive. But as I watched this early work of his, I can say fully that he left a vast library of work that expands when you think you've pinned the late Spaniard down fully in tropes.

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/18154/the-awful-dr-orloff-1962-director-jesus-franco/

From http://www.mondo-digital.com/awfulorlof4big.jpg

Representing Belgium and The French Language: Female Vampire (1973)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/Female_Vampire.jpg

Dir. Jesús Franco

First of all, hopefully I'll be able to pick up from the few days I missed. The least expected thing - technical malfunction out of my hands and nothing to do with my computer - delayed the final stage of the season. It will have to run into November to make up for thirty one films I wanted to write reviews of. A conclusion for the series will have to be written in November or part of the next Month In Review too. To compensate today, I present a review of another Jess (Jesús) Franco film and the first in a group of reviews I wrote for Videotape Swapshop  to tie both places I write for together into this blogathon. 

It made sense, since I was diving into the director at the beginning of the year, going through his filmography slowly, to cover a film or two for this season. Considering how many co-productions he made, including for countries with no other horror films expect his to truly represent them, its befitting and also says a lot about how diverse his career was. And I have barely scrapped a body of work that's over a hundred films not including the re-edited versions. There could have been three of his films covered already, but Bloody Moon (1981), his West German slasher film, is one of the few legitimately awful films of his I've encountered. I rather champion Female Vampire. Merely poking the air next to the catalog of the late man, deciding to view his work when he sadly passed away this year, I can be thankful that its quite a solid series of films I've seen baring those couple of bad ones. Even something like Oasis of the Zombies (1982), which I reviewed on this blog, is no way near as bad as some of the films I've seen. I'm late to the party with reviewing Franco's films, with other blogs devoting themselves to his, but as a person who only saw a handful of his films before and barely had any primary knowledge of what his films were like, there's a potential for a really interesting chronology in these reviews, as the director gets the most tags to his name so far in the labels section for filmmakers, where I slowly get to know more and more about his style as I watch more films. I could be digging at his work for years, which means I may have to use other director seasons as mini-diversions, their thirty or so films a puddle next to the ocean of Franco's, and there's stuff by Franco, like his porn films, that are going to be difficult to find. Here at least I got to one of the first of his films I heard of, and I'm glad for what I saw. I only wish an available DVD wasn't very out-of-print in Region 1 or 2 as of yet. 

Also of importance, looking back on this film, is that Lina Romay deserves her own label in the Actors section of my site. Even if a lot of Female Vampire is near-explicit titillation, she was clearly more than mere window dressing in this film, turning the movie into something more sensual and interesting with her clear interest in how she presented herself. Its worth making this review link a moment of my own applause for both her and her husband Franco together. 

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/17244/female-vampire-1973-director-jess-franco/

From http://images.dead-donkey.com/images/bscap1924wl3.jpg

Representing Switzerland: Jack The Ripper (1976)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Jack_the_Ripper_FilmPoster.jpeg

Dir. Jesús Franco

The Ripper (Klaus Kinski), a doctor, is prowling the streets of fog covered London, a Euro-specific version where everyone is speaking German and the world shown is built from German-Swiss construct, killing prostitutes because of an internal psychosis. However the police are slowly closing in on him, with the love of one detective (Josephine Chaplin) willing to gamble with her life to drag out the killer. Even if it could be the influence of the producers and crew on this film, a higher budget film from the director, this is not the only film from Jess Franco this atmospheric and very well made. With a career that has travelled numerous countries co-producing the work, the late director was very talented at his best, and Jack The Ripper is reminiscent of the British co-productions in their lavish looks. Unlike the British co-productions, this German co-production feels far more lenient to allowing Franco to express his more lurid, trangressive side along with mood. Far from the most lurid of Franco's work, far from the most violent or sexually explicit film ever released on British DVD, and definitely not the most violent or sexually explicit take on Jack the Ripper with the original graphic novel of Alan Moore's From Hell (1999 collected) in existence. But there is still things in this that, even with obvious prophetic effects, still cause one to wince with what is shown or implied, while still not overdoing for the sake of shock. Mixed with the mood the film has, expansive sets and darkly lit streets, it works together very well.

