Death Packs a Suitcase (1972)

Death Packs a Suitcase (Der Todesrächer von Soho) is a 1972 krimi directed by Jess Franco. The krimis were adapted from the novels of Edgar Wallace which were massively popular in Germany,

The krimi genre kicked off in 1959 and in the 60s it was one of the mainstays of the German film industry. Rialto Studio made more than thirty of these movies. When rival studio CCC decided they wanted to get into the act they had a problem. They didn’t have the rights to Wallace’s novels. They solved that problem very cleverly by buying the rights to the novels of Wallace’s son Bryan Edgar Wallace who was at the time a successful thriller writer. CCC really only wanted the right to use the titles and the author’s name and their adaptations had little in common with the books. In this case, almost nothing in common.

The setting is London and one of the great things about the krimis is that they’re set in England but it’s an imaginary England based mostly on old British movies and detective novels.

There’s been a series of murders. In each case the victim finds his suitcase mysteriously packed. This is a tactic designed to terrify the victim - he knows he is now next on the murder list.

The murder weapon is a knife, thrown with uncanny accuracy.

Inspector Ruppert Redford of Scotland Yard (Fred Williams) gets some advice from his friend, the famous crime writer Charles Barton (Horst Tappert) and Barton plays a major part in the events to come.

Dr Bladmore (played by krimi legend Siegfried Schürenberg) always seems to be at hand when the murders take place.

There are several glamorous women and we cannot be sure which ones will turn out to be dangerous and treacherous but we’re confident that at least one will fall into that category.

This being a krimi there’s a comic relief character. In the 60s such a role would have been played by Eddi Arendt but in this case we have Luis Morris as news photographer Andy Pickwick and the good news is that he is genuinely amusing, he isn’t annoying and he has an actual plot function.

The plot is convoluted but don’t let that worry you. The krimi genre is like the giallo - what matters is that the plot should be outrageous and twisted. Despite what some people will tell you this movie’s plot does make sense.

The brisk pacing helps.

Franco made a whole bunch of lighthearted fun crime/adventure/spy romps in the late 60s and early 70s. You can call them Franco Lite but it’s something he enjoyed and he did have a flair for it.

This is, quite seriously, a visually dazzling movie. There’s hardly a scene that is shot in a dull conventional manner. Franco is constantly looking for ways to make things look interesting, with clever use of the wide-angle lens and camera angles (and especially low-angle shots) that make sets look slightly distorted and menacing and claustrophobic.

This does not come across as gimmicky - it’s a very valid and effective approach in a krimi. Krimis were heavily style-oriented and this is a very stylish movie.

Outdoor shots look misty and hazy which is of course what a German audience would think England looks like and it adds a slightly spooky vibe which works.

Fred Williams makes a likeable charismatic hero. The cast members are pretty good overall.

Death Packs a Suitcase is a very pleasant surprise. This is top-tier Franco and it’s hugely enjoyable. Highly recommended.

The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray release is excellent. Incidentally the 4:3 aspect ratio is correct: that’s how the movie was shot.

I’ve reviewed Bryan Edgar Wallace’s Death Packs a Suitcase. And I’ve reviewed lots of krimis. The Red Circle (Der rote Kreis, 1960) is a fine early example. Another late krimi worth seeing is Umberto Lenzi’s Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972), a kind of krimi/giallo hybrid.

Deathcheaters (1976)

Deathcheaters is a 1976 ozploitation action movie directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, a man who certainly knew how to do action movies.

The premise sounds promising enough. Two ex-military commandos, Rod Cann (Grant Page) and Steve Hall (John Hargreaves) are recruited by Culpepper (Noel Ferrier) of the Australian Secret Service for a clandestine mission in the Phillipines. They will have to burgle a safe which is located in a factory complex which is protected by elasborate security including about a hundred armed guards.

The movie doesn’t quite come off. To appreciate it one thing you do have to understand is that Trenchard-Smith wanted to make a very lighthearted movie aimed at a family audience, with some non-violent thrills and some comedy. He was aiming for a G rating, which he got.

