Jess Franco’s Macumba Sexual (1983)

Jess Franco’s Macumba Sexual was shot in 1983 in the Canary Islands, at the same time as Mansion of the Living Dead. Macumba Sexual is much closer in feel to his more delirious fever dream films of the 70s, and is by far the better movie.

Linda Romay (appearing in blonde wig under the name Candy Coster once again) is Alice, a real estate agent on holiday with her writer boyfriend. Alice has been troubled by recurring dreams about a mysterious black woman, strange erotic dreams in which this black woman leads around her two slaves (one male and one female) on leashes. The woman is the Princess Tara Obongo, a practitioner of macumba (closely related to voodoo). Alice finds herself ravished by the princess and her slaves. The dreams start to bleed into her real life. While making love with her boyfriend she imagines it’s the princess she is having sex with. More disturbingly, the boyfriend is also imagining making love with the princess. Does this princess have some strange power over both of them? Is it a shared delusion?

Things get more worrying for Alice when she gets a phone call from her boss. It appears that a certain Princess Tara Obongo wants to buy a house, and she has specifically requested that Alice should be the one to close the deal. Alice sets off on camel-back to find the princess’s residence, which turns out to be a kind of combination of villa, palace and African village - a wonderfully exotic and weird setting that is one of the highlights of the movie. It turns out that Tara does indeed possess two naked leashed slaves, and Alice is drawn into a maelstrom of sexual obsession and depraved lust.

She escapes, with some assistance from a very odd character (played by Jess Franco) who works at her hotel and who has been spending a considerable amount of time watching her nude sunbathing sessions. No sooner has Alice freed herself from this dangerous sexual passion than we see her boyfriend setting off on camel-back for the princess’s domains. Alice’s attempts to free him will have decidedly unexpected results.

This is one of those Franco movies where dream and reality intersect so completely that it is impossible to separate the two. I’ve always found Franco’s dream obsession movies to be his best work, and Macumba Sexual compares favourably with the best of them such as Doriana Grey and Venus in Furs. Franco doesn’t try to help us unravel the threads and determine which events are real and which are dreams. And that’s the strength of the movie. Dreams can be more real and more powerful than reality. And when you add eroticism to the mix, the power of dreams is increased even further.

Macumba Sexual is very erotic indeed. Tara’s power, and Alice’s obsessive dreams, are entirely sexual in nature. Tara is a priestess, or more likely a goddess, of sex. There’s a prodigious quantity of both nudity and sex, and the sex is about as explicit as you can get without crossing the line into hardcore, and at times it goes very very close to that line. But in Franco’s best movies the sex, although plentiful and graphic, is never really gratuitous - the movies are about sex and the sex is woven into the film so completely that without the sex you wouldn’t have a movie. So it is with Macumba Sexual. But it isn’t just sex, and thus the movie is not just porn - it has other layers to it. It’s ironic that mainstream directors can be feted for dealing explicitly with sexual subject matter in a heavy-handed and uninteresting way (as in Nagisa Ôshima’s In the Realm of the Senses) while exploitation directors like Franco who deal with similar subjects in a more provocative and interesting way are often dismissed as mere pornographers.

Ajita Wilson, who plays the Princess Tara, was a post-operative transsexual, which adds another layer of enigma to the movie. It’s a stunning performance. And if you want an actress who can portray sexual obsession in an absolutely convincing manner you really can’t go past Lina Romay. There are obvious parallels to Vampyros Lesbos as far as the plot is concerned, and also with a little-known but somewhat underrated 1970s Franco movie, Voodoo Passion.

It’s a beautifully filmed movie, with magnificent locations. Franco is in fine form visually and produces some mesmerising images. The scene with Tara leading her two slaves around is both kinky and mysterious. This is a movie for people who enjoy Jess Franco’s more extreme movies, the ones where he pushes his personal visions most forcefully and is least constrained by considerations of plot. The movie that are most unapologetically Jess Franco movies. If you fall into that category then you will find Macumba Sexual to be an unexpected late masterpiece.

