(1970)
Overall: MEH
Fittingly adapting the work of Marquis de Sade at the very turn of the 60s into the 70s when such hedonistic subject matter and perverse sexuality was fortifying itself in much of European cinema, Jess Franco's Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion, (Eugenie de Sade, De Sade 2000, Eugenie de Franval, Eugenie Sex Happening, Eugenia, or just Eugenie), was the second such de Sade title that he brought to the screen. The first was the previous year's Marquis de Sade: Justine, also with Maria Rohm as well as Jack Palance of all blokes. This was also the last collaboration between the Spanish filmmaker and Christopher Lee, the latter of whom apparently became appalled the the finished product was shown exclusively in London's "blue" district, essentially meaning porn theaters. Of course watching it particularly by today's standards, it hardly qualifies as pornographic and if anything, the overt sadism in de Sade's original text is quite toned down. In that regard, the movie rather poorly conveys its subject matter, being the complete corruption of an innocent girl, (who in the novel was anything but innocent from the get-go), as her ultimate, evil about-face comes off kind of sudden and sloppy. Though it is photographed better than most Franco productions, there are the usual problems of drab pacing, unsuitable music, and ultimately rather yawn-inducing sex scenes that take up lots of screen time.
(1973)
Overall: MEH
The early 70s were ripe with nunsploitation and witch trial films so rather hot off the tails of Ken Russell's The Devil's comes Jess Franco's non-union, French/Portugal equivalent The Demons. The story could not be more predictable considering the source material and being both written and directed by Franco, it is a pretty preposterous story at that. Women get accused of being witches and then forgotten about, they fall head over heals in love with multiple men at a time, and everyone is so sexually repressed that all of their on-again/off-again morals come off as impossibly messy. This latter element may be somewhat of the point, but it still makes for an unintentionally goofy presentation where it seems more important to make everyone be whatever cliche is necessary at that particular time than anything else. Also typical of a Franco film, the nudity, (which there is a consistent stream of), provides one of the most boring parts with more women kissing and fondling each other's rare ends when they are not writhing around on a bed and moaning. To say that these frequent moments get in the way of the plot is not really that fair since such exploitative, skin-exposed nonsense is as much if not more so the selling point as anything. Still, Franco knocks out a quick, easy cash-in here as he was beyond competently able to do during his prime.
(1974)
Overall: MEH
Teetering heavily on the verge of being legitimate pornography, Lorna the Exorcist, (Les possédées du diable), was Jesús Franco's sleazy, exploitative version of Faust more or less, with the "Exorcist" tag being thrown in there merely as a typical European cash-grab to bank off of William Friedkin's mega-huge The Exorcist released the previous year. The sex scenes are mostly as dull as ever for a Franco film, but the mere abundance of them, the heavily padded plot, (including a long flashback sequence that relays the exact same information that was just painstakingly explained to us via exposition in the scene before), and that fact that at least the women here are actually having sex on screen with full genitalia and all, certainly qualifies it as more than simply an erotic horror movie. Franco spices it up a little bit by going full-tilt into the bizarre though. There is incest between Lina Romay and more than one of her parents, including her "mother" feeding her her breasts while calling her her sweet daughter. Then she does things with a dildo as well as monthly bodily fluids that no one let alone a parent should be doing to anyone let alone their kin. Another memorably ridiculous moment involving real life crabs takes place on a part of a woman's body that you can easily predict. Elsewhere, Franco is still hardly much a story teller and it is technically another hodgepodge of tons of zooms, uninspired cinematography, and tedious music, just with more uncomfortable sexuality than one would prefer.
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