Macumba Sexual 1983 / Voodoo Passion 1977 / Revenge in the House of Usher 1983 / Devil Hunter 1980 / Death Whistles to the Blues 1964 / Mondo Cannibal 1980 / How Seduce a Virgin 1974 / Mansion of the Living Dead 1982 / Fall of the Eagles 1989 / Dr. Orloff's Monster 1964 / The Awful Dr. Orloff 1962

11 Jess Franco reviews for you, bitch... Franco-mania!

Macumba Sexual is an almost masterpiece. Franco remakes "Vampyros Lesbos" with a transgender theme! Replacing the irreplaceable Soledad Miranda is the commanding Ajita Wilson, the most beautiful black she-male in cinema history. She's seducing Lina Romay (as her blonde actress title "Candy Coaster") to take her role as some pan-sexual goddess of lust. The plot is low on incident and keeps to maybe 3 locations, all around a hotel. Its a breathtaking experience despite this, gorgeous and alive with subversive sexual metaphors. Throughout the film, Lina is haunted by physical objects
that are both masculine and feminine at the same time while Franco never hides the fact that Ajita is transgender. He attacks the gender binary and really scrambles what an erotic horror film can be. For him this is an exploitative ride to attack homophobia and sexual insecurity. I don't know if its respectful to trans people, but I think its firmly on their side and is the most brave, entertaining and early examples of the subject in cinema.

Voodoo Passion is likewise a minor classic. Playing similarly to both "Virgin Among the Living Dead" and the formula of "Succubus" and "Nightmares Come at Night", I think Voodoo Passion plays better than all three. It has an impressive production, flawless cinematography, a beautiful score, truly erotic sex scenes, a game cast and some fabulous direction. It also irons out some flaws in the highly disjointed narratives of those previous films. You could only dock it points for being predictable, but Jess provides enough twists visually and narratively that you can call this a successful jazz variation.

Revenge/Usher is "final level Franco". You can't appreciate this until you know his oeuvre, biography and financial limitations. I would call it something of a no-budget masterpiece if Eurocine producers didn't poorly edit it into the kitsch it is today. Franco shot a fairly personalized but tonally correct version of Poe's classic with no budget. Had Jess had a few dollars more, it would be comparable to his Dracula. But Eurocine didn't like it, added 10 minutes of footage from Dr Orloff(!) and then added poorly done inserts to try and smooth it out. They did the same to "Virgin" apparently. If you know the story behind this film, its quite an eye-opener and an amazing demonstration of Franco's genius, but this is NOT for casual fans or horror fans.

Devil Hunter is a solid Eurotrash ride. Its a camp spoof of racist cannibal films made in Italy at the time and it still works as an anti-racist horror film. Franco shows great kindness for black people in his films, especially primitive tribes. This film paints the white characters as just as barbaric and maybe twice as depraved. Like the transgressive bits of transgenderism in Macumba, Franco displays his radicalism not in preachy dialogue, righteous characters or obvious gestures. He uses the power of ironic montage, contrast, dialectical materialism that he learned as a young admirer of Eisenstein. Devil Hunter is surprisingly long and quite absurdist, but its an epic enjoyment for his fans or anyone who is in on the joke. Also, just remember that the bug-eyed native is essentially "Morpho". This will make sense later...

Death/Blues is a small political thriller from Franco's early film period. Its gorgeous, well-paced and extremely heavy on dialogue. While its a refreshing break from many films of its time, it lacks the unique style that Franco would patent later. But it still has his hallmarks: anti-racism, proletariat sympathies, revenge, a sexy tropical atmosphere and a good soundtrack. Its evidence of Franco's ability to handle your regular commercial film but such a solid B&W caper is a footnote to his career and thats a compliment. I still recommend it for the time capsule appeal and the biographical nature of the story.

Mondo Cannibal is known as a piece of shit, but it has its moments. Its hated by fans of the cannibal genre because its low on gore, cannibals and action. But the plot is quite good and would be resurrected for "Diamonds...". This film is a bit of a chore because its maybe Franco's slowest and least artistic film, but it has (shockingly) some of the best photography of this period and the real sell is Sabrina Siani, who is inhumanly attractive and naked throughout the film. I wish this film was as progressive as the other Franco jungle films, but its no big loss because all of the natives are played by Italians! Actually, I suspect that was a joke and that the film is lampooning Italians taste for gore and their rampant anti-black racism. I've heard Franco diss Italian directors for their desire to be seen as white/American and this film is his rejection of the Italian schlock directors he is still lumped in with. In retrospect, this film was an intentionally "bad" anti-gore film.

