Dr. Zimmer (Antonio Jimenez Escribano) is a blind, wheelchair-bound scientist with radical ideas about where the impulses for good and evil reside in the human body, and how to isolate them. By doing this, he hopes to rehabilitate criminal types. But when his peers scoff at and demonize his research, he suffers a fatal heart attack, and his daughter Irma (Mabel Karr) carries on his work. However, she is the truly diabolical one, perverting her fathers' ideas in the name of old-fashioned revenge. She telepathically controls an exotic dancer, Nadia a.k.a. Miss Death (Estella Blain), into murdering the mocking doctors Vicas (Howard Vernon), Moroni (Marcelo Arroita-Jauregui), and Kallman (Cris Huerta). This poor Nadia is made to do thanks to curare-tipped fingernails.
One of the handful of traditional genre films made by cult icon Jess Franco, "The Diabolical Dr. Z" is good fun, as it adheres to classic trappings of horror. It's not really a Gothic; it's set in modern times. But it still has that great old-style feel, complete with stark black & white photography. Franco utilizes themes that would then recur throughout his filmography, enhancing the standard revenge plot with touches of eroticism. The ladies are gorgeous, and the cast is uniformly solid, with Karr suitably icy as the Frankenstein-wannabe on a mission. Fernando Montes is enjoyable as the man of medicine *and* the man who ends up dating Irma, and sometime after she has faked her death, her unwitting murderer. Guy Mairesse has a great character face as the strangler who gets employed as a henchman. Adding to the fun is seeing Uncle Jess himself in an uncredited supporting role, as one of two detectives investigating the crimes (the other is played by the films' composer, Daniel White). Jess even gets a character detail: his inspector is sleep-deprived because his wife recently had triplets.
The cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa is striking, Whites' music is atmospheric, and the pacing is pretty consistent. The tale being told (scripted by Jean-Claude Carriere, based on a story by Jess) is not a great one, but it does hold your attention. It's sexy, and sordid, and has some nice touches along the way.
Seven out of 10.
One of the handful of traditional genre films made by cult icon Jess Franco, "The Diabolical Dr. Z" is good fun, as it adheres to classic trappings of horror. It's not really a Gothic; it's set in modern times. But it still has that great old-style feel, complete with stark black & white photography. Franco utilizes themes that would then recur throughout his filmography, enhancing the standard revenge plot with touches of eroticism. The ladies are gorgeous, and the cast is uniformly solid, with Karr suitably icy as the Frankenstein-wannabe on a mission. Fernando Montes is enjoyable as the man of medicine *and* the man who ends up dating Irma, and sometime after she has faked her death, her unwitting murderer. Guy Mairesse has a great character face as the strangler who gets employed as a henchman. Adding to the fun is seeing Uncle Jess himself in an uncredited supporting role, as one of two detectives investigating the crimes (the other is played by the films' composer, Daniel White). Jess even gets a character detail: his inspector is sleep-deprived because his wife recently had triplets.
The cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa is striking, Whites' music is atmospheric, and the pacing is pretty consistent. The tale being told (scripted by Jean-Claude Carriere, based on a story by Jess) is not a great one, but it does hold your attention. It's sexy, and sordid, and has some nice touches along the way.
Seven out of 10.