Blu-ray Review: THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME (1979)

THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME
Written & Directed by  Jesús Franco
Distributed by Severin Films

  Jesús Franco (a.k.a. Jess Franco) is a very unique director and gave us some of the strangest films in the horror genre.  A lot of his films are really not that good (in my opinion), yet I still find myself drawn to them.  If I hear of a film I haven't seen and notice it was directed by Franco, I put in at the top of my list of movies to see!

  Such was the case with THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME (El Sadico de Notre-Dame).   Once again Franco brings us a weird tale of perversion, mixed with part slasher film, part occult film, and part Giallo.  His films are really a mixture of things, which sometimes can cause for confusing plots.  That is some of the charm of his films, though.   Here is the basic plot courtesy of the Severin Films website:

  In 1979, legendary writer/director Jess Franco (VAMPYROS LESBOS) re-purposed elements of his satanic sex shocker EXORCISM with all-new footage to create a depraved new epic that – even by Uncle Jess standards – achieves new levels of EuroSleaze insanity: Franco himself stars a defrocked priest turned hooker-slashing psychopath, prowling the streets of Paris in a fever of violence, voyeurism, rampant nudity and S&M depravity. Olivier Mathot (TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES), Pierre Taylou (HOT NIGHTS OF LINDA), Antonio DeCabo (VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD) and Jess’ beloved muse Lina Romay (MACUMBA SEXUAL, MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD) co-star in what Franco considered to be his most personal film of all, now scanned in 4k from elements discovered in the crawlspace of a Montparnasse nunnery.

  If that sounds like a pretty simple plot, it's because it is.  This film is basically just Franco running around and killing those he thinks are sinners, mainly prostitutes he comes across.  It seems to be a good excuse for some Eurosleaze nudity.  In a somewhat weird and out of place plot element, he also targets those attending an orgy in a castle complete with virgin sacrifice!   Ha!  Again, the charm of a Jess Franco movie is what keeps me coming back for more! 

  The film clocks in at 99 minutes, and honestly it can feel a little slow at times.  I feel like a running time of 86-88 minutes would have helped the flow of the film.  There were many scenes of characters just walking around and some stock footage of the town that I feel could have been cut out to speed the film along a bit.  That is my only complaint, though.  If you are a fan of Franco's other films, I think you will like this one as well.

  THE SADIST OF NOTRE DAME is available now on Blu-ray and DVD and contains the following Special Features:

*  The Gory Days Of Le Brady – Documentary Short On The Legendary Parisian Horror Cinema

*  Stephen Thrower On Sadist Of Notre Dame – Interview With The Author Of ‘Murderous Passions  – The Delirious Cinema Of Jesus Franco’

*  Selected Scenes Commentary With ‘I’m In A Jess Franco State Of Mind’ Webmaster Robert Monell

*  Treblemakers: Interview With Alain Petit, Author Of ‘Jess Franco Ou Les Prosperites Des Bis’

CLICK HERE to watch the trailer
CLICK HERE to purchase the Blu-ray

DVD review: MARQUISE DE SADE (1976)

MARQUISE DE SADE  (a.k.a. THE PORTRAIT OF DORIANA GRAY)
Written & Directed by  Jesús Franco  (a.k.a. Jess Franco)
Distributed by Full Moon Entertainment

  That crazy Jess Franco, he has some wild movies for sure.  No matter if you are a Franco fan or not, you can't deny he was one of the hardest working film directors ever.   He made his first film at age of 27 and never stopped until his last film in 2013, the year of his death at the age of 82.  That is over 200 directing credits in a 55 year career.   That averages to almost 4 movies a year!  In fact, in 1976, the year he made MARQUISE DE SADE, he also made 9 other films.  I honestly don't see how that is possible!     While I could go on forever about this man's career, I'll try to focus on my current review.  Here is the main plot from the Full Moon Direct website:

 Lust, Sex and Death…Sisters Share Everything!
A lonely aristocrat Miss Gray has a twin sister who's in an asylum. They share a strange bond. Miss Gray is rational but frigid while her sister is insane yet feels sexual pleasure for both of them. Soon, a female reporter arrives at the mansion - Miss Gray possesses vampire like qualities and lives alone when new reporter comes to do a story on her. It appears Doriana needs to suck the life out of various men and women - in a sexual way, in order to stay young. However, she gets no sexual feelings or pleasure out of it. Those ‘feelings’ go to her TWIN sister who is locked up in an asylum. There she goes through various sexual ‘violent and sexual fits’ whenever Doriana is pleasing and killing.