From http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4037/4317835170_08ba0ec4d3.jpg

Some may have issue with how most of the film is slow paced and has quite a few dialogue scenes, but maybe it's my personal taste here, but even with the plot reaching its obvious conclusion with or without the scenes, the dramatic and police investigation sequences were immensely engaging. Probably because, unlike an awful Franco film Bloody Moon (1981), these sequences are actually of interest for characterisation, plot or just detail. It was great that there's a side character, a blind man, whose amplified sense of smell and sound would ultimately doom the killer, in the beginning, to at least escaping the police by the skin of his teeth. That from the beginning he's going to be found out quickly, Kinski's character more desperate than calculated. That he's shown to actually be a person as well as a killer as a doctor. That there's comedy with bickering amongst the police and witnesses, and the witnesses themselves. That the cliché reason behind the killer's psychosis gets distorted through two very distinct scenes, the first through visual manipulation, the second a two person dialogue sequence played out through extreme close-ups of Kinski's face, showing that even if off-screen he was a reprehensibly being, he was still compelling onscreen in genre films like this. That, even if she becomes the per usual potential victim, Chaplin's character has a more calmed relationship with her detective boyfriend and gets involved with tracking the killer down entirely on her own initiative. The film, while possible to dismiss as perverse gloss, has far more subtlety than most films in this genre. Altogether its one of the better of Jess Franco's films. Not one of his best, but at least rearing the silver tier. It proves the work of Franco has quality to it, its graphic content mixed with a tense sense of tone. 

From http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2436/4317100987_12a8d5bab3.jpg

"They're coming from the sandwiches here!" (Oasis of the Zombies (1982))

From http://d3gtl9l2a4fn1j.cloudfront.net/t/p/w1280/zjmlP0M4hqtPEKJUD0OFYd2e36s.jpg

Dir. Jess Franco

Oasis of the Zombies is not a good film. But it's not as bad as its reputation suggests. It probably shows something dead in myself that I can think of plenty of films worse than this, not including controversial choices, but this film has virtues in it that just become lost in the final movie. The oasis is a place in the African Sahara where, during a skirmish in World War II, a large bullion of Nazi gold was lost in the ground. For anyone who is going to the oasis however - treasure hunters, the son of a British soldier who was at the original skirmish - they will encounter the living corpses of the Nazi soldiers who come up from the sand at night and kill those within the vicinity. The film still retains virtues of the late director Jess Franco, and plenty of aspects that are always there with an auteur, celebrated or a cult one, whose filmography shuffles between personal work and director of hire films that someone could still hide their ideas in and blur the lines between the two sides. It does look great at points visually despite its very low budget and the print quality of the version I viewed. It shows Franco had an exceptional visual eye when he allowed it to be used, reinforced by his better work like Succubus (1967), images of the silhouettes of zombies on top of sand dunes in the dusk and the sun blazing down upon them standing out for what was said to be an atrocious film when I was going into viewing it. For a generic zombie premise, it's a hell of a lot better than some of the ugliest, cheapest looking horror films I've managed to see, especially as it still had the virtue of actually being shot on celluloid than a cheap digital camera. I also have to appreciate the composer, or at least whoever was stuck playing the synth keyboard playing the same two notes. It'll put off a lot of people, but I have a fathomless passion for electronic and synth music, including most examples of the tackiest songs and scores ever made for films, and it felt like the keyboard player was trying their damndest to bring tension to the visuals onscreen when the film is dragging its feet. No matter how cheesy the zombie makeup looks, it's clear they were going to try and get the viewer to react to it in some way, and I have to applaud their attempt.

From http://www.mondo-digital.com/oasis3big.jpg

It's a typical Euro-horror film, an acquired taste, whose English dub provided me with the hilarious misheard quote that titles the review and comes off as incredibly ridiculous. The zombie makeup - pop eyes zombies who've come from a Guinness World Records attempt to have the furthest out a dislocated eye can be, a zombie with the head of the mask from George A. Romero's Bruiser (2000) - is silly, the set up for their attacks rudimentary and all of it coming off as very amusing. It's enjoyable if you can find this kind of bad horror filmmaking charming, sat from a distance looking at these actors having to raise out of the sand and lumber about, and engaged seeing the characters be attacked by the zombies in the tone of a b- or  c-movie. It's surprisingly chaste for a Jess Franco admittedly; there is some sex and violence, but it's very discrete, which is why the film's ended up with a 15 certificate in Britain. This is not the problem though with the film, very much adding to the peculiar nature of the movie. No, the problem with Oasis of the Zombies, that has likely been the reason why its viewed with such hatred justifiably, is because it has no sense of pace but just slogs along. For a film only eighty minutes long, it feels much longer. Moments, such as the prelude to the climax as zombies drift towards the protagonists' camp, show how the film's slow pace can be effective, but in the middle it's just laborious, with the sense of speed as a comatose snail. There is still plenty to like about the film around this, but this pace issue is a mood killer that damages the viewability of Oasis of the Zombies completely, spoiling the joyful moments with how dull it can be.

