One of my 2017 resolutions is watching every Jess Franco film made available in my country. This is an undertaking I've wanted to take since discovering his work in high school. The gloomy box art, the grainy sensual photography, the alien styles of acting and the overall "fuck the system" vibe of this little Spanish genius formed a package that attracted me like a magnet. But I put off the job when I realized how rare his films were (and still are) and that he made something like 120+ films. I think the guy made 10 films in one year and every film was a modest commercial success. Between illegal web rips, bootleg Euro DVDs and some recent home releases, I count about 50 or 60 movies I can watch this year from the king of Euro-schlock. But diving into such a vast ocean is still daunting.
To start the year off right, I finally watched "Faceless", which is a favorite of both lovers and haters of the Franco universe. I expected a very sexy, silky arthouse film miming a Hollywood thriller a'la "Dressed To Kill". If so many people like it, it must be Franco selling out and directing "seriously", I thought. I was wrong! This film has so much of what I and Franco fanatics champion in his work. Its a totally commercial, exploitative and unpretentious bit of horror fanservice, no doubt. He's hitting a quota of hot bodies and cold corpses. But no director, not Argento or Carpenter or Fulci or Romero, could have gotten so much mileage out of a concept so small. He fills in so much between the lines. Thats why I regard him so highly, if not higher, than the genre directors of the period.
I believe that the script is the most important part of any movie. How tight or loose it is determines how much creativity and personal vision the director can implement. And while film has the unique power to transplant one perspective to another, to create a shared dreamstate, all movies are still basic storytelling devices. A film with spectacular cinematography and powerful acting and technically-sound directing will still suck if the story isn't anything memorable or effecting. This plot is intoxicating, unsettling, ludicrous and still a beautiful dream realized.
Faceless is a very classic horror story full of tropes familiar to Franco fans and your typical 80s horror buffs. Inspired by "Eyes Without A Face", the story revolves around a diabolical surgeon, his wicked nurse, a mute rapist Igor type henchman and a Nazi who can transplant faces all working together to maim and slaughter pretty women of all ages with the "sentimental" mission of replacing the scarred face of said evil surgeon's demented sister. The storytelling is brutal and very forward. There's little subtlety to the clever script or any attempts to humanize or moralize anyone. The pitch black slapstick and ironic comedy of manners are obvious, but still overlooked by anyone too nauseated or confused by the idiosyncratic Franco lens. Its a cynical take on the slasher genre and 80s Reagan identity politics. The victims are vapid vessels who only exist to be ogled, inside and outside of the film. Brilliantly, "Faceless" mutilates the heart of nihilism, materialism and the crass commercialization of sex, things that Jess has been accused of promoting. These things fire up Jess to pull some stellar performances and cinematography from the affair and perhaps atone for the sleazier works he performed when he was more desperate.
Some have said that this movie is merely Franco slumming and that his direction is serviceable but too tamed. I argue that he's giving an uncharacteristically restrained masterclass on how to direct a B-movie. Franco pioneered this style of Gothic sex satire in the 1960s, got lost in a treasure trove of erotic psycho-thrillers during the 1970s and spent much of the 80s slumming in forgettable cash-in's (granted, with many glaring exceptions). Faceless was Franco's return to form as he was allowed stars, a budget and a competent story to remind himself how much of a visionary stylist he was from the beginning. The man's style wasn't just out of focus titty shots and wooden Frankenstein actors. Some forget Orson Welles chose him as his assistant based on his skills and on his own he would help establish or inspire the giallo, the erotic vampire movie and the arthouse thriller. With Faceless, that wealth of experience is in full display as he pulls from a treasure trove of exploitation styles to paint with. Jess Franco stages every scene fabulously and inserting at least one memorable touch of strangeness to every single scene. There's no question that this movie is directed by a man from cut his teeth in softcore, suspenseful 60s B-features, but that works for Faceless and not against it. And this created aesthetic of 60s meets 80s is just as appropriate here as it is in flicks like They Live or Back To The Future. We're just in the deep end of the splatter genre.
Much of the credit goes to writer/producer Rene Chateau for hiring and trusting Franco to do what he does best and arranging a very luxurious but unpretentious production. He has an awesome sense for that underlying evil and horror in the shadows of old Europe. The film is haunted by the past, obsessed with the same historical sins that motivated Franco's classic work and contrasts that with the vapid, then-futuristic 80s glamour. And there is a strong parallel to the decadent "Me Me 80s" and the days of Marquis de Sade and The Spanish Inquisition. Chateau assembles an awesome cast of unsung legends like Brigitte Lahaie (who stars in my favorite Jean Rollin movie "Night Of The Hunted"), scream queen/Bond girl Caroline Munro, the beautifully cold Anton Diffring ("Farenheit 451") and the insidious leading man Helmut Berger, all seeming anachronistic to their time and better suited to a Grand Guignol. The best symbol for the movie is a cameo made by Telly Savalas in his displaced but ever resonating glory, his final role. Fitting that he delivers the final line in the very controversial ending to a very bold movie that closed off the most professional period of Jess Franco's career.
Its not as whacked out, deliciously indulgent or moody as Franco's other triumphs and it might turn off modern horror fans with its mature flair, sly pace and understated storytelling, but Faceless is the most balanced and well-aged movie in a very diverse and entertaining canon. But then again I've only seen the tip of the iceberg that is Jess Franco.
https://soundcloud.com/andrew-14-1/01-just-imagination?in=andrew-14-1/sets/faceless
* Having finally watched its prototype The Awful Dr. Orloff, I now know Faceless was the final of many remakes Franco did of his most famous film. You must credit Franco for always putting an extremely new twist on the story each time, even if it didn't always land. (Damn you, Revenge of the House of Usher!) So even more praise must be heaped on Rene Chateua for providing Franco his most lavish and commercial go at his classic creation but also re-writing it to avoid Franco's many weaknesses as a screenwriter. Truth be told, its fairly amateurish in parts and nowhere as great as The Diabolical Dr. Z, but Faceless is still the best popcorn entertainment Franco ever released.
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