The Region 2 DVD (labelled as Region 2 but it actually appears to be region-free) from Anchor Bay seems to be more or less uncut, and is presented in its correct aspect ratio and in a very attractive print which emphasises the vibrant colours. And it’s in Spanish with English sub-titles. No much cause for complaint here, but some extras would have been nice.

Isle of the Dead (1945)

Inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting of the same name, Isle of the Dead is perhaps the most under-appreciated of all the Val Lewton RKO horror movies. It was released in 1945.

During the First Balkan War in 1912 an American war correspondent named Oliver Davis joins a Greek general (General Pherides, played by Boris Karloff) in a journey to a small island. The island is a cemetery, an island of the dead, where the general’s wife is interred. To their surprise they find the island is inhabited by the living as well as the dead. An archaeologist has taken up permanent residence, and has been joined by a group of people fleeing the war. But death is about to reassert its dominion over the island - the travellers have brought plague with them.

General Pherides is determined to face death as a soldier. He has a plan of campaign worked out, and with the assistance of an army surgeon he intends not only to battle death, but to win the battle. The general’s faith in science is not shared by his companions, and the old peasant woman Kyra who serves a housekeeper is convinced that the young companion of the wife of an English diplomat is in fact a vorvolaka - a kind of female vampire.

General Pherides is a man torn between a belief in progress and science on the one hand and the beliefs and superstitions of his youth on the other. That conflict provides the movie with its principal theme, with Greece being a country torn between the modern world and the almost overwhelming burden of the past. As his war against death falters and death claims one victim after another the general finds the pull of the past and of traditional beliefs more and more difficult to resist. There’s also a subplot involving premature burial that adds to the atmosphere of impending doom and steadily growing fear.

Karloff gives one of his best performances, playing a man who is neither hero nor villain, although at times he seems equally capable of filling either role. Helene Thimig is positively terrifying as the peasant woman Kyra.

This one has the visual style that distinguished the Lewton movies - lots of shadows, very film noir-ish. There are no real overt scares, but the psychological horror is built up very effectively and becomes almost unbearable, with the claustrophobic sets and the scenario of people trapped on an island of death being stalked by the plague adding to the horror. Mark Robson was at best a competent director but with Val Lewton’s guiding hand behind him he made a couple of excellent entries in the RKO horror series.

Very few people seem to like this movie, but to me it seems both an original idea and a well-executed piece of psychological horror. Like most of the Lewton movies it uses the supernatural as a motivation for the actions of the characters rather than being an explicitly supernatural movie.

This movie is included in Warner Home Video’s excellent Val Lewton DVD boxed set, a must-but for all serious horror fans. It’s quite a nice print too.

The Terror of the Tongs (1961)

While Hammer were best known for their gothic horror movies their output throughout the company’s history was exceptionally varied. The Terror of the Tongs, released in 1961, was (like The Stranglers of Bombay) an interesting attempt to combine the the horror elements and period settings of their gothics with a crime/adventure plot.

It is 1910, and although the British are as yet scarcely aware of it their colony of Hong Kong is increasingly under the control of the Red Dragon Tong, most feared of all the Chinese organised crime secret societies. The tong runs the gambling clubs and the brothels and of course the opium trade. They also exercise their power over the docks, with a lucrative racket involving pilfered goods from the many ships coming to Hong Kong to trade.

Captain Jackson Sale is a bluff honest British sea captain who, quite by accident, finds himself caught up in the activities of the Red Dragon. A Chinese passenger on his ship passes on to Captain Sale vital intelligence about the activities of the tong, hidden inside a book of Chinese poetry. Unfortunately Captain Sale is unaware that he is in possession of this information, but the tong does know about it. The captain will pay a heavy personal price for this, and subsequent events will cause him to devote himself to the destruction of the tong and to exacting an equally terrible revenge. He acquires some useful allies along the way, including a band of fanatics sworn to the annihilation of the tong, and a beautiful Eurasian girl (played by French actress Yvonne Monlaur who looks and sounds entirely French) who had been sold into white slavery by her mother.

