KISS ME MONSTER (1969)

                      

 The 2 sexy secret agents(Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni) from SADISTEROTICA return in this sequel. Just like that movie this was advertised in America as a horror flick which it is not. You get another goofy James Bond-inspired romp. A lot of nonsense and comedy bits ensue which is not what one usually comes to director Jess Franco for, There is one scene of a bloody surgery(only included in the English version), go-go dancing and some black hooded baddies that look like bizarro-world Ku Klux Klansmen but not much else stands out in this. 

THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z (1966)

  Jess Franco kind of makes a sequel to THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF even though there already was one in 64, and while this isn't my favorite Franco it is definitely better than that one. Our main character here Dr. Z, and his daughter, continue Orloff's work which of course brings us down the EYES WITHOUT A FACE road but also focuses more on seeking revenge using mind control with the help of a big clunky machine with robot arms. Some cool visuals and sexy gals even if it drags a bit at times. 

CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH (1968)

 Spanish horror(though it was shot in Germany) that takes place(mostly) in an old castle. While this is not your standard haunted castle situation it's kinda hard to decipher exactly what's going on here. Howard Vernon plays a mad scientist trying to bring his daughter back to life with the help of a bunch of gross open-heart surgery footage. There's a bloody wild bear attack, multiple rapes, drunken partying and gratuitous use of a speech from Shakespeare's HAMLET. There's also ample nudity and Janine Reynaud(from Jess Franco's TWO UNDERCOVER ANGELS) getting it on. Franco is also credited as the writer of this which makes sense when you watch it. This was probably pretty shocking stuff in 1968. 

 Apparently the original Spanish version has a longer ending but I'm not sure I'd want to watch a longer version of this. 

 AKA APPOINTMENT WITH LUST, CASTLE OF BLOODY LUST, IN THE CASTLE OF BLOODY LUST, CASTLE OF LUST and CASTLE OF UNHOLY DESIRES

BLACK BOOTS, LEATHER WHIP (1983)

 Another sex-filled Jess Franco flick featuring Lina Romay(billed here under her Candy Coster pseudonym under a blonde wig but playing a character named Lina!). This one brings back the Al Pereira detective character(this time played by Antonio Mayans) from a bunch of previous Franco films. There is a slim plot about Lina hiring Pereira for some reason or another but the main focus seems to be on getting some pretty shots of the Spanish countryside and nekked bodies or at least that's what I took away from this one. Some gold-lame' suits and a tranny?(cross-dresser?) show up for some variety. 

CEMETERY MAN (1994)

  This is one of those horror films that it seems like everyone I know, that's into such things, just loves and I can never really figure out why. Sure there's sex and violence and some pretty lame zombies show up intermittently but I guess the mixture of a faux-artsy-fartsy Italian gore film with a comedy just never sits right with me. It's probably also due to being such a fan of Italy's superior 70s and 80s horror junk that this one seems so pale and pointless by comparison. It seems to get praise for being intellectually deep which it isn't while also appealing to the gorehound which all the philosophical nonsense negates but apparently my view is in the minority so judge for yourself I guess.

CREATURES FROM THE ABYSS (1994)

                                  "Professor, how long have you been fucking fish?"

  Really stupid Italian horror flick about 5 people who decide to take a ride out into the ocean on a small raft and end up stranded on an experimental research ship that's full of mutant fish monsters. There's a lot of things that don't make sense in this but do make for a fun watch if you dig dumb trashy movies. For one thing the inside of the ship is designed more like some weird futuristic hotel where there's a talking clock, a smart-shower that talks sexy to you and a lamp that has it's bulb on the end of a lawn-gnome's large erection! Besides the interior decorations things aren't really ever fully explained, probably thanks to the shitty dubbing job. The only surviving scientist on the ship apparently enjoys fucking fish, but only if they're "old enough" whatever that means for a fish-fucker. Our main characters are also either annoying or just really dumb but if you can overlook that this one's good for a laugh and has some pretty crazy cheap-o FX work on display ranging from Claymation to what looks like cartoon monsters(no doubt this is due to the director being Italian FX artist Al Passeri). Originally titled PLANKTON. Known in Asia as PIRANHA 4 which is kind of fitting since some of these fish monsters look like piranha and fly around like the ones in PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING.

SCREAM OF THE DEMON LOVER (1970)

 A lady scientist(Erna Schürer) shows up at the castle of a Baron(Carlos Quiney) who has a reputation for loving women and then murdering them. But is he the murderer or is there a darker secret to unveil? Well this is a gothic Eurotrash 70s flick so inevitably things will get a bit weird and sexy before it's done. A bit of a slow-moving one but if you enjoy these types of old dark castle flicks it's probably worth a look and there is a crap-faced monster involved. AKA ALTAR OF BLOOD, KILLERS OF THE CASTLE OF BLOOD and BLOOD CASTLE

 

                                  Known as THE CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN in Mexico!:

Original Italian title THE CASTLE WITH THE GATES OF FIRE:

Originally played in The U.S. on a double bill with this American vampire flick:

