Reviews

One of the best introductions to a movie ever! Classical music accompanies the first couple of minutes with images of erotic renaissance artwork then the music swiftly changes to this early 60's jazz.Then things turn weird with experimental Stockhausen type music with the classic shot of Janine Reynaud looking like a dominatrix. S&M style night club act. Jess was the master at directing these strange sexual night club scenes he continually went back to this throughout his career. This film represents the beauty of any great Euro cult horror movie. Dreamlike, psychedelic, beautifully shot cinematography with plenty of babes and eroticism and not to mention it's cool jazz score. It's a lost art form that is being preserved by many great DVD labels today. Many people don't know that this was (for an erotic-horror b-movie) pretty successful in the UK and the States in the late sixties and it wouldn't have been completed had it not been for a millionaire film producer who had the hots for Reynaud. If you're into Franco this is one of his masterpieces, but the slow pace that always makes Franco films seem like they drag on and on (I guess that is what turns a lot of people off) from Franco. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but the film is really grainy looking. This was probably to make the film look like a dream and give this psychedelic atmosphere. Lots of shots of beautiful European architecture, a weird hedonistic LSD party, a strange demon women and walking mannequins. In the 60's Jess was on the verge of becoming one of the great European directors, but then he started making films like Eugenie de Sade and Vampyros Lesbos and his reputation was ruined by critics who like to say he made crappy boring porn movies that made no sense. Oh well, more for us heathens to enjoy! A forgotten gem of European sex-horror from the 60's. 7/10

Sinner is truly one of Jess Franco's best films with an unusually strong plot and strong performances all around for a Franco film. Sinner: The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac was made during the Robert de Nesle period of Franco's career and also the post Soledad Miranda, pre Lina Romay years of 1971-72. Right after the death of Soledad Miranda Franco wasted zero time in finding and getting a new team of producers and group of actors for which he churned many films out at a furious pace. Sinner I think is one of his best from this two year time period. The two stars in this one is obviously Anne Libert and Montserrat Prous with latter being the lead and focus. Prous gives a stunning performance as Linda Vargas. Ann Libert plays the Countess Anna de Monterey who takes in this cute lost girl who's been taken advantage of by every man she comes into contact with, but Linda soon meets with a photographer and prostitute, loses trust in the only one trying to help her and descends into a world of prostitution and drugs.

It's all here folks the Cinematography, the 'sexadelic' scenes, the incredible music score, the resort like location of the Spanish coast and the freedom for Franco to do what he does best. Create this weird, dreamlike, delirious psychedelic sex world. There's also this incredible commentary by Linda about sex and society while we watch people dancing in this nightclub to this prog jazz score transitioning to a scene where we see a group of hippies smoking pot. A nightmare Ferris wheel sequence and the sexual philosophies from Linda's diary as we get to know more about her as the story evolves in this film. Those are just some tidbits I'll throw out there for all new or veteran Franco fans who haven't seen this film and might be interested in purchasing the movie.

70's Euro cult sleaze at it's finest! Highly Recommended! 8/10

If you know anything about Jess Franco films or the genre of Nunsploitation you should know what you're in for. Medieval period film, accusations of witchcraft, demonic possession, nuns going crazy in a convent. You know, weird stuff like that. Jess Franco was quick to cash in on the success and controversy of Ken Russel's The Devils and made his own Inquisition horror film The Devils (aka Les Demons) Franco style.

While being burned at the stake, an accused witch curses the principal witchfinder and his minions. While this happens very, very slowly members of the royalty and religious establishment are caused to suffer and they also take pleasure in a series of their own sexual desires, torture and demonic possession by the witch's daughter Margaret. How Margaret becomes bewitched will unfold as you watch the film. As you already know (assuming you've seen Franco films before) Jess made very slow paced often sexually delirious, hypnotic dreamlike films with amazing visuals and music scores as is with The Demons. His films are often loved or hated by the b-movie cult community. I happen to like Franco films very much from all decades of his film career. Especially his output during 68-75. The man was making feature films at a furious pace. Some good, many well... not so good and at the height of his creative powers. He also had more and more freedom as the 70's moved along as censorship loosened in Europe giving him more freedom to create his own genre of film making. Zooms, close ups of butts, vaginal pubic hair, statues and buildings. His music scores, sometimes often overshadow the movie itself and deserve proper vinyl release. The Demons is an essential and often overlooked film of the demonically possessed nun genre and just a fun Euro-cult movie to watch. Like I mentioned above, everything from the music score to the delirious and wild sex scenes is all classic Franco from his most creative output post Soledad Miranda period in this film. If you're looking for a masterpiece of cult cinema Jess Franco's The Demons isn't the one for you, but if you are a true sicko like me and are looking for some of the most wild, delirious, sexually depraved gems of underground cult film making this film will give you a run for your money. I often tell people Jess Franco was the Marquis de Sade of Cinema. Many of his films capture the depravity of the Marquis works in so many of his movies. I give this film an 8/10 because for a Franco film this is actually a very well made low-budget demonic nun sleaze fest.

Banned in France for Blasphemy back when it was made in'71 "Don't Deliver us from Evil" was a very controversial film at the time mostly because of it's unconventional plot based on two innocent looking teenage catholic school girls who devote themselves to Satan and go on very mischievous (for lack of a better term) adventures and at times sexually arousing (teasing) much older adult men which in effect works against them and we witness some very shocking scenes of sexual assault which left me wondering while watching whether this film is actually legal due to the fact the girls are playing 14 and 15 year old girls. Thankfully I learned when reading about the film afterwords that the girls are actually 19 and 20 years old in real life. The ending is truly brilliant and has to be seen to be believed! It will stay with you for quite some time. One of the things that make this such an effective film is the fact that the acting is very well done by everyone specifically the two girls playing Anne (Jeanne Goupil) and Lore (Catherine Wagner) anyone else and the results would have been much less effective IMO. Although, as notorious as this film maybe I can't say other than a few scenes I mentioned above this would be a really shocking watch to anyone who's into European exploitation films of the 70's or anyone like me who's grown up in a time of modern day horror films when pretty much everything has been done. Still, if you were to show this to the uninitiated or the religious type in theaters today you might have more than a few people walk out completely offended. Legendary DVD label Mondo Macabro released this obscure gem quite awhile ago on DVD and did a fantastic job making this film look amazing as only MM can do with very informational extra features as well. Very beautifully shot and would go great as a second feature to Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. One of my favorite movies of all time! 10/10

What happened to Histories Mysteries? They use to show repeats of episodes everyday on H2 (History channel 2) until the fall/winter of 