It’s a short movie, and it’s packed with action. It also looks fabulous. Once again the true genius behind Hammer turns out to be production designer Bernard Robinson. The sets are suitably impressive and they look expensive, which of course they aren’t. I have no idea if Hong Kong in 1910 really looked like this, but it doesn’t matter at all - what matters is that they create the perfect atmosphere of the mysterious and the exotic, and of decadence and wickedness. Arthur Grant does his usual splendid job as director of photography.

Geoffrey Toone makes a fine hero, determined and square-jawed. While Yvonne Monlaur fails to look even the slightest bit non-European she’s an attractive and sympathetic heroine. And as the chief villain, the head of the Hong Kong chapter of the Red Dragon Tong, we have Christopher Lee. Although he gets less screen time than you might expect he completely dominates the film with his evil charisma. Also watch out for Roger Delgado (later to become better known as The Master from Doctor Who) as one of Christopher Lee’s more sinister henchmen.

Despite the draconian censorship of the time this movie does have some genuinely chilling moments, especially the torture by bone-scraping scene. Scriptwriter Jimmy Sangster admits he has no idea if such a torture really exists, but within the context of the movie it has the right touch of creepiness and horror. There’s no actual sex but there is a surprising amount of what today gets labelled as adult themes - there’s white slavery, there’s obvious prostitution, there’s overt drug use, and there are (perhaps even more surprisingly) hints of British involvement in the crimes of the tongs and a sceptical attitude towards the competence of the British police force in the colony.

Jimmy Sangster has cheerfully admitted to having done no research at all for any of the scripts he wrote for Hammer, and that may be why they work so well. They’re pure fantasy, taking place in an exotic world that never existed. This is the sort of movie that would probably be considered too politically incorrect to get made today, although it’s worth pointing out that there are just as many brave virtuous Chinese characters fighting the evil of the tongs as there are wicked Chinese characters.

It’s included in the Icons of Adventure boxed set. It comes with a commentary track which includes some amusing anecdotes about British film censorship in the early 60s, and the extraordinarily snobbish and superior attitudes the censors displayed towards movies they disapproved of.

It’s all a great deal of good silly fun. Pure entertainment.

Mighty Peking Man (1977)

Mighty Peking Man (Xing xing wang) was Shaw Brothers Studio’s homage to King Kong. Well perhaps blatant rip-off of King Kong would be more accurate, but it’s done in such a good-humoured way you can’t possibly object. And they improved the original by adding a jungle girl sub-plot. What’s better than a giant gorilla movie? A giant gorilla movie that is also a jungle girl movie.

Our hero (played by Danny Lee) is an explorer suffering from depression after finding his girlfriend in bed with his brother. The best cure for depression is of course to mount an expedition into the steamy tropical rainforests of the Himalayas. And since there have been reports of a monstrous 50-foot gorilla being sighted in that area, what better excuse for an expedition? He’s interested in advancing scientific knowledge, but the backer of the project, the nefarious Mr Lu, sees it as a way of becoming very rich by displaying the giant gorilla in the Hong Kong Stadium.

It turns out that the jungles of the Himalayas are populated by other fascinating creatures in addition to gorillas, elephants, tigers and orang-utans. They are also home to a beautiful blonde jungle girl named Ah Wei. No matter what part of the world you may find beautiful jungle girls in, they will always be blonde. It’s a rule. Her parents were killed in a plane crash and she was raised by the giant gorilla, whose name is Ah Wang. Our intrepid hero naturally falls in love with her, and his feelings are warmly reciprocated. He persuades her to accompany the gorilla back to Hong Kong. Of course things don’t turn out well for our giant ape friend, and the stage is set for a very King Kong-style ending.

This is a movie that has not the slightest intention of taking itself seriously. Making a movie that deliberately aims for camp, that is consciously played tongue-in-cheek and that celebrates its own cheesiness and does all this successfully isn’t as easy as you might think. It’s so easy to end up with something that is too contrived and too clever for its own good. And when there’s the potential for major cuteness (Ah wei has lots of loveable animal friends) and huge servings of sentimentality the dangers multiply. In this case director Meng Hua Ho and scriptwriter Kuang Ni effortlessly avoid all these pitfalls.