How to Seduce a Virgin is a not-as-strong remake of the exquisite Eugenie, but it has its areas of supremacy. The sexual content here is excellent, the cast is different but equal, the production is smaller but more moody. This is kind of a dark X-rated doppelganger of a classic. There are some plot tweaks and maybe the best substitution is Lina Romay as the helpless minion. This might be her best role, likewise the underrated Alice Arno.

Mansion/Living Dead is basically a re-do of Bloody Moon, but serving Franco's sensibilities. We have some sexy Spanish girls at a hotel with a slasher. I still prefer Moon, but Mansion is close in quality. It leans towards a smaller, more absurd plot and a more hypnotic, dreamy style of directing. What Mansion does have is better dialogue, sexier lesbian action and a phenomenal female gimp character who steals the entire film each time she arrives. This film becomes a personal account of Franco's relationship with Lina and his own guilt in keeping this much younger, wilder woman to himself, a rather bookish man of small means. Many films from this period revolve around their real world romantic dynamic, its up's and down's and sadomasochism. Lina is more than a muse in these films. She's a strong actress with the unique gift of having a film told through her and about her.

Fall of the Eagles is the cheapest Franco film I've ever seen. It literally a couple really well-directed scenes about a Nazi love triangle before, during and after WW2 with some stock footage linking it together. The performances are strong from Christopher Lee and Mark Hamill (TWO fucking Jedi's directed by the guy who helped inspire Yoda!!!!) while Joe Estavez's son gives what might be the worst acting performance ever. The entire film is so uneven yet so watchable, a perfect time waster. Considering it cost nothing, I didn't feel cheated. It reminds me of the much worse Full Moon films that obsessively use WW2 as a backdrop. Despite its many limitations, Eagles IS a very serious, crafted and poignant story.

Dr Orloff's Monster is a well-made little thriller, way more conservative than its radical predecessor, but it introduces some important tropes into the Franco canon: adultery turning to murder (But Who Raped Linda?) and a young girl inheriting a dark castle of evil secrets (Virgin..., Daughter of Dracula). The plot and style of this film provides the gist of the much more entertaining Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, but you won't be disappointed in the noir-esque photography and what was once groundbreaking treatment of sex and violence. But its no match for...

The Awful Dr. Orloff. Finally I review the one that made Jess Franco a famous international genre director. I've watched it before but its much better with more context of what it spawned. Its been written that Orloff is a rip-off of Eyes Without a Face. Franco denies it and I believe him as The Brain That Wouldn't Die is also ridiculously similar to these two films. I think we have a case of 3 people thinking the same thing at once: surgical horror. They all were deconstructing Gothic horror films and predicting the rise of abused plastic surgery. Eyes is the classiest of the 3, Brain the most vulgar and Franco's little film is a perfect blend of both. Its evident how much the suggestive dialogue and rape-themed violence was in such a Catholic, conservative culture. And this is really the most expressionist and epic film of Franco's career. Its just a finely directed old school horror film that no one can fault. But Francophiles will take sweet pleasure in how personal the film reveals itself to be all these years later.

We witness the birth of Franco's most personal and repeated plot device: The Master and Slave. Dr Orloff (who would return so many times) is a mad surgeon based on Jess' army doctor father and in extension the Generalissimo Franco. He's an affluent, cruel, bourgeois monster, but physically and emotionally human in every way. Early on its revealed that his deep seated obsession with female flesh comes from his own insecurity about control, aging and dying. This rings as a confession of Jess' later lustful work as Orloff's violence is carried out by his demeaned bug-eyed relative, "Morpho". This is an obvious placeholder for Jess and Jess would even play the Morpho role in following films. Is Franco's entire filmography as actor/director his working through a tyrannical Father complex? Definitely.

This film has a solid climax but the rather hollow Dr Orloff's Monster might be even more personal as that film ends with the Morpho monster actually striking down the evil father character. Now read into Orloff killing women to preserve the image of his own daughter? (Or sister in "Faceless") The maternal side of Franco's anxieties would be explored in Jack the Ripper, sibling & daughter incest would pop up later. Having a Mexican father and Cuban mother, I suspect Jess' mother was dark-skinned, explaining his fetish for light skin but his distanced but bleeding heart for darker skinned women. Its so obvious why he found special balance in Soledad Miranda and then Lina Romay. The strange abusive childhood Jess had with some 8 siblings in a fascist militaristic surgeon's home spawned a lifetime of traumatic confessions on celluloid and video. The racial tension between his parents and the mixed heritage in Latin communities also left a huge impact on the little Jesus, turning him to jazz, political radicalism and becoming a malcontent who purposely deprived his genius from popularity.

