Les Demons (The Demons)

Les Demons

1972

Director- Jesús Franco

From France

Cast- Anne Libert, Britt Nichols, Doris Thomas, Karin Field, Cihangir Gaffari

            

     To be honest, at times this film borders on soft core porn with some pretty lengthy sex scenes, but as the movie clocks in at almost 2 hours, there is still plenty of room for story amongst all the sex.

            

      The film opens with an old hag being tortured and burned for witchcraft. She curses the members of the Inquisition that have sentenced her and promises that her daughters will have revenge. The inquisition then sets out to find these mysterious daughters.

            

      Kathleen (Anne Libert) and Margaret (Brit Nichols) are sisters who grew up in Blackmoor convent as orphans.  Kathleen seems to incite lust in everyone who meets her. Lady Winter (Karin Field) visits the convent looking for the witch’s daughters and decides to take Kathleen away as a suspected witch, to the dismay of her sister Margaret. The Lady Winter is a bit of perv and a sadist. She enjoys watching the young girls tortured and it fuels her sexual desires.

            

        While Kathleen is being tortured, Margaret is visited by the spirit of the old dead hag and then by the devil himself who has his way with her. The next morning, Margaret has come out of her shell and seduces the Mother of the convent before running away. She comes upon an old witch who helps her in her quest for revenge. Meanwhile, Kathleen is going from one man to the next, some who try to rescue her and some who want to abuse her.  Eventually, Margaret infiltrates the aristocracy in disguise and seduces and kills her way through the members of the inquisition.

          

    Anne Leibert and Britt Nichols (real name Carmen Yazalde) starred in numerous Franco  films together, including Virgin Among the Living Dead. They probably felt pretty comfortable around each other since they had previously shot two lesbian sex scenes in Dracula’s Daughter the year before (not to be confused with the Universal movie of the same name).

            

    Les Demons was an ambitious film for Franco. Most of his films are modern and this detour into a historical costume piece paid off I think. It’s an erotic film, and is obviously meant to be, but is very different from most of the other inquisition films of this era. Worth owning for fans of either Franco or Britt and Anne.

 

Virgin Among the Living Dead

A Virgin Among the Living Dead

1973

Director- Jesús Franco

Cast- Christina von Blanc, Britt Nichols, Rosa Palomar, Anne Libert, Howard Vernon, Nicole Guettard,

From Spain/ France

            

   This movie is one of the best examples of how studio attempts to broaden the appeal of a movie by altering the original vision can lead to the original vision almost being lost.

Originally Franco made Christina, Princess of Eroticism (which I admit is a pretty stupid name). It was a very low key, strange film that was almost reserved (by Franco standards). To boost its appeal, the studio called in another director to shoot some soft core porn, inserted it into the film, and re-released it. The porn scenes by the way were pretty stupid and lacked even the tiniest bit of eroticism. A few years later to capitalize on the Romero inspired zombie craze they called in French director Jean Rollin to shoot some extra scenes of zombies (that absolutely added nothing to the film) so they rebranded it a zombie movie entitled A Virgin Among the Living Dead (which, giving credit where its due, is an awesome name). Well the final name stuck and that’s what  it is best known as, so that’s why I’m listing it by that name.

Christina (Christina Von Blanc) has found out that her deceased father has left her an estate. She arrives to collect the inheritance to find the mansion inhabited by a strange group of her distant relatives. They seem to be very close knit but also have an antagonism toward each other. They also seem threatening in a way that is hard to put your finger on. One seems to be a lesbian (Britt Nichols from Les Demons) who is always trying seduce Christina. Another seems to be an idiot who only speaks gibberish (Franco himself). They all seem to be sharing a private joke with each other that Christina is not in on.

There are several scenes that could be interpreted as ominous dreams including one where Christina sees her dead father with a rope around his neck from where he has been hung. He reveals that his soul is being held by some mysterious “Queen of the Night” (Anne Libert also from Les Demons). Not until the very end of the film do we discover what is going on and the fate of this strange cast.

If you have only seen the “zombie” version of the film, you may be wondering why I included it on a site devoted to infernal films. The “zombie edition” replaced the occult imagery from the original director’s cut. The original Franco version features an occult ritual that has to be seen as analogous to witchcraft or Satanism and one scene rife with archetypal subtext where Christina, naked, kneels before a giant phallus. 