They’re helped considerably by the two leads. While I would hesitate to claim that either Danny Lee or Evelyne Kraft (who plays jungle girl Ah Wei) are great actors, they know what’s expected of them and they deliver the goods. Lee is handsome and brave without being annoying, while Evelyne Kraft manages to be everything a jungle girl should be - blonde, pretty, likable and very scantily clad - while also not being annoying. And they have good chemistry between them.

The movie is also careful not to strain too hard for laughs. The premise is silly enough to provide more than enough amusement. It’s also mildly sexy, but in a thoroughly cheerful and good-natured way. The pacing is spot-on, with not a single wasted scene.

The special effects work perfectly for the type of film this is. If you remade it with expensive CGI you’d simply spoil the fun. Traditional giant monster movies are supposed to de done with not overly convincing models, and this is a movie that is very much aware of being part of that tradition. And the effects are spectacular enough, even if you don’t for one minute believe they’re real. They’re fun, like everything else in this film. You expect to see Hong Kong get stomped in model form the way Tokyo gets stomped in model form in Godzilla movies, and that’s what you get.

The addition of a major romantic sub-plot adds an extra dimension to the ending, and at the risk of being accused of heresy I think it’s superior to the ending of the original King Kong, although it is at the same time very much a homage to the ending of that film.

The Region 4 DVD is totally lacking in extras but it looks marvellous. This is an insanely enjoyable romp, and I really can’t recommend this one too highly. It’s an absolute treat.

Vampyros Lesbos (1970)

This was my third viewing of Vampyros Lesbos, part of my project to re-watch all of the Soledad Miranda films I can get my hands on. Like Eugénie de Sade, also directed by Jess Franco, it just seems to get better and better the more times I watch it.

It really was a very clever idea - making a radical break from the traditions of the vampire film while still remaining remarkably faithful to the plot of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It really was a very clever idea - making a radical break from the traditions of the vampire film while still remaining remarkably faithful to the plot of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

There are no gloomy Carpathian Mountains here, everything is drenched in brilliant Mediterranean sunshine. The vampire doesn’t live in a decaying gothic castle. She lives in an ultra-modern beach house furnished in the height of early 70s chic. She adores sunbathing. She dresses in the latest fashions (when she’s wearing clothes at all). There’s very little emphasis on religious symbols as defences against vampires, or on the occult in general. She is clearly possessed of supernatural powers, but the film displays no interest in matters spiritual or diabolical.

On the other hand, apart from the elimination of a few minor characters, we have the core of Stoker’s plot. The representative of a legal firm is dispatched to the remote home of a reclusive aristocrat, the Countess Carmody, to oversee the details of the transference of some property. Like Jonathan Harker this character falls prey to the aristocrat’s vampiric appetites but manages to escape. There’s a Dr Seward, and there’s a psychiatrist, Dr Steiner, and they play much the same roles in the film that van Helsing and Dr Seward play in the book. And there’s a counterpart to Renfield, a lunatic under the influence of the vampire. The principal changes are that the movie’s equivalents of the Dracula, Jonathan Harker and Renfield characters are all women. Linda Westinghouse in fact combines the roles of Jonathan Harker and Mina.

This is Jess Franco at his most stylish, and technically it’s quite accomplished without having a low-budget feel to it. In fact the clothes and the modernist interior design of the Countess’s house give it an almost opulent feel. Franco at his best could make a very low-budget movie look a lot more expensive than it was. The strange blood-red wall hangings (well really they’re ceiling hangings) in Countess Carmody’s villa are a very nice touch. The sound-track is typical of 70s eurohorror, an odd but very effective mix of prog-rock, jazz and electronic music. The Turkish locations serve two purposes extremely well, providing Mediterranean sunshine and an exotic ambience. The scorpion is another interesting touch.