I hope this sad but beautiful little genius is at peace now and that this amazing body of work will live on forever and become more legendary than it already is.

The Toxic Avenger Parts 2 & 3 / 1989

One of my clearest childhood memories is discovering the VHS copy of the first 3 Toxic Avenger movies at a restaurant/gas station's mini-video store. I don't even know if such things exist anymore. The VHS tapes they stocked must have been mainly independent but the Toxic Avenger 2 was distributed by Warner Bros home video, amazingly. And so these two films capture the peak and fall of Troma in a movie business sense. Coming off of the gritty, tasteless but ambitious "Troma's War", Toxic 2 is the most professional production Troma ever made. Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz shared directing duties as usual, but they had help from 4 different units. Not so crazy when you realize they shot on location on 2 continents, had to meet semi-major studio Lorimar's post-production schedule and only had a mild breather before shooting Toxic 3.

Toxic 2 comes very close to being Troma's masterwork. Kaufman & Herz have the balls to take their biggest opportunity at mainstream exposure and make a brilliantly original and entertaining statement against Illuminati controls in an era where no one really even knew about the corporate enslavement of America. The film opens promoting a utopian paradise in "Tromaville" of multicultural citizens trading freely and dancing in the streets, until a Bilderberg meeting of yuppie satanists, gangsters and puppets plot to kill Toxie among other things (like blowing up the World Trade Center to disrupt trade). In the commentary for Pt 1, Kaufman reveals that he read some early anti-NWO book back in his 70s Yale days which ultimately informed his future radical film business. Seems like he had a real conflict in making this film and couldn't help but load it with as much commentary and anti-mainstream sentiment as possible. I think this makes it a marvel. Where the film ultimately failed is in its editing.

For some reason, the film has a very unnecessary and unmotivated narration dub that spoils many gags and visuals. Also, many Japanese actors are re-dubbed in offensive Engrish (even though Troma's TA2 trailer keeps their voices). But the fatal blow is a tacked on 20 minutes of story that is under-shot overkill after an already fun, serviceable climax. Maybe the boys at Troma were excessive or maybe they had to rush a cut out to Lorimar/WB. I am very curious to find out.

But still there's 80 minutes of gold here that is the best Troma ever produced. Toxie was a major merch and cartoon mascot at the time (can we speculate "Captain Planet" is Turner execs' Toxie ripoff?), so Toxic 2 is more kid-friendly and lighthearted. The gore, villainy and heroism is still hard-edged but cartooned to an extreme surrealism that perfectly matches the superhero/comic book style. Anyone knocking the film's broad humor, flat dimension, childish logic or gritty execution doesn't get that this is political theater for 80s fanboys and fantasy fans.

The film's most memorable sequence is an epic choreographed ballet of cartoon violence aiming Death Wish/Taxi Drive vigilantism at the film's heirarchy of symbolic bad guys. The Toxic Avenger, a kind of pan-racial, gender-crossed (the tutu is an amazing superhero costume) and transhuman knight who slays representatives of corrupted proletarians. Gays, hillbillies, Jews, sports stars, the church, punk rockers. Every subculture that has been turned against their own interest is lampooned for their own devisiveness and reduced to pawns in a Satanic scheme of corporate world domination. The brutal violence that flows in Kaufman's work reflects an intense fear and hatred of Nazi methodology and these films are catharsis.

The film itself is extremely well-shot, better staged than anything else Troma has done, with plenty of camera coverage, impressive effects and locations and even convincing effects. I think the plot is quite good too. The Toxic Avenger begins a fish-out-of-water journey to Japan to work through his paternal issues and this was meant to bridge to Toxic 3's buried subplot about Toxie's mother issues. I might be stretching, but the unique format of the film seems like a direct influence on Home Alone 2, the only other extremely violent "lost in the city" film for kids.

Now as awesome as Part 2 is, Part 3 is an utter disaster. Plotwise, its maybe better, but the execution is terrible. I assume the funds were pulled on Pt 3 after Pt 2 either offended, abused budget or failed monetarily. Because of this, Troma makes it a much darker and amateur film. Its made with a meaner spirit and higher drama. It really would've worked if it was as well-made and fun as Pt 2. Its maybe twice as ambitious but not nearly as memorable. It feels like a long string of leftover footage from Pt 2 and it even recycles whole scenes from that film for absolutely no reason. I'm confused because Troma always claims that the films were shot at the same time, but its clear some time has passed as Kaufman's infant daughter has aged at least a year, the fashion styles have changed and the quality of the camera had definitely fallen. Its very similar in production style (and script) to the Class of Nuke 'Em High sequels made at the time. Lots of clumsy crowd scenes, weak humor, under-directing and a half-baked message about ecology and yuppie-ism... with lame heavy metal pandering. Toxie 3 would be remade essentially as Sgt Kabukiman NYPD which is probably a better film, but Toxie 3 does have its key sequences (mainly gore fx courtesy of Redneck Zombies' Pericle Lewnes).