The problem is that it therefore ends up being very innocuous and non-violent. It’s explained early on that after their experiences in Vietnam Rod and Steve will accept the mission as long as no killing is involved. As a result it’s very much wholesome entertainment.

The problem is that there’s really nothing very much at stake. Had the heroes been breaking into the factory complex to rescue hostages or a kidnapped scientist the movie would have had more bite but the censors might have considered it to be too scary for kids and it might have missed out on that G rating. The objective is just documents implicating a crooked businessman so there’s no sense of urgency, no sense of lives at stake. If the mission fails it will be mildly annoying for the Australian Government but no big deal.

There are no plot twists, no betrayals, no double-crosses.

It does start with a genuinely excellent chase sequence involving a customised dune buggy and a couple of bank robbers and this is the highlight of the movie.

We then see Rod and Steve do a few movie stunts but they’re movie stunts so we know that nobody is going to get hurt.

And we get a lot of unnecessary dialogue scenes. It seems to take forever for the actual plot to kick in.

The G rating also means that there is no nudity. Not even girls in bikinis. We see Steve with his wife but their interactions are so chaste they might as well be brother and sister. Rod romances Culpepper’s secretary but again it’s all very chaste.

While Rod and Steve are off on the mission Culpepper invites himself to Steve’s house where Steve’s wife is home alone. He claims he wants to play chess with her. We expect something to happen. Maybe a clumsy attempt at seduction, maybe a revelation about the real nature of the mission. What actually happens is that they play chess. Sadly that anticlimax sums up the movie. There just aren’t any plot twists at all.

And although there are some very good action sequences we never really get a sense of danger.

And we never get to see the movie’s villain, which might have livened things up.

The acting is competent but with such a bland script there are no opportunities for anyone to shine. Even Noel Ferrier (who could overact outrageously and delightfully when given the chance) is very restrained.

This was a very low budget movie so the factory complex in the Phillipines just looks like a factory. There wasn’t the money to make it look like the lair of a super-villain.

Deathcheaters has some good stunts but it falls flat and it’s easy to understand why it flopped at the box office.

Umbrella’s Blu-Ray release looks great and there are plenty of extras.

The Naked Zoo (1970)

William Grefé made some fun ultra low budget horror films but with The Naked Zoo he switched his attention to the counterculture.

It’s most notable for being one of Rita Hayworth’s last films and she’s by far the best thing in this movie.

Terry Shaw (Steve Oliver) aspires to be a great writer but earns his living as a gigolo. One of his clients is Helen Golden (Hayworth). She’s married to a very rich guy who is confined to a wheelchair which is why she turns to Terry to satisfy her physical needs.

Terry is a total creep and he spends his time hopping from one woman’s bed to another.

He hangs out with a bunch of hippies although they look more like beatniks from a decade earlier. 

Like so many movies from this era dealing with the counterculture it was clearly made by people who just thought beatniks and hippies were pretty much the same thing.

Terry and Helen are caught in the act by her husband and he has a gun and it all gets messy. Terry is worried that the cops will be after him but he doesn’t do anything about it.

The plot is almost non-existent and what there is is an incoherent mess.

Terry beds a few more women and lots of controlled substances get consumed. It’s all a big freak-out.

Eventually Grefé decides that maybe he needs to wrap up the plot but the way he does so is rather feeble.

The music sounds like it’s a decade out of date and reinforces the beatnik vibe.

There’s lot of acid-trip psychedelic stuff which is amusing enough.

There’s plenty of grooving and bed-hopping but it’s all rather tame.

There’s very little violence but the wheelchair guy with the gun going after the guilty couple is entertainingly goofy.

Hayworth is excellent. Steve Oliver is quite good, bearing in mind that he’s playing a thoroughly loathsome human being.

This is not a movie that is sympathetic to hippies. Mostly they’re portrayed as ridiculous but let’s face it it’s not easy to make hippies look anything but ridiculous. They also come across as slightly sinister.

There really aren’t any wholly admirable characters in this film. We feel that if bad stuff happens to them they have at least to some extent brought it on themselves.

The Naked Zoo doesn’t quite work. It’s just too much of a mess and it’s not a sufficiently entertaining mess. It’s recommended only if you really like hippies being awful movies.