Soledad Miranda has less actual acting to do in this movie compared to Eugénie de Sade. Mostly she has to look exotic, sexy, other-worldly and charismatic, and she does it supremely well. Ewa Strömberg is excellent as Linda, while Heidrun Kussin is suitably maniacal as Agra (the movie’s version of Renfield). Dennis Price and Paul Muller as Drs Seward and Steiner are also extremely good.

There is of course a very strong emphasis on sex (and being a Franco movie, that of course includes quite a bit of lesbian sex). The erotic elements that are present but disguised in Stoker’s novel are out in the open here. There’s a great deal of nudity. Also present is one of the most characteristic features of Franco’s movies of this period, the erotic night-club sequence. He always did these scenes superbly, and this is one of his finest efforts. The dance performed by Soledad Miranda with her unnamed partner is extraordinarily perverse and sexual and absolutely fascinating, with the dancers exchanging roles and with an eroticism that is clearly dangerous and rather sinister.

Strangely enough this film was made in the same year as one of his less successful projects, an even more faithful adaptation of Stoker’s book, Count Dracula (although it is redeemed by one of Christopher Lee’s finest ever acting performances). Count Dracula sticks very closely indeed to the novel, and is one of the least erotic of all Franco’s movies. Comparison of the two films is an object lesson in the superiority of films that do not attempt to slavishly imitate their literary source.

Vampyros Lesbos is one of the half-dozen best films Franco ever made. A triumph for both Franco and for Soledad Miranda.

The Region 4 DVD from Umbrella Entertainment is uncut and is presented widescreen. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the image is rather grainy, and there are no extras apart from a trailer.

The Snake Woman’s Curse (1968)

The Snake Woman’s Curse was Japan’s Toei Studios’ attempt to break into the horror market, and although it appeared in 1968 it is (compared to more modern Japanese horror) very much in the pattern of a traditional Japanese ghost story or kwaidan. Director Nobuo Nakagawa had already made a reputation for himself as a director of that type of horror movie. The Snake Woman’s Curse adds to this a very strong element of political and social criticism.

It is set during the Meiji period (which lasted from 1868 to 1912). This was a period of rapid modernisation and westernisation but this has had only a limited impact in the area in which the events of the film take place, one of the more backward parts of the country. The head of the Ônuma family still exercises an almost feudal level of control over his tenant farmers, but on the other hand the economy of this area is moving from traditional farming to rural industry based on silk weaving, and the family runs a silk weaving factory based on the back-breaking labour of several dozen poorly paid and badly exploited women. The movie opens with one of these tenant farmers, Yasuke, begging his Ônuma for more time to repay a debt so as to avoid having his farm seized, but his appeal is contemptuously rejected. He is knocked into a ditch by the landlord’s carriage and dies shortly thereafter.

The man’s wife Sue and daughter Asa have their farm taken away from them and must face a future of ten years of unpaid labour in the silk factory in order to discharge the debt. The old master’s much younger wife, Masae, suspects Sue of having designs upon her husband, while the young master really does have designs on Asa. Yasuke’s whole family is destined for destruction as a result of these machinations, but their ghosts will wreak a terrible vengeance.

As a ghost story the movie works fairly well. The political elements are the major weaknesses. Not that there’s anything wrong with using horror for such purposes, but the politics is handled clumsily. Everything is black or white, the rich are mere monsters, the peasants are noble and virtuous. Modernisation and industry are bad, traditional values and farming are good. Most Japanese exploitation films of the 70s also had strong political overtones but the younger directors emerging during that period seemed to be able to include political messages with some real wit and without becoming strident and preachy, faults that are unfortunately very apparent in The Snake Woman’s Curse.

The strength of the film is its visual power. It’s an exceptionally well made and beautifully shot movie, without any B-movie feel to it. The acting is also impressive. Akemi Negishi (who went on to appear in some of the most memorable Japanese exploitation movies of the 70s) is particularly good as Masae, making her a frighteningly malignant figure but achieving this effect with great subtlety. She is beautiful and elegant and utterly evil and ruthless.

