(1970)
Dir - Pere Portabella
Overall: GOOD
The second full-length from experimental filmmaker Pere Portabella, Cuadecuc, vampir utilized the bizarre yet ingenious idea to take footage from the making of Jesús Franco's Count Dracula and turn it into an avant-garde, black and white silent film that is eons more atmospheric and engaging. It hardly takes any effort to one-up a Franco movie, but even though the narrative follows the same linear time frame that is based off of Bram Stoker's novel, the approach here goes one further than simply telling a straight-ahead story or providing a behind the scenes exposé. Composed of fly-on-the-wall material that captures the cast and crew goofing around on set mixed with shots done from alternate angles than what Franco used, the exceptional, ambient, and often industrial sound design would fit right at home with David Lynch's Eraserhead. At other times the soundtrack cuts out entirely or utilizes a couple of seconds of conventional music, but it is always jarringly juxtaposed with sounds or silence that create an endlessly unsettling, tension-fueled tone. Worth checking out for such mood-setting as well as its singular, genre-defying approach, it stands as one of the most surreal Dracula movies ever made.
(1974)
Dir - José María Forqué
Overall: MEH
An unpleasant, lackadaisical thriller, Beyond Erotica, (No es nada, mamá, sólo un juego, It's Nothing Mama, Just a Game, Lola), plays the exploitation game in a more sincere manner than most, focusing on vile people doing vile things with no nods or winks towards the audience. That is to say that it is a plantation drama that clearly demonstrates how the indigenous working class are tormented and exploited by wealthy foreigners, and it does this bluntly and humorlessly which is fitting for the ugly material. David Hemmings plays the sexually depraved, sadistic, and spoiled son of a family whose financial power goes unchecked by the village that they inhabit, with his mother Alida Valli creating a nurturing atmosphere for his perversities. Elements of incest, back-stabbing, and Stockholm syndrome play into things as well and everything ends on the most cynical of manners where the abused become the abusers and all parties on screen are unrepentantly villainous. Hemmings is effectively odious, Vallis is pathetically disturbed, and Andrea Rau makes for an alluring victim who turns the tides in her favor. Throw in some animal cruelty, rape, people hunting people, and Rau getting fed a sandwich full of worms and you have yourself a nasty affair.
(1978)
Dir - Bigas Luna
Overall: MEH
For his grisly debut Bilbao, Catalan filmmaker Bigas Luna showcases the coldly deranged mind of a pervert with OCD for over ninety minutes, basking in the kind of unflinching exploitation allowed in a post-Franco regimented Spain. The director's penchant for mixing food with eroticism is grossly on display as Àngel Jové narrates his obsession with a prostitute while pouring milk over his much older wife's body and stuffing sausages in the mouths of fish. As an examination of severe mental illness where detached depravity has completely consumed a miserable individual, the stark presentation goes a long way. Nearly the only dialog is Jové's inner monologue which means that long bouts of silence and the same two or three pieces of music make for a punishingly repetitive slog of a watch, a watch which is as boring as it is ugly. The cinematography is persistently poor and perhaps purposely so as there are entire sections shot in almost total darkness where it is impossible to decipher what is even happening when Jové's loathsome character is not cluing us in. It all leads to an icky yet inevitable abduction climax and scene where Isabel Pisano's title character has her public hair shaved for what seems like seven hours. It is fascinating in its intimacy and unapologetic grime at least to a point, but it also overstays its welcome and leaves the worst kind of sour taste in one's mouth, again no doubt deliberately.
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