The Naked Zoo is included on the four-disc Blu-Ray collection He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefé Collection. Two versions of the film are provided. There’s the director’s cut (which is the one I watched) and an alternative version, supposedly spicier.

Grefé’s earlier horror offerings The Death Curse of Tartu (1966) and Sting of Death (1965) are much more fun.

Ghost of Kasane Swamp (1970)

Ghost of Kasane Swamp is based on Encho Sanyutei’s 19th century ghost story Shinkei Kasanegafuchi although earlier (and rather different) versions of the story date back as far as 1690. There are still those who believe that the original was a true story.

Shinkei Kasanegafuchi has been filmed many times, the first version being a 1924 silent film. A famous version directed by Nobuo Nakagawa  was made in 1957.

Kimiyoshi Yasuda directed two versions for Daiei Studio, a black-and-white 1960 film and a colour 1970 version, Ghost of Kasane Swamp. 

It’s that 1970 version we’re concerned with here.

These events clearly take place during the period of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868).

A penniless samurai, Fukami, is heavily in debt to blind masseur and money-lender Soetsu. The samurai consoles himself by sleeping with the housemaid, Okuma. Then he comes up with a plan. He will offer Soetsu the use of his wife Sawano’s body in payment of the debt. He will then catch them in the act, play the outraged husband, and kill them both. This way he gets rid of a wife he’s grown tired of and he doesn’t have to pay the debt.

As a result of this murder a considerable amount of money belonging to Soetsu comes into circulation. Some of it falls into the hands of Soetsu’s daughter Oshiga. She’s a whore but she can now buy the brothel in which she works and set herself up as the madam.

The samurai’s son Shingoro has now shown up. He had been estranged from his father for years.

That initial double murder will set in motion a whole series of dramas. There are certainly ghosts seeking vengeance but it’s the dark motivations of the various characters that cause most of the trouble. Some are motivated by greed, some by revenge, some by lust. And some by a combination of all three.

It’s not just revenge but in many cases an obligation to seek revenge. An obligation which some of the characters carry out while others evade that duty.

There will be more murders, and many betrayals. There will be complex interlocking sexual relationships with plenty of potential for jealousy and mistrust.

Shingoro gets romantically involved with Oshiga. That later becomes a romantic triangle and in the meantime he encounters Okuma who is enraged that the money she stole has been stolen from her. Shingoro gets mixed up with Oshiga’s sister Osona as well. The possibilities for betrayal multiply.

While most of the characters’ woes stem from their own failings that does not mean that this is one of those movies in which there are no actual supernatural elements and characters are simply haunted by their own guilt. There are ghosts here although apparently earlier movie versions put more focus on the ghosts. 

In this version it would appear that the ghosts mostly exert their influence indirectly although they do appear to the various characters at various times. And by the end of the story there are more than just two ghosts.

By 1970 audience expectations were changing and this time around Kimiyoshi Yasuda decided to put more emphasis on gore (although it’s moderate gore by later standards) and sex. This works quite well since sex is always an effective motivation in a horror film. 

This is not a story in which the poor and downtrodden are exploited by the rich and powerful. There are no great feudal lords. Soetsu has money but no social status. Fukami clings to a semblance of social status but is penniless. Nobody has any money, unless they can get their hands on some of Soetsu’s money. They are all, male and female, just barely managing to survive.

This is a sordid tale and that gives it a nicely lurid feel.

Sadly a year after this film was released Daiei Studio went bankrupt. Television had had a devastating effect on the Japanese film industry.

Ghost of Kasane Swamp is fine rather sleazy gothic horror and it’s highly recommended.

The Radiance Films Blu-Ray transfer looks lovely. There are three movies in this set. The accompanying booklet includes a brief moderately interesting essay.

I’ve also reviewed The Demon of Mount Oe from this set.

Hollywood 90028 (1973)

Hollywood 90028 was written, directed and produced by Christina Hornisher. She seems to have worked on it intermittently in 1969 and 1970 but it was not released until 1973.  It then more or less vanished into obscurity. 

This was Christina Hornisher’s only feature film and when you’ve watched Hollywood 90028 you understand why she never got to make another movie. It has huge huge problems.