The Snake Woman’s Curse moves along at a fairly sedate pace, and those accustomed to later Japanese movies may be surprised at the complete lack of gore and also of sex and nudity. While the pace is leisurely the tension is built up skillfully and there’s certainly no lack of entertainment value here. There’s also no lack of artistic competence and if you can overlook the heavy handed political message it’s a movie worth seeing. It’s not likely to become one of my favourites but I would still recommend it with some reservations, especially if you enjoy the more traditional type of Japanese horror film, such as Masaki Kobayashi’s brilliant 1964 opus Kwaidan (although it has to be said that it’s not in the same league as that magnificent film).

The Synapse DVD looks great and includes a moderately informative commentary track.

A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine (1966)

A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine is a notorious 1966 “roughie” from legendary sexploitation producer David F. Friedman. And it’s one of the most entertaining movies in this particular sub-genre.

Sharon Winters (played by the extraordinary Stacey Walker) is a tease. She’s not just a tease, she’s the ultimate tease, and she destroys men for kicks. She uses her sexuality as a weapon. And not just against men - a lesson her lesbian room-mate learns when she tries to entice Sharon into bed. This prompts Sharon to utter one of the classic lines in exploitation cinema: “I may be a bitch, but I’ll never be a butch.”

Sharon works in an office, and her latest chosen victim is the firm’s newest accountant (she destroyed the previous one). Inevitably her games are going to end in bloodshed, and so it proves. And than at about the midway point we get an extended dream sequence, brought on by Sharon’s teasing acting on the overheated imagination of the luckless accountant. There’s almost a touch of very early psychedelia to it, and it’s certainly a highlight.

This is the sort of movie you could find offensive if you took it seriously, but anyone who takes this one seriously is spectacularly missing the point. This is the strange fantastic world of the sexploitation movie, the world of bizarre twisted visionaries like Russ Meyer and Doris Wishman, and it’s a world in which the story-telling is done with tongue planted firmly in cheek. It’s also worth pointing out that the old-style exploitation film-makers (and Friedman definitely falls into this category) operated very much in the mode of old-time carny hucksters - to take their movies literally is to betray oneself as one of the “marks” who falls for the tall tales spun for them by the carny folk.

The movie is shot in the exaggerated melodramatic style typical of the genre. The acting (and I’m perhaps being generous in using the word acting) is delightfully over-the-top. Whatever deficiencies Stacey Walker may have had as a serious actress she has undeniable presence and her performance is effective the way a sledge hammer is effective. I think she’s wonderful.

The black-and-white cinematography is by László Kovács, who went on to shoot movies such as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Ghostbusters and New York, New York and to win numerous awards. And his cinematography is striking and effective. It’s really a rather competently made movie as far as the technical aspects go. It was filmed in LA and captures a rather nice mid-60s sleazy ambience.

Friedman was rather embarrassed by the soundtrack, provided by an obscure LA band of the time, but I think it works extremely well. At times when they get into extended instrumental breaks they almost sound like a California version of the early Velvet Underground, with a definite hint of urban paranoia thrown in. It worked for me anyway. When they attempt a conventional song they fall apart completely, but that just adds to the charm of the movie.

The movie is not only about a tease, the movie is (like any good 1960s sexploitation film) a tease in itself. Friedman’s technique, the technique of classic sexploitation and of course the classic carny technique, was always to promise much but to show little. There’s abundant nudity but nothing even remotely approaching actual sex. The result is a movie awash in suppressed sexuality that manages to be very erotic in its own warped way.

Something Weird’s DVD release not only includes two other sexploitation features, it also includes an immensely enjoyable commentary track done by Friedman himself and Something Weird’s Mike Vraney. Friedman is funny, utterly shameless and completely delightful and has a vast store of terrific anecdotes about the odd little world of sexploitation film-making. This commentary track is enough on its own to justify the purchase price, so the fact that A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine is outrageously entertaining simply comes as an added bonus! If you’ve never delved into the world of the “roughie” this one (along with Doris Wishman’s Bad Girls Go To Hell) provides a great starting point.