70's Jesús Franco Part One

VAMPYROS LESBOS
(1970)
Overall: MEH

The praise granted to the music for Jesús Franco's seminal lesbian vampire film aptly titled Vampyros Lesbos, (Las Vampiras), is all levels of baffling.  Euro-horror in particular, (amongst its many traits), had a tradition of randomly inappropriate film scores and this one "delivers" in that category, nearly exceeding all others.  Only a few mere seconds at a time are the only breaks we get from the sitar-laced, psychedelic garage band score that is upbeat and jaunty at mostly arbitrary times.  It never once enhances any kind of disturbing or eerie mood and is consistently obnoxious and ill-fitting.  Considering that the music was co-written by Franco himself and was certainly not a misplaced afterthought, this leads one to conclude that it was knowingly meant to convey some kind of tone.  As a "horror" experience, the movie is unacceptable, meaning that it is more akin to the type of ethereal exploitation that Franco helped expose to a wider audience here.  Yet with the script being awful even for a Franco film and the direction bordering on inept, (with sluggish pacing, enormous plot holes, and haphazard editing), it is certainly avant, but more in a laughable, inadvertent way.  There are a select few almost memorable moments though and the completely wooden performances do in fact give it a successfully surreal quality of sorts.

A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD
(1973)
Overall: MEH

Infamously butchered with added pornographic scenes upon its release in France and Italy and then re-edited again with totally unrelated zombie footage shot by a hired Jean Rollin in 1981, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, (A comme apocalypse, Among the Living Dead, Christina chez les morts vivants, Christina, princesse de l'erotisme, Christina, Sex Princess, La nuit des etoiles filantes, Los suenos eroticos de Christine, and Zombie 4), is one of the filmmaker's very rare consistent offerings.  Well, at least in its original, Jesús Franco-cut, unmangled form.  Many hallmarks of Franco and Euro exploitation cinema in general are a plenty, with liberal amounts of nudity, a completely logic-defying script, terrible dubbing, bizarre performances, and tedious pacing.  Yet for once, all of these pieces seem to concoct a satisfyingly odd endeavor.  What barely qualifies as a "plot" is certainly confused, but it creates such an offbeat result that it becomes more interesting than boring as it goes along.  Rarely as well, the ending is downplayed in a very somber and bewitching way and provides the film with one of its strongest moments.  Often times in Euro-trash, (particularly Franco's generally embarrassing brand of it), dreamlike storytelling is fighting such an uphill battle that it is basically a wild dice roll if any of it ends up working.  This film occasional rides that fine line of tipping into inanity, but whether it rides it luckily or not, the outcome thankfully attains its goal.

JACK THE RIPPER
(1976)
Overall: MEH

Overtly gruesome in a few instances of course, Jesús Franco's West Germany/Swiss co-produced Jack the Ripper, (Der Dirnenmörder von London), seems to have the ideal casting choice in the title character, with Klaus Kinski in a roll he was practically born for.  Portraying very unnerved men who were brimming with inhuman amounts of rage just under their unwholesomely quiet and restrained demeanor was something that came all too natural to the German actor and he barely comes off as acting here.  That said, one certainly would not go as far as to expect him to rape women and cut their tits off right afterwards in real life.  Franco maintains his usual emphasis on nudity and vulgarity, that latter aspect of which provides the film with some crass humor at parts.  There is nothing particularly erotic here, but this seems to be intended as its unwholesome, sexual murder elements are meant to be repugnant.  Whereas the burlesque moments in front of cackling Brits all brimful of ale are equal parts exploitative, though relatively harmless.  Besides pacing issues which are to be expected, the unfortunate final act really falls apart in the logic department with a woman willingly putting herself in harms way, followed by easily one of the least satisfying endings that any slasher horror movie has ever had.  So it is ultimately a bit of a missed opportunity save Kinski's effortlessly spot-on performance.