Jess Franco is perhaps the most prolific Spanish director alive. With over 50 pseudonyms and over 180 films under his belt, he has created art, shit, shit art, and any other possible combination of the sort. His specialty is relentless sexual situations entwined with graphic violence and horror. He is one of the few Spanish film makers who've adapted giallo into a Spanish form and created a mix of slasher/erotica/giallo out of it. If you haven't seen a Jess Franco film, you really have a lot of catching up to do.
Jess Franco makes us of his verbatim artful and post-sleaze effect on the maligned Bloody Moon. The effort in question is a weird hybrid of the slasher and with scream queens. Bloody Moon takes few seconds in order to escalate into the film that it is and keeps the perfect amount of tension to flow by ways of being protean and fluctuating. Despite having some intelligent and awe inspiring violent deaths, the real lure is the cast of beautiful German girls picked off by a mysterious killer.
The proper thing done with the mystery - thriller element was the slow plot that was slowly revealed. By the end of the film, all the prior scenes will come together in a bloody puzzle and will leave you saying "I should have known!" aloud. Of course, this film needed a Franco twist so a ghoulish incest plot line was inserted that was between a hideously burned ex-murderer and his beautiful sister. You will constantly second-guess the intelligence of the film and the only reason you would is the direful dialogue. Lost in translation is the proper term for this. Sure, it has a caseous disco theme but this is a perfected and refined sleazy slasher.
And if you think you've seen it all, watch the killer run down a little boy in his luxurious car without even looking back. I'm no stranger to child violence in film, but the grunt made by the 10-or-so year old was frighteningly realistic and I could actually hear the breath escape from his crushed chest. Along with the sound effects, a masterful score of bubbly synth-pop and a luminescent science-fiction humming loop are presented in what might be the greatest Franco soundtrack.
There's no reason to not view Bloody Moon and give it a try. Other than the real (?) snake getting decapitated with a pair of hedge clippers, this film is a fun and harrowing film of obsession and greed wrapped in a horror film package. I've read some negative reviews and they all center around the atrocious lines from the characters. At worst, they prove to just be comedic relief. Bloody Moon is one of Franco's highlight films and a violent one at that.
Jess Franco makes us of his verbatim artful and post-sleaze effect on the maligned Bloody Moon. The effort in question is a weird hybrid of the slasher and with scream queens. Bloody Moon takes few seconds in order to escalate into the film that it is and keeps the perfect amount of tension to flow by ways of being protean and fluctuating. Despite having some intelligent and awe inspiring violent deaths, the real lure is the cast of beautiful German girls picked off by a mysterious killer.
The proper thing done with the mystery - thriller element was the slow plot that was slowly revealed. By the end of the film, all the prior scenes will come together in a bloody puzzle and will leave you saying "I should have known!" aloud. Of course, this film needed a Franco twist so a ghoulish incest plot line was inserted that was between a hideously burned ex-murderer and his beautiful sister. You will constantly second-guess the intelligence of the film and the only reason you would is the direful dialogue. Lost in translation is the proper term for this. Sure, it has a caseous disco theme but this is a perfected and refined sleazy slasher.
And if you think you've seen it all, watch the killer run down a little boy in his luxurious car without even looking back. I'm no stranger to child violence in film, but the grunt made by the 10-or-so year old was frighteningly realistic and I could actually hear the breath escape from his crushed chest. Along with the sound effects, a masterful score of bubbly synth-pop and a luminescent science-fiction humming loop are presented in what might be the greatest Franco soundtrack.
There's no reason to not view Bloody Moon and give it a try. Other than the real (?) snake getting decapitated with a pair of hedge clippers, this film is a fun and harrowing film of obsession and greed wrapped in a horror film package. I've read some negative reviews and they all center around the atrocious lines from the characters. At worst, they prove to just be comedic relief. Bloody Moon is one of Franco's highlight films and a violent one at that.
-mAQ
I hate to put this on you, but if you were to toss out a beginners pile of Jess Franco films, what would they be? (Don't feel obligated to answer btw... I imagine mentally filing through the catalog of Jess Franco titles isn't very pleasant). The only ones I'm familiar with are the women in jail movies that Blue Underground put out.
ReplyDeleteBloody Moon, Watching Diary of a Nymphomaniac right now. Devil Hunter is especially sleazy if you like watching "Actresses" getting raped.
ReplyDeleteSexual Story of O, Justine, and Venus in Furs.
i want to bugger lina romay (as she was in 1972, not as she is now obviously).
ReplyDelete