  I have seen a lot of Jess Franco movies before, and I have to admit they all seem to have a common theme, and that is a lot of sex and female nudity.  While some of his films have some good story lines, a lot of them feel as if the plot is just there as an excuse to show the sex scenes.   That is how I felt with this film.   The plot here is pretty simple,  a woman has sex and her twin sister feels the sensation and pleasure from it.   This amounts to sex scenes where the woman is having sex, and then we see her twin sister flailing around in her bed as she experiences the feelings and then pleasuring herself because of these feelings she is getting.  

  Now I know some of you might be saying....but that sounds AWESOME!  Ha!  Well, I have to admit that it is for a the first few scenes, but after that it becomes kind of pointless without any more of a story line to back up these sex scenes. 

  From a technical standpoint, this film is one of the better made Franco films I have seen  (although with over 200 film credits, I have to admit I've only seen a handful of his work).   It had some great scenery and camerawork, and the main star Lina Romay is undeniably beautiful to look at.  If you are a fan of Jess Franco's work, then you know what to expect here.  If you like his other films, I'm sure you'll like this one as well. 

  MARQUISE DE SADE is presented here in a fully UNCUT form, which is good news for Franco fans.   Full Moon has released this DVD as the latest part of their Jess Franco Collection, this being #7 in the series.  If you collect all 10 DVDs, they will form a portrait of the late Jess Franco when the spines are lined up together (see photo below).   This makes for a very cool collectible set.  

  MARQUISE DE SADE is available now from the Full Moon Direct store.  Click the link below to get your copy today!

CLICK HERE to purchase the DVD

Blu-ray Review: VAMPYROS LESBOS (1971)

VAMPYROS LESBOS
Directed by Jess Franco
Distributed by:  CAV Distribution / Severin Films
  
  I have always been a fan of Jess Franco.  All of his films, weather good or bad, have a certain charm to them.   VAMPYROS LESBOS is no different.  Here is the basic plot of the film courtesy of Severin Films:

From Jess Franco, the filmmaker The Vatican called the most dangerous director in the world , comes the most celebrated movie of his legendary career: Stunning Soledad Miranda stars as a vixen vampire who lures women to a Mediterranean island to satisfy her insatiable lust for female flesh and blood. It s a mind-bending odyssey of surreal erotica and 70s EuroHorror, featuring the psycho-sexadelic soundtrack that remains a global phenomenon. Ewa Strömberg (SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY), Dennis Price (VENUS IN FURS), Paul Muller (NIGHTMARE CASTLE) and Franco himself co-star in this landmark cult classic, now remastered in HD and featuring all-new Extras filmed with the director shortly before his death. Experience Franco’ masterpiece like you’e never seen or heard it before!

  Fans of Exploitation and Sexploitation films are in a treat with this film.  The film has been around for years on DVD, but it has never looked as good as it does here on this new Blu-ray transfer.  Severin always does a remarkable job with it's re-releases, and this one is no different.

  The film itself is pretty tame by today's standards.  In fact, if it weren't for the rampant nudity throughout the film, it would easily be a PG or PG-13 movie at the most.    Maybe it was shocking for back when it first came out, but with no killings really, or even any real gore, the movie is pretty tame. This one is definitely more of a sexploitation film than a true horror film, but still worth checking out  for sure.  One thing this new release has going for it is the packaging.   If you are a sucker for cool packaging/artwork like I am, then you will love Severin's presentation.  The packaging here is very cool and makes this an instant collectors item.