THE MONSTER OF THE OPERA (1964)

 I know director Renato Polselli mainly for that movie THE REINCARNATION OF ISABEL which is a pretty crazy Eurotrash flick. This is an earlier work of Mr. Renato but it still has some pretty wild elements. Clearly influenced by THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA but in this case instead of a phantom(was the original PHANTOM even really a phantom at all?) you get a vampire who likes to chain his female victims up in his secret chamber underneath an old haunted opera house for fun. You also get a really wacky scene of a bunch of girls dancing for their lives because apparently vampires can only get you if you stop moving?   There's also a sprinkling of lesbian overtones thrown in. While not everything makes a lot of sense it's still an enjoyable enough gothic trip. Released on DVD more precisely as VAMPIRE OF THE OPERA

Known in France as ORGY OF THE VAMPIRES:

LORNA THE EXORCIST (1974)

  Lina Romay stars in this Jess Franco-directed sleaze flick as a 17-year old girl who falls victim to a demonic curse set in motion by her father before she was even born. Of course her playing an underage girl doesn't stop her from being completely naked and experiencing some kinky lesbian antics throughout a good portion of the movie including gratuitous pubic hair munching. There's a pretty uncomfortable-looking penetration by a wooden dildo, incest abounding and Howard Vernon playing the tough henchman of our main demon-lady Lorna(Pamela Stanford wearing some crazy glam-looking eye makeup). Franco himself shows up as a terribly ineffective psychiatrist. Not my favorite Franco but it is growing on me with repeated watches and the scene where a lady dies by getting actual genital crabs is pretty killer!  

 IMDB erroneously lists  a couple of different versions of this but it looks like they're mixing whatever those various versions are called up with Franco's EXCORCISM so thanks for the added confusion IMDB!

               AKA LINDA A DEVILISH NIGHTMARE:

THE ARK OF THE SUN GOD (1984)

  You would think given this title and year of release that you would get a straight-up RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK rip-off but for the most part Italian director Antonio Margheriti gives us instead a more James Bond-ish tale starring David Warbeck in the heroic lead role. To drive this home Roger Moore even gets name-dropped at one point. It does get more into Indian Jones territory towards the end when the discovery of a lost ancient artifact gets put into play. For an action movie this is overall a pretty dull watch that never reall grabbed me and took a couple of attempts to even get through without dozing off. 

 Strangely the DVD I have of this says it's called TEMPLE OF HELL which I don't believe it ever actaully was. 

Margheriti, Warbeck and John Steiner had all made the similar HUNTERS OF THE GOLDEN COBRA 2 years earlier.

Released on video in Sweden(and apparently somewhere else that speaks English) as THE HUNTER: 

MACUMBA SEXUAL (1983)

  Lina Romay(billed as Candy Coster) has some nightmares involving, the transexual star of many sleazy Eurotrash films, Ajita Wilson and her 2 slaves. Director Jess Franco shows up as a retarded simpleton who informs Romay that the lady in her dreams is a long dead African Priestess but that doesn't stop her from showing up throughout the rest of the movie and seducing Romay and her mate. It's all very surrealistic and dreamlike. I introduced a friend of mine to the weird world Jess Franco cinema with this film during a recent marathon of his films at a local theater and it's probably not the best choice as it's truly a bizarre one that you should really work your way up to.

 This is supposedly a remake of Francos' more well known VAMPYROS LESBOS, obviously swapping an evil African priestess for a lesbian vampiress. LESBOS itself was kind of a weird interpretation of the original DRACULA novel so it all goes back to Bram Stoker. 

https://fullxcinema.com/macumba-sexual-1983/

THE SCORPION WITH TWO TALES (1982)

  This is a pretty uneventful Eurotrash horror flick. I've seen it described as a giallo but it's really not. Rather than really being a mystery it's more of a case of some naughty Etruscan spirits killing off various people including John Saxon who has a pretty small role. Also dragging this down is the very low gore quotient since almost everyone gets killed by having their head turned quickly which is hardly the most exciting death sequence. Maybe the only highlights I found in this were the recycled soundtrack cues which borrowed from GATES OF HELL and NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES and made me wish I was watching either one of those instead.

 There is an earlier actual giallo, directed by the same director as this, Sergio Martino, called THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL which looks way better. I need to check that out at some point. 

Original way less artsy title of MURDER IN AN ETRUSCAN CEMETERY:

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR (1973)

 Made in 1973 but not released unitl '76, this is sort of a proto-slasher film from Eurotrash legend Jess Franco though not really all that horror-related. It's really more of an overly dramatic tale of a lady(Emma Cohen) with some serious daddy issues. Papa here(Howard Vernon) decides to hang himslef because his daughter is in a shitty relationship. This leads to some murderously bad stabby behavior aand somehow a mirror gets involved in all of this. A bit of a slow one, there are some long musical bits plus I caught a showing of this towards the tail-end of a recent theatrical Franco marathon so I wouldn't rank this too high in the overall Franco pantheon. AKA INSIDE A DARK MIRROR and THE OBSCENE MIRROR(this is supposed to be the more hardcore version which includes Lina Romay!). 