Superficially it’s a serial killer thriller but it isn’t really a thriller. It isn’t really an exploitation movie. It tries very very hard to be an art movie, with decidedly mixed results.

Mark (Christopher Augustine) is an aspiring filmmaker who pays the bills by making adult films. He is confident that it’s just a matter of time until he is recognised as the next Kubrick.

In the opening scene we see him pick up a girl, they go to bed and he strangles her.

Then we’re into his struggles as an artist forced to degrade himself by making nudie movies. On an S&M-themed shoot he meets Michelle. He falls for her big time.

The relationship between Mark and Michelle seems to progress to a certain point and then go no further. Which is not surprising. She has a rich successful boyfriend who keeps her in luxury and while she likes Mark she is realistic enough to realise that dumping the rich boyfriend for a failed filmmaker loser like Mark would be foolish.

While he tries to work out his relationship with Michelle he still finds time to strangle another girl.

Eventually, with agonising slowness, we get to the climax and it’s truly memorable (and easily the best part of the movie) although Hornisher then undercuts it with some heavy-handed symbolism.

Christina Hornisher’s art film ambitions are very obvious. She makes sure that it doesn’t come across as an exploitation movie by making the murder scenes flat and uninteresting and making the sex scenes totally un-erotic.

I’m not sure what Hornisher was trying to say because she keeps undercutting herself. Is she saying that making naughty movies has made Mark crazy, or that Hollywood has made him crazy? Maybe, but in that case why go to so much trouble to let us know that Mark has been messed up since childhood? Is she saying that adult films exploit women? Maybe, but the other girl in the main adult movie scene is laughing and joking while the camera is rolling. She’s having fun. And there is not the slightest indication that Michelle is    affected in any way by doing that scene. Immediately afterwards she’s her usual bright and breezy self. There’s nothing remotely messed up about Michelle. She has a rich sugar daddy who treats her extremely well. She likes her luxury home. She’s a winner. These girls do not seem exploited.

Is Hornisher saying that capitalism is the problem? But that doesn’t work, since we know that Mark’s problems go back to his childhood. And Michelle lives in luxury. Capitalism hasn’t done her any harm.

This movie mostly comes across as a student film that needed a lot more work. And a lot more focus. The script (which Hornisher wrote under a pseudonym) just isn’t properly thought out.

It’s difficult to imagine what her target audience was. The exploitation elements would have alienated the art house audience. It’s way too tame for the grindhouse market. And it’s way too slow and plodding for drive-in audiences. It was in fact released on the drive-in circuit and it’s not surprising that it sank without trace.

The wonderful 1969-70 location shooting in L.A. is the best thing about this movie. It’s a nice time capsule.

Despite the effective shock ending Hollywood 90028 just doesn’t come off. It isn’t even an interesting failure or a fascinating oddity. I honestly cannot recommend this one.

Grindhouse Releasing went crazy with this one, releasing it as a three-disc (!) Blu-Ray set with two cuts of the movie, two audio commentaries, Hornisher’s early experimental shorts and assorted documentaries and interviews plus the soundtrack on CD.

Inn of the Damned (1975)

Inn of the Damned was the first Australian western. It’s also a horror western. It wasn’t the world’s first horror western but this was (and is) are rare subgenre although I’ve never understood why.

There’s an obvious spaghetti western influence. I guess this could be called a Vegemite western!

It’s beautifully shot and it looks like a western but not quite. This doesn’t look quite like the American West. I suspect that this was a deliberate move to give the visuals a slightly unusual flavour.

This was producing team Rod Hay and Terry Bourke’s follow-up to the notorious Night of Fear with Bourke once again writing and directing.

Initially it seems like a standard western. An American bounty hunter, Cal Kincaid (played by American import Alex Cord), has been recruited to hunt down the notorious outlaw and killer Biscayne (Robert Quilter). The local law enforcement are not entirely comfortable with this. Kincaid is paired (against his will because by nature he’s a loner) with Trooper Moore (Tony Bonner). Moore is very much a do-it-by-the-numbers military type and Kincaid is a lone wolf but they develop a certain respect.