The “zombie” version of the film not only negates the occult symbolism, it adds pointless zombies in scenes that are shot to hide the fact that the main actress was not actually present.  For years, Virgin was the only version of the film that was readily available. Luckily, for completionists, Redemption video has released a Blu-ray that has the original, unaltered, Franco version Christina, Princess of Eroticism and the zombie themed A Virgin Among the Living Dead and as a bonus, the  extras contain the silly soft core porn scenes from the “sexy” version. However, feel free to watch Christina and skip the rest.

Exorcism (Jesús Franco)

Exorcism (Exorcisme)

1974

Director- Jesús Franco,

Cast- Lina Romay, Jesús Franco, Catherine Laferriere, Lynn Monteil

            Not be confused with the Paul Naschy film of the same name, this movie doesn’t actually have any exorcisms, at least not in the traditional sense.

            Anna and Rose are a pair of performance artists who work for an S&M themed magazine. They specialize in live performances of Satanic themed rituals with simulated torture and human sacrifices. They put on these shows for bored rich people who need their jaded sex drives kick started. The problem is they have attracted an unwanted fan.

            Vogel (played by Franco himself) is a writer for that same magazine and rumor has it that he is a defrocked priest. Well, the rumors are true, he was once a man of the cloth but now he takes an unwholesome interest in Anna (played by Franco’s real life longtime lover, Lina Romay). Vogel sees all the Satanic mumbo jumbo as real and starts picking off girls in the periphery of that social circle. He kidnaps them and murders them, sometimes torturing them as a part of their “exorcism”, all in the name of saving their souls. Eventually he works up the guts to go after Anna herself.

            Franco was perfect for the part of the former priest turned sexual pervert. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but he really looks like a creep in this film. Lina Romay is beautiful and vivacious, looking like an early goth icon with her long black hair.

            Exorcism could only have been made in the 70s with its mixture of Satanic fascination and pre-AIDS era swingers, who are the movies victims. The movie has a ton of sex and some of the torture scenes are quite prolonged, though they don’t approach anything close to the modern “torture porn” movies. It’s not a particularly scary movie but is a good example of the B grade psychological thrillers of that day.

            Franco’s movies were often re-released with different names after being re-edited to appeal to different audiences. This movie was heavily edited and re-released as Demoniac (not to be confused with the Jean Rollin movie Les Démoniaques). There is absolutely no reason to watch that version as literally half the movie is cut out including the vast majority of the sex and violence.

The Bloody Judge

The Bloody Judge

1970

Director- Jesús Franco

Cast-  Christopher Lee, Leo Genn, Maria Rohm, Margaret Lee, Peter Martell

            

This movie has nothing of the supernatural in it. Like most inquisition films, the only “witches” are innocent women executed either to satisfy men’s lust or assuage their paranoia, in this case a little of both.

            Christopher Lee plays the titular judge, Lord Jefferies. He presides over a high court pronouncing sentence on those accused of witchcraft. Jefferies is not particularly interested in witches; rather he is more concerned with traitors to the crown and dissidents. The charge of witchcraft, and subsequent torture and execution, is a convenient way for him to rid the realm of rabble rousers.

            The central protagonist is a “witch”, Mary (played by the beautiful Maria Rohm). Lord Jefferies has executed her father for treason, and at the beginning of the film, burned her sister for witchcraft. She catches Lord Jefferies' eye and must endure persecution by him.

            Those familiar with Franco’s films may feel a little let down with the level of salaciousness. It’s more of a historical drama with some nudity and torture than a straight up exploitation film. That’s not to say your carnal desires would be left unsated, there is enough there, particularly a scene where the beautiful imprisoned “witch” Mary, licks the blood off of her nude cellmates.

            To be honest, as an American, this era of British history, the circa Oliver Cromwell era, is confusing. I can’t keep straight who was fighting for whom and for what and which ones are “the bad guys”. Though the movie has plenty of political intrigue, it won’t affect your viewing experience if you are just as lost as me.

            Lee, as always, is a fine villain. Maria Rohm, despite spending a lot of the film in various stages of undress, is convincing as the film’s tortured heroine. The movie also benefits from a guest appearance, and a fine performance, by Leo Genn (Starbuck in the Gregory Peck version of Moby Dick) as the Judge’s chief political rival.

            If watching this film, make sure to watch the unedited 103 minute version. It has sporadic bits of German, but it won’t make much difference. If a torturer is saying something to a naked wench in a jail cell, you can bet it’s not good.