29 January, 2018

Vintage Reviews: DEVIL HUNTER and SNAKEWOMAN

DEVIL HUNTER (Clifford Brown, 1980)
 Credited to "Clifford Brown" this German, Spanish, French and Italian coproduction features Al Cliver [Pier luigi Conti], most familiar from Fulci's ZOMBIE, as a mercenary hired to bring back a starlet [Ursula Buchfellner] who has is being held for ransom on a tropical island. The only interesting performances are given by the intense, late Werner Pochath and Antonio de Cabo as nasty and increasingly frantic criminals. Conti/Cliver looks as bored as usual while German starlet Buchfellner looks almost anorexic and spends most of her screentime tied up nude to a tree getting abused by the criminals and a giant black cannibal. Watching Europeans like Eurocine regular Claude Boisson as the cannibal chief is a real hoot and the film is reliably unconvincing in just about every department. Note the equipment in the film producer's office; everything in this film looks cheap/bogus. Maybe that's the point.But it's Franco all the way in terms of out-of-focus shots both from the marauding cannibal's POV and other images, mismatched filmstock (the film was reportedly begun by BLIND DEAD auteur Amando De Ossorio), and editing between events which looks like it was meant to create ironic counterpoint (the paparazzi and the fashion show are intercut with the jungle pursuit of another nude female victim who is later tied to a tree, gutted and disgustingly cannibalized). Totally incomptent on the FX level, the cannibal is shown chewing on bloody meat scraps in extreme closeup, this will give no competition to the other Euro cannibal films of that era (cf CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST). It's pure exploitation for very desperate audiences. There is an interesting primitivist score by Franco himself (and Daniel J. White) with a delirious male vocal by Carloto Perla, heard in other 1980s Franco films. The stalking bug-eye giant nude cannibal has to be one of the most blatantly racist images in the history of horror cinema or a tip to the zombie in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE or both.

The Video Asia DVD of this, coupled with Manuel Cano's VOODOO BLACK EXORCIST (1972), is possibly the worst digital presentation of a Franco film yet. The opening credits are removed and the film starts in the middle of the first scene. There is digital censoring of the copious male and female nudity of the original, some extreme gore is cut and the bottom third of the image is masked presumbly to hide the presence of Japanese subtitles, video quality is significantly inferior to the more complete old TRANSAMERICA VHS: THE MAN HUNTER. I believe that this was indeed sourced from a Japanese video or disc and booted over here. The somewhat racist cover artwork reads TERROR TALES FROM THE HOOD: SPECIAL EDITION VOLUME 4. BLACK VOODOO EXORCIST (sic) plus THE GRUESOME SHOCK OF: THE DEVIL HUNTER: A 1970s style Afro coiffured female poses in a collage with a glowing eyed gravedigger, green hands emerging from graves holding cigarettes [!], etc. The back features more dated jungle nonsense wigh some stills and amusing promo notes {"the long banned masterpiece...[!]"}. But for under 10 dollars it may be an outre collector's item for some. Of course, now in 2018, DEVIL HUNTER has been released on Blu-ray, in two different languages, on a double bill with Eurocine's CANNIBAL TERROR, which makes DEVIL HUNTER look like a masterpiece in comparison. It seems to improve with the years, and in HD, as raw entertainment cooked for the masses by Jess Franco in his "Clifford Brown" mode. (C) Robert Monell 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   


SNAKEWOMAN - Jess Franco, 2005, États Unis/Espagne
Jess Franco doesn't make "films" anymore, he makes video but the results are still, even in glossy HI-DEF, 100% Jess Franco. I spoke to Jess during the conception of this film and he was quite excited about attempting an updating of VAMPYROS LESBOS (1970), which this in essence is, but it's also more than that. Carmen Montes is the title character, a female vampire who wears nothing but a long red lined black cape and a tatoo of a double headed python which curls around her torso. She dominates a netherworld {Malaga, Spain} where "walk-ins" appear and disappear as suddenly as her attacks. Her most recent victim is a female reporter (Fata Morgana), the Jonathan Harker character, and Christie Levin is a demented female Renfield who is kept in a private asylum by the mad Dr. Nostradamus (Antonio Mayans). The reporter has come to investigate the estate of the legendary actress-composer Oriana Balasz. The Snakewoman may be her descendant or her continuation. It begins and ends and is often interrupted by telezooms onto flocks of tropical birds which recall the kites in VAMPYROS LESBOS. The music is spectral but will not enter the imagination in the same way as the ground breaking score for that 1970 cult classic. Carmen Montes does evoke the late, great Soledad Miranda and the film is filled with captivating images. Franco's director credit appears over an old b&w photo of Marlene Dietrich and this may be another subterranean homage to the cinema of Von Sternberg. In fact, Franco's digital films look more Sternbergian as one contemplates them beyond mere attempts to stay working in his late period. There are a lot of lesbian interludes (Franco told me he wanted to call it VAMPIRE INTERLUDE) but not as many as in some of his recent work and they don't smother the film. The acting is above average and it's worth seeing on the SRS DVD where it is coupled with DR. WONG'S VIRTUAL HELL and some still galleries. (C) Robert Monell 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

17 January, 2018

Stephen Thrower update of NUCLEUS Jess Franco Blu-rays

I copied this from Stephen's 1/17/18 post on FACEBOOK, which details some of the intensive restoration work done on these UK RB releases. I'll be reviewing these at some point and comparing them to the X RATED KULT, REDEMPTION and the US VHS releases.

An update by Stephen Thrower on the new Nucleus UK releases of two Jess Franco horror classics. I'll be reviewing these on my Franco blog in the future.
Stephen Thrower added 3 new photos.
THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE DEMONS: two peak period Jess Franco movies that no serious fan should be without, now available from Nucleus Films (http://nucleusfilms.com/) and featuring on camera interviews with yours truly! I'd also say that these two films are well worth buying if you're curious about Franco but uncertain about where to start. Some will counsel caution and recommend the slightly more sober and conventional 1960s titles, but to hell with all that. Why not throw caution to the wind and grab these two - they'll give you a fantastic insight into his freewheeling style in the 1970s.
Nucleus majordomo Marc Morris has done a huge amount of extraordinary work restoring THE DEMONS in particular. Here's a list of some of the work he's done which viewers and reviewers may not otherwise be aware of:
1. Incorrect aspect ratios on numerous shots fixed throughout.
2. White line frames removed throughout.
3. The soundtrack was out of synch throughout (sometimes by as much as 6 seconds). Marc has fixed this.
4. The soundtrack was missing audio, and in these scenes had been badly looped. Marc has located audio from alternate sources and replaced the annoying looped audio with correct audio where possible.
5. There was some German dialogue on the French soundtrack, which Marc has replaced with the correct French dialogue.
7. There were numerous instances of actors speaking with no dialogue heard on the soundtrack - now fixed.
8. There were numerous instances of dialogue spoken, with the actors' mouths not moving - now fixed.
9. The dissolve from face freeze frame to skull was completely missing - Marc has added this back.
10. He has also created from scratch an English language master, which is believed to match the original English language export version.
11. German Trailer - On the Kino Blu-ray, this was incorrectly dubbed with random French audio from the movie. This has been replaced with the original German soundtrack.
12. Marc has also corrected the frame rates from 23.976 fps to 24 fps, so if you have exquisitely perfect musical pitch the soundtrack will now match your LP record of Jean-Michel Lorgère's Trafic Pop!
And finally, look out for the startling fx shot included in the French trailer for Erotic Rites of Frankenstein which as far as I can recall doesn't appear in any currently available version of the film. Face-ripping!