                                 Jess sure does love that jazz!:

 

WICKED MEMOIRS OF EUGENIE (1980)

  Director Jess Franco had already made a few Eugenie films with similar plotlines throughout the 70s. This includes 1970's EUGENIE... THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION and then EUGENIE in '73. While Uncle Jess was no stranger to reusing plots it seems to me that oftentimes his original versions were better than his rehashes. In this one you get Lina Romay as the slave of a rich couple who thinks she's a dog(does this count as bestiality? or is it just being a furry but without the costume?). There's a staircase that almost looks like that one in that M.C. Esher painting which I guess adds to the psychedelic feeling of it all. There's, of course, lots of nudity and sleazy components. Our Eugenie here, Katja Bienert, is only 15 years old if you go by her IMDB birthdate so let's hope that is not correct(this was 70s Europe though so who knows?) since she's pretty naked for a lot of this. Sadly most of this is pretty slow and snooze-inducing though so check out his earlier Eugenie's first. AKA EUGENIE...HISTORY OF A PERVERSION and EROTISMO

TENDER FLESH (1997)

  Director Jess Franco had remade THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME a couple of times already in his long career with this being the worst example of that. It's not really until the last third of the movie that the plot seems to actually kick in with the first chunk feeling like a terrible music video with nudity. Lina Romay is featured still getting nekkid in movies into her 40s(Her English is a bit rough to comprehend a lot of the time) and there's some surprising cannibalism thrown in giving the title some relevance.

 There are claims that this was Franco's last movie shot on film but the DVD I own look pretty similar to the shot-on-video dreck that he would be stuck making up until his death. A tough one to stay awake during and his output would only become worse after this! 

ORGY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1973)

  Kind of a misleading title there. No "living dead" show up until close to the end and they certainly don't have an orgy! It's alternate title of THE HANGING WOMAN is more accurate as one of those does indeed show up at one point. Paul Naschy is often touted as the star of this but he's actually in a side role as Igor the gravedigger. There are some cool elements in this but they take too long to get to the FRANKENSTEIN-influenced ending. AKA BEYOND THE LIVING DEAD

                                  Released on video as RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES:

and as ZOMBIE 3: RETURN OF THE ZOMBIES despit having nothing to do with the ZOMBIE series:

                                  Released on video in the U.K. as THE HANGING WOMEN:

and theatrically as TERROR OF THE LIVING DEAD:

Released in Australia as BRACULA: THE TERROR OF THE LIVING DEAD

WHAT A HONEYMOON (1980)

  This is the most comedic movie by director Jess Franco that I've seen yet. It's also the only comedy that I know of that's based(loosely) on a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. The goofy plot concerns a  couple(Lina Romay & Emilio Alvarez) on their honeymoon who get mixed up with some criminals and secret agents looking for a lost treasure. Not as graphic in the sex department as most of Jess' sleazier works(Lina does sport the world's skimpiest bikini at one point though). Worth a watch if you want to see the light-hearted side of Franco. 

 This film was lost for about 40 years until just being rediscovered a few years ago.  

RESIDENCE FOR SPIES (1968)

Jess Franco gives us a comedic spy movie here starring Eddie Constantine who was famous for starring in Jean-Luc Godard's ALPHAVILLE a few years earlier. This was before Franco delved into the more sleazy/exploitation portion of his career which is really the stuff I love best so this one is not anywhere near the top of my personal favs. Might be of interest to fans of 60s James Bond and spoofs of that sort of stuff but I don't think the action is anything near what you would want from your standard spy flick of the era.

MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD (1982)

  Lina Romay(billed as Candy Coster) and 3 of her topless dancer co-workers go on vacation and end up at a spooky deserted hotel where horror ensues. This starts off as a pretty fun romp with plenty of lesbianic antics which is director Jess Franco's specialty and then turns into a sort-off rip-off of TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD with some hooded skull-faced Satanic killers running around. This is actually the 2nd movie I've seen that is a kinda "homage" to the BLIND DEAD, the first being NIGHT OF THE SKULL which this is certainly a step-up from. Drags in places but worth a watch if you're a sleaze-monger like myself. 

                                              Lesbo frolicking!: 

SHINING SEX (1976)

 Glitter kills! Lina Romay gets abducted by a female being from another dimension(Evelyne Scott) and her human slave(Raymond Hardy, who was Lina's real-life husband at the time, in some cool shades) then is sent around to kill anyone who knows too much. She accomplishes this by getting rubbed with some lotion and then turning progressively more sparkly(thanks to all the glitter on her body) and becoming deadly to the touch. Director Jess Franco shows up as a professor who explains what the hell is going on. Light on plot and long on taking it's time to do anything at an hour and 45 minutes it is a bit of a rough watch. It does feature long closeup shots of Lina's shaved bare vagina so if that's your thing give it a sleazy glare. 

 There are shorter cuts of this including the French one with hardcore footage and an animated title sequence.