Biscayne seems to have a connection with the Bildara Inn and odd things have happened there. Guests have disappeared. Now gold assayist Cummings and his travelling companion, a friendly prostitute, have vanished. They had been on their way to the inn. The old German couple who run the inn insist they haven’t seen these two. Trooper Moore isn’t entirely satisfied but he’s not sure why.

At this point we start to realise that this may not be the story we thought it was going to be. And Kincaid is starting to have some nagging doubts.

The movie now becomes more of a full-blown horror movie than a western. And as in Night of Fear the impact of the horror doesn’t rely purely on gore.

Two more guests arrive at the inn - Mrs Millington (Diana Dangerfield) and Beverley (Carla Hoogeveen). We assume that Beverley is her stepdaughter. Mrs Millington displays what might be seen as a not entirely appropriate affection (an affection of a physical nature) for her stepdaughter. It’s clear that Beverley has in the past reciprocated these affections but now she’s decided that it’s wicked and she threatens to tell her Dad.

Given that Diana Dangerfield and Carla Hoogeveen spend almost all their screen time naked one might assume that this is just a way of adding some commercially desirable exploitation elements (which would have been a smart move) but it does add an extra helping of perversity to an already perverse movie and so it’s keeping with the overall tone.

It builds to a very suspenseful climax.

There’s not a huge amount of gore. It’s the twisted bizarre motivations that provide the real horrors.

Judith Anderson was lured back to her native country to star as the old German woman running the inn. She’s very good without going too far over the top.

Alex Cord at the time seemed about to make the transition to major stardom, which sadly never happened. He just never got that big breakthrough role. He’s an excellent hero here. He doesn’t try too hard with the tough guy thing but we get the message that Kincaid is a formidable guy and he’s smart as well as tough.

There are lots of fine Australian actors here with John Meillon amusing as Biscayne’s hopeless drunken accomplice. Tony Bonner provides a perfect contrast in styles to Alex Cord. Carla Hoogeveen must have been delighted that she actually gets to speak in this one (unlike Night of Fear).

Terry Bourke keeps the momentum going. The action scenes are good. It’s a polished handsome production with terrific location shooting.

I just love the horror western idea and Inn of the Damned carries it off well. Highly recommended. 

I’ve also reviewed Terry Bourke’s previous effort, the superb Night of Fear. 

Sisters (1972)

The release of Sisters in 1972 marked the arrival of Brian De Palma as a director. Before that he’d made lots of experimental avant-garde stuff, much of it totally improvised. By 1972 he had realised what a waste of time such stuff was. Sisters was his first real movie. There’s nothing improvised here. De Palma had it all planned out. Sisters was made on a low budget but it’s polished and professional. It gets seriously weird and perverse and twisty but De Palma is in complete control.

He unsettles us right from the start. Why are we watching a goofy TV game show? Well, the goofy TV game show is called Peeping Toms and it sets the stage for a movie that deals heavily in voyeurism.

He’s doing some serious riffing on Rear Window early on and he’s being very open about it. A woman is looking out her window and sees a murder through the window of another building across a courtyard. Just like Rear Window. In Rear Window the witness is a photojournalist. In Sisters the witness is Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt), a journalist. And like L.B. Jefferies in Rear Window she has not a shred of hard evidence. 

But De Palma is playing with us because he’s doing some riffing on another Hitchcock movie as well but to reveal the name of that movie would give away a major spoiler. 

Then the major plot strand kicks in. The murderess, a cute French-Canadian model named Danielle (Margot Kidder) has a sister, Dominique. And that’s a really bizarre story that is  slowly unfolded.

The murder victim might have escaped had he recognised the presence of Danielle’s ex-husband Emil shadowing her constantly as a red flag but he had no reason to be suspicious. He cannot be blamed for accepting Danielle’s explanation at face value. Like so much in this story the ex-husband is not what he seems to be.

Grace’s newspaper hires a private detective to help her out and he provides some amusement. There are in fact some very funny moments in this film, which help De Palma to unsettle us just a little more.

De Palma is doing more than homaging scenes from Hitchcock movies. He’s exploring territory that Hitchcock explored in numerous movies - questions of identity and reality. Things, and people, are not what they seem to be.