VAMPYROS LESBOS is available now on 2-Disc Collectors Edition Blu-ray, which features a dye cut slip case with newly created cover art by Wes Benscoter.   Special Features include the following:

Disc 1 (Blu-Ray):
*  Newly remastered HD presentation of the feature in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio
*  “Vampyros Jesus”: Interview featurette with Director Jess Franco
*  “Sublime Soledad”: Interview with Soledad Miranda Historian Amy Brown
*  “Stephen Thrower on Vampyros Lesbos”: Interview with Author of ‘Murderous Passions – The Delirious Cinema Of Jess Franco’
*  “Jess Is Yoda” Clip
*  Alternate German Opening Title Sequence – ‘Dracula’s Heiress’
*  German Trailer

Disc 2 (DVD):
*  "Las Vampiras" – Alternate Spanish Language VHS Version With Optional English Subtitles


CLICK HERE to watch the trailer
CLICK HERE to purchase the Special Edition Blu-ray

Double Feature Blu-ray Review: ZOMBIE LAKE (1981) and OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES (1982)

 
OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES
Directed by:  Jesús Franco
Distributed by Redemption Films/Kino Lorber, Inc.

ZOMBIE LAKE
Directed by:  Jean Rollin
Distributed by Redemption Films/Kino Lorber, Inc.

The great folks over at Kino Lorber, Inc. have just released two classic European zombie films onto DVD and Blu-ray.   Jean Rollin's ZOMBIE LAKE and Jess Franco's OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES aren't the best zombie movies ever made, but they both have a certain nostalgic feel to them that makes them sort of "cult classics" when it comes to foreign zombie films.  The films are very similar in many ways, and both have their good points and bad.  Here are the basic plots of the films from the Kino Lorber website:

OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES
In telling the story of a cache of German gold—lost in the desert, sought by a group of teenagers, protected by the walking dead—Franco demonstrated his characteristic lack of restraint, shamelessly inserting stock footage from a bigger-budget war picture, allowing his camera to dwell on the worm-eaten orifices of the shriveled undead and, of course, lacing the action with his trademark style of lyrical eroticism. The resulting film is a decadent exercise in grindhouse filmmaking that is more audacious than frightening, illuminating one of the more peculiar facets of Jess Franco's uniquely warped cinema.

ZOMBIE LAKE
Conceived by one master of erotic horror (Jess Franco) and pseudonymously directed by another (Jean Rollin), ZOMBIE LAKE weaves the tale of a contemporary French village haunted by water-logged Nazis slain by the Resistance. With little regard for narrative subtlety, the film veers from the shamelessly exploitive (as when a women's volleyball team skinny-dips in zombie-infested waters) to the tearfully sentimental (depicting a young orphan girl's psychic connection to one of the walking dead). Beneath its garish surface, however, ZOMBIE LAKE embraces several themes that run throughout Rollin's body of work, showing that this eclectic artist could not help investing even a playful film such as this with his personal sensibilities

As I mentioned before, both of these movies have their good and bad points.  OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES is just very strange, and the plot is hard to follow. I saw this movie years ago on DVD under the title of BLOODSUCKING NAZI ZOMBIES, and the film was extremely hard to watch in terms of a technical aspect.  The film was very dark and grainy and almost hard to make out certain scenes at some points.  I will say that the film is much improved on with this release, especially on the Blu-ray.  The lighting issues are fixed and it is very good picture quality overall.  Also, I think the zombie makeup effects are better in this film compared to those in ZOMBIE LAKE.  They are not great zombie effects by any means, but compared to ZOMBIE LAKE, they are superior.

ZOMBIE LAKE is my favorite of these two films by far.  The zombie effects are not nearly as good in this film.  Basically, the zombies are just regular men with green face paint.  But, even so, seeing a bunch of green faced zombie soldiers rise out of the lake is a very cool image.  There are also numerous underwater shots of the zombies attacking people who go swimming in the lake (usually young, attractive, naked women).  These underwater scenes are fun, especially considering the lake is dark brown, but the underwater scenes are pretty blue water like you would find in a swimming pool...hmmm.  Ha!  You gotta love low budget films!  ZOMBIE LAKE is a lot of fun and I recommend you check this one out.  

Both films are available now from Kino Lorber and are packed with special features!  I am proud to add these films to my zombie movie collection, and you should to!


CLICK HERE to watch the trailer for OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES
CLICK HERE to purchase OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES on DVD or Blu-ray


CLICK HERE to watch the trailer for ZOMBIE LAKE
CLICK HERE to purchase ZOMBIE LAKE on DVD or Blu-ray