From http://www.avmaniacs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/oasis-two.jpg

This prevents the film from being a cheesy but fun minor entry in Franco's filmography. People would still hate it for its failings, but it would have been schlock with some merit and things to amuse one's self about. The pace disrupts the final film however and makes it difficult to enjoy it fully. The result is fascinating as a failure in Franco's CV, both that is, to be honest, a job for hire that could have still been entertaining, and a film still containing his distinct voice, but it cannot be ignored how tiresome it gets when its going nowhere in the middle section. It would be amusing schlock if it was better, but it's a mess as it is even if I've subjected myself to worse.

From http://unobtainium13.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/oasis-of-the-zombies.jpg?w=540

Mini-Review: Dracula – Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)

From http://wrongsideoftheart.com/wp-content/gallery/posters-d/dracula_prisoner_of_frankenstein_poster_02.jpg

Dir. Jess Franco

France-Spain

For a B-movie, it’s amazing to see how more economic and more watchable it is when it removes all the perceived requirements of a horror movie that usually hampers it. The first conversation between two characters takes place, in the eighty minute film, at fifty nine minutes, in vast contrast to a genre which is usually full of tedious character dialogue. Exposition is kept to an extreme minimum and it’s all about the images. Wide eyes heightened by makeup and prosthetics. Rubber bat abuse. Erratic camera zooms and female vampires. Times in Dracula: Prisoner Of Frankenstein I drifted off but I was not bored. Instead I found myself catching up with going on after this happened and finding myself gleefully pleased by the fact this happened. Dr Frankenstein (Dennis Price) and his hunchback assistant take over the castle towering a small village only to find the remains of Dracula (Howard Vernon, fake grey makeup, but with the look and bugged-out eyes perfect for a more corpse-like, mute Dracula). Resurrecting him, Frankenstein intends to use him and his turned victims, alongside his own Frankenstein creation, to start his own army of creatures to dominate the world. He now has to deal with Dracula’s arch enemy, a doctor (Alberto Dalbés) and the female clairvoyant who, almost catatonic, he uses to detect the evil beings.

The story is simple. It is stretched out for the whole of the film, languid and slow paced, with the main story only starting proper halfway through. But instead of padded, unbearable dialogue, which sadly can be found in Jess Franco’s own The Bloody Judge (1970), and like that film, ultimately uninteresting plotting, this one instead reveals in the material in what it shows onscreen. It comes off like a silent film in tone in how it, unlike many other movies, managing to convey its story economically through the images themselves and atmosphere. It’s ridiculous – the rubber bats being wiggled up and down just off camera, the idle attitude to plot points – and its last quarter throws in another classic movie monster and ends in the most abrupt of ways possible. But not only does it outdo Van Helsing (2004) in every conceivable way in terms of movie monster mash-ups, but this mix of economic storytelling and the complete lack of it makes it far more engaging. Franco is capable of some striking images even in a low budget film like this – Vernon’s mad eyes and blood around his lips, a hand poking out of a coffin – and scenes, such as Frankenstein’s monster kidnapping a female single with little effort whatsoever, are memorable. Its non-sequitur ending makes it better, adding to pulling the rug out from under your feet with a kick to push you further into its tone. Its far more entertaining like this, and it’s a testament to Jess Franco, as I’ve started going through his filmography, that its already clear that he had a distinct style which used weaknesses to his advantage and, decades later, makes films like this that could have been atrocious an immensely watchable surprise.

From http://whydoesitexist.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/vlcsnap-2011-04-13-18h12m47s78.png

Videotape Swapshop Review: Nightmares Come At Night (1970)

From http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/nightmares-come-at-night/w448/nightmares-come-at-night.jpg?1289467868

Dir. Jesús Franco

Liechtenstein

The following is my second review for Videotape Swapshop’s month of Franco and Jean Rollin reviews.

Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/11272/nightmares-come-at-night-%E2%80%93-1970-director-jess-franco/

A Videotape Swapshop Review: Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN5D8Pkq17NLJ71syeh3dn2cwRaadqLs1SGAQ68LspcbVxtct7rrGiADAoxYQHNves4ZR_RjgQ9Sc3vovk2Y-HezbDBTf4f0bx37sbS3CQBaNc3Heukq0SWfSKuTVYdH8BYVlVUkFyMx8/s1600/Vampyros_Lesbos_017.jpg

Dir. Jesús Franco

Spain-West Germany

The following is one of two reviews of mine for an month’s worth of Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin reviews on Videotape Swapshop this January. Some decadence and sex is a nice palate cleanser from the bad films you’ve all been reading reviews of this week.

Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/11353/vampyros-lesbos-%E2%80%93-1970-director-jess-franco/