Split screen, a technique very rarely seen today, had been used lots of time before but no-one has ever used it more cleverly than De Palma. He doesn’t just use it in an obvious way to show us the action from two points of view he also uses it to show us different actions occurring simultaneously which ramps up the suspense and accelerates the pacing.

This starts as a suspense thriller but will become a very creepy horror movie. And it’s a woman-in-peril movie with a real twist.

For all its twists and perversities and its over-the-top ending the plot of Sisters hangs together surprisingly well.

There is some body horror (De Palma being a bit Cronenbergian before Cronenberg) but he’s more interested in the psychological mutilation inflicted on the sisters.

De Palma’s pacing is faultless and given that this was his first major foray into this territory his mastery of the techniques of suspense is impressive. And De Palma demonstrates his ability to be clever without being gimmicky.

William Finlay as Emil is creepily enigmatic and Charles Durning as the private eye is quite fun but the acting performance that matters is that of Margot Kidder and she’s excellent - very sweet and very scary.

To make it all even more Hitchcockian Bernard Herrmann did the music.

Sisters might be De Palma’s first real movie but it is a real De Palma movie and a very good one with his personal signature very much in evidence. Highly recommended.

The Criterion Blu-Ray looks OK. 

Night of Fear (1973)

Night of Fear was the first Australian horror movie. It’s an incredibly tough brutal ozploitation classic and the story behind it is fascinating.

Producers Rod Hay and Terry Bourke had persuaded the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the BBC) to make a pilot episode for a horror TV series which was to be called Fright. The ABC gave Bourke access to their production facilities and very rashly allowed him to do what he liked. 

Then the ABC hierarchy saw the pilot, Night of Fear, and had collective heart failure. Not only was there no chance it could be shown on television, there was no way it could be edited to make it acceptable for TV. They would have needed to cut at least 40 minutes of the 54-minute running time. It was not a problem with particular images or events in the film - the whole thing was just so relentless violent, sleazy, scuzzy, brutal and confronting.

Terry Bourke wasn’t concerned by their rejection of the pilot because somehow he had persuaded them to allow him to shoot it in 35mm. That meant it could be released theatrically. But there was a snag. The film censorship board banned the movie. And again the problem wasn’t particular moments - it was the tone of the whole movie. They didn’t order cuts. They banned it outright. After an epic fight by the producers the ban was reversed.

The most striking thing about this movie is that there is no dialogue. No dialogue at all. None. Making a movie with minimal dialogue is tricky but possible. Making a movie with zero dialogue is a real challenge but in this case it is not a gimmick. Dialogue would have softened the impact of the horrors.

None of the characters have names. In the credits  Norman Yemm is The Man and Carla Hoogeven is The Girl.

Night of Fear begins with a pretty blonde (played by Briony Behets) riding her horse. She encounters a weird guy who looks feral. The encounter does not end well for the girl.

Then we are introduced to another attractive young woman, also blonde (played by Carla Hoogeveen). She enjoys a game of tennis. She doesn’t know she is being watched.

Shortly afterwards after a motoring mishap she ends up on a lonely dirt track with a broken down car. And she encounters The Man. He smashes the windscreen on her car to get at her. We know something terrible is going to happen to her and we make the obvious assumption about what it’s going to be. But we’re wrong. It’s something worse, something much more twisted. I’m not going to spoil it by telling you what it is.

This is where the cleverness of the absence of dialogue comes in. The Man is so feral and so deranged and so cut off from human society that he is not a man. He’s a monster from a fairy tale or a nightmare. He cannot speak. He cannot understand human speech. There is no possibility of communication with him on any level. This is what makes the Girl’s situation so terrifying. There is no possibility of reasoning with him or pleading for mercy. And she has no way of knowing what he will do next or what his ultimate intentions are. She faces the ultimate terror of the unknown.

This guy makes Michael Myers and Jason seem warmhearted and easygoing. Norman Yemm gives us the scariest psycho in movie history.

Since the Girl cannot communicate with him Carla Hoogeveen has to convey the Girl’s terror without any words at all. She does a superb job.