Troma would rebound quality-wise with Tromeo & Juliet but would never make films as balanced or big as Toxie 2 (or arguably Toxie 3). Its a shame. The Toxic Avenger is an amazing symbol of freedom and cinematic heroism. I hope there's some happy ending for Troma and that their greatest creation never ends up as any corporation's unspectacular, nostalgic "intellectual property". Thankfully, Troma is such a fringe company, like Full Moon, that big studios are probably afraid of buying them in fear of looking too greasy or leftist themselves. Or maybe today's execs have never seen a Troma films. Thats wishful thinking. But somehow suburban & urban fart-sniffers need to discover these films and support them to make better ones. Thats was a titanic feat in the 1980s and it hasn't gotten easier. Whatever the solution is, its out there and I hope Lloyd and Michael find it soon enough.

Edit: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the sweeping anti-Asian racism in Pt 3's depiction of the devil. Is it camp or serious? The devil is a green-skinned dragon with a "fu manchu" mustache. The Japanese funded most of Pt 2 but pulled out on Pt 3 too. It kinda feels like a nationalist F--k You and couldn't be well received by the Asian audience. That really hurts Troma. Sgt Kabukiman is sort of intentionally ignorant and racist about Japanese culture as well, but its also flattering in some ways but still definitely exploitative. Is Troma Zionist? They hate Disney. They love violence and have a pro-military streak but they never show any extremist capitalist or nationalist politics like Cannon, not beyond the average NY/NJ conservatives. Troma are somewhat conservative socially but extremely conservative with their savings, which has given them long life but hasn't inspired their workers or helped their product become professional. Its a weird situation. They have the right morals but don't practice what they preach and don't exactly live up to what they sell. Thats the Z-grade cinema world. But its better than an F.

I would say Troma are Green Party these days and were early NeoLiberals before becoming Anarchist Capitalist in the 80s and then just Conservative Democrats through Clinton until Bush made them really seek the Far Left. I would appreciate a 2018 Troma film now more than ever, specifically a Toxie 5.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape 1989

I am not a huge devotee of American indie films from the 1990s and onward. The story themes, production and directoral styles are repetitive to me and its grown into an overpraised and over-referenced genre for American film enthusiasts. Maybe its childish, but I resent these movies because they are usually only good and still rob the attention away from truly great films made worldwide and even in Hollywood. American indies are synonymous with "Oscar bait".

But this is what the market has turned into. It was once something less pretentious and home to films that were too fringe or risky for Hollywood studios. In 2017, the high profile indie film hit will have an enormous budget and only separate itself by having a slightly older audience or less marquee actors. I guess thats been the case since John Cassavettes defined the movement in the 1960s. But indie films are made for the indie film audience now. That audience is clearly defined and vocal and willing to invest lots of dollars so many indie filmmakers deliver the expected tripe.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape was one of the films that is credited with establishing this middle class audience and proving the commercial viability of indie films to Hollywood players. I was wary that this would be another film about a tiny cast of sad white youths failing to disconnect and climaxing with a cathartic tragic moment of romance. And it is. "Sex" the genesis of that wide-reaching formula but, like many originators, it is better than its imitators. While director Steven Soderbergh is definitely lifting from Cassavettes, Bergman and Tarkovsky, he tempers it and irons out the edges to create something less heavy, more commercial and yet still as personal. He anchors it all with simple cinematic storytelling and broader and more universal archetypal characters. The power of SLAV is that it finds the high drama in such American whitebread lives (Southern WASPs to make it more shocking). A cynic would say he's just swiping the characterization from his influences but I would say he is revealing WITH IRONY the Bergman in these purposely boring American types. Its a calculated call to arms to other filmmakers to bring the arthouse to American indie films and a show of unity between America and the struggling classes elsewhere.

I wouldn't blame anyone for dismissing this film with or without seeing but I think it deserves a watch when given the proper context. Its objectively an important film and I think its clearly superior to most films out today because of its purity and complexity. This is one of those films that has influenced not only a bunch of other influential films but also TV series like Mad Men, The Young Pope, etc. So many film students were moved by this and it charged them to create some of the best work being made, so you have to give credit to Soderbergh. For its tiny place between commercial and arthouse cinema, I would say Sex, Lies, and Videotape is a minor masterpiece.