This movie gets very confronting in an extremely visceral way. After more than half a century it still has the power to shock.

Night of Fear was made on an incredibly tight schedule with virtually no money upfront but it doesn’t look cheap and never seem amateurish. It’s a very professional production and Terry Bourke was a very competent director.

The very short running time works in its favour. There’s not a wasted moment and the horrors build relentlessly. And the ending is excellent.

Night of Fear isn’t quite a slasher but it’s very much in the mould of the increasingly violent horror films being made in various countries at that time. And it’s as effective a horror film as anything being made at that time. It’s not exactly pleasant viewing but it achieves what it sets out to do. Highly recommended.

Umbrella’s Blu-Ray looks great and includes an audio commentary with Rod Hay and Carla Hoogeveen. They are both (rightly) proud of this movie.

Female Vampire (1973)

Jess Franco’s Female Vampire, released in 1973, presents a few problems for a reviewer. It’s one of his most famous films, it’s enthusiastically admired by most (although not all) of his fans and it’s one of my favourites among his films. It is also very extreme in a number of ways. If you’re new to the world of Jess Franco this is most definitely not the movie with which you should start. This one is for advanced students only.

This was a Franco-Belgian co-production and it not only exists in several radically different cuts, it was intended right from the start to be released in several very different versions. It’s not just a matter of different titles. These versions are so different as to almost constitute separate films. The version that matters is the French cut with the title La comtesse noire and in English-speaking markets entitled Female Vampire.

Franco had already eliminated most of the established vampire lore in Vampyros Lesbos, stripping the vampire myth down to its essential. It features a vampire who is an immortal creature who feeds on human blood and uses hypnotic powers to ensnare her victims. With Female Vampire Franco goes further. This vampire kills by draining the victim’s life force during sex. This is a reasonable idea given that vampirism has always been about sex. Franco just makes this explicit.

There is a plot but it’s minimalist to say the least. The Countess Irina Karlstein (Lina Romay) is a vampire, the last of her family line of vampires.

She does not want to kill but she must. She must kill to survive, and to satisfy her erotic cravings. She cannot stop herself. She is trapped. Having disposed of several recent victims she falls in love with a poet, Baron Von Rathony (Jack Taylor). She has no desire to kill him but she cannot see a way of avoiding doing so. That’s it for the plot.

But this is not a plot-driven movie - it’s all about mood and about the forces driving Irina.

This is not one of those Franco movies in which dreams and reality intersect, but Irina goes through her life in a kind of trance state. The forces that drive her allow her to have little awareness of anything else. She is entirely disconnected from human society (her muteness emphasises this).

Irina’s only connection with people is through her seduction and then destruction of them. Part of her tragedy is that she craves real emotional connections. There is still enough human-ness in her, enough of the woman, that she craves love but when she finds love with a man can she love him without destroying him?

Now for the extreme elements I mentioned earlier. These have nothing to do with violence. There is no gore. We not see a drop of blood. There is however a lot of quite explicit sex and an immense amount of very explicit nudity. These do serve a purpose. Irina is overwhelmed by her desires. There is the need to hunt. She hates doing so but it’s a matter of survival. And there are her uncontrollable erotic desires. The hunger for the life forces that she must devour and the hunger for sex occupy her every waking moment.

She seduces her victims by means of hypnotic powers so that they are similarly consumed by desire for her. The nudity emphasises that Irina is unaware of anything other than her physical cravings. The nudity does get the point across.

There is also the stylistic excess. The emphasis is all on mood. It does not in any way look or feel like a movie that is interested in reflecting straightforward reality.

While there is no sense that we are simply watching a dream Irina is so cut off from human society that her existence has a slightly dream-like quality. She is aware of her alienation from human society and from everyday reality. And the movie does have a misty dream-like non-real ambience. We’re seeing things from Irina’s point of view. Which means we’re not seeing things from a human point of view. Franco obviously wants us to feel that this is not quite reality in a straightforward way.

If we saw the world from the point of view of a leopard it would not look like our concept of reality and I don’t think any movie has more effectively conveyed the idea of the vampire as a predator driven entirely by instinct. But with the complication that she has a kind of dual nature, a vampire nature and a woman’s nature.

While La comtesse noire is a more interesting title perhaps Female Vampire is not such a bad title - she is a very female vampire.

There’s plenty of symbolism - the kite, lots of birds, the flapping bird hood ornament on Irina’s car, mist, etc. It’s not complex symbolism but it works.

La comtesse noire is even further removed from our conventional expectations of the vampire movie than Vampyros Lesbos. It’s closer in feel than any of Franco’s other movies to Jean Rollin’s vampire fever dreams. I love this movie but it is an uncompromisingly unconventional vampire movie. If you can accept that and if you’re not put off by a blending of extreme eroticism and artiness then it’s highly recommended.

The Vengeance of Dr Mabuse (1972)

Jess Franco’s The Vengeance of Dr Mabuse, released in 1972, was the last Dr Mabuse film. Purists might argue that it’s not a proper Dr Mabuse film but considering the vast differences between the three Fritz Lang Mabuse movies (made over a period of almost 40 years) and the 1960s CCC Mabuse films there really isn’t any such thing as a proper Mabuse film. It was never a rigidly structured franchise. Franco’s movie has a Mabuse vibe and that’s good enough for me.

This movie exists in two different versions. The Kino Cult Blu-Ray offers us the longer German cut, released with the title Dr. M schlägt zu. The much shorter Spanish cut included most of the same footage but totally rearranged.

The movie was shot in Germany and Spain but is set in the United States, somewhere close to the Mexican border.

Even more than most Franco films this is a movie that it going to bring out all the smarmy sneering snarkiness in reviewers with mainstream tastes. The Vengeance of Dr Mabuse is so far removed from conventional Hollywood filmmaking as to inhabit an entirely different cinematic galaxy.

As usual Franco had no money, and as usual he didn’t care. He wanted to create a particular feel in this film and he does just that and does it brilliantly. Everything is too cramped. Scenes look like they were shot inside closets. The framing is too tight. The camera is too close. He uses fisheye lenses when he shouldn’t. Everything is weirdly off-balance. Then there’s the red tint to everything.

Everything is wrong, and it’s all absolutely deliberate. The result is a feeling of paranoia and madness spinning out of control. Franco isn’t interested in being polished - he wants that swirling maelstrom of craziness feel. And it works.

And this is a fine example of one of Franco’s greatest assets as a director - the ability to find bizarre locations that work perfectly and that allow striking disturbing visuals without spending any money at all.

Jack Taylor is odd casting as Mabuse but he’s terrific - he’s a total madman who has no idea just how insane and doomed to failure his madcap scheme is. He’s never specifically referred to as Mabuse, but the German title Dr. M schlägt zu makes it fairly obvious that he is Dr Mabuse. And apparently in the Spanish version he is definitely stated to be Dr Mabuse.

What his scheme is doesn’t matter. It’s a total McGuffin.

Having Mabuse in America, and having him come up against a laidback cowboy sheriff (played in a nicely subtle tongue-in-cheek way by Fred Willliams) adds to the nuttiness.

And there’s the monster, Andros, one of several references to Franco’s early Dr Orloff movies. And yes, there’s a Professor Orloff in this one.

There’s a sinister sexy sadistic kinky female. There’s a stripper. There’s the cowboy sheriff’s girlfriend. There are kidnappings, and murders, and break-ins at secure facilities. The plot makes no real sense, and that’s a good thing. What matters is that things are crazy and they get crazier and everybody is paranoid and they get more paranoid. Dr M and his crew have completely control of events.

And of course there’s a kinky nightclub dancing scene.

It’s quite fitting that the final Dr Mabuse movies should have been made by Jess Franco, given that Fritz Lang was an admirer of Franco’s work.

The Vengeance of Dr Mabuse is not quite like any other Jess Franco movie except that it’s weird and offbeat. Which of course means it’s very Jess Franco indeed. He could make movies that were weird and offbeat in lots of different ways. In this case there’s an odd mistiness to everything and the brutalist architecture is perfect for a Dr Mabuse movie.

I enjoyed this one. Highly recommended.

The Kino Cult Blu-Ray looks nice and there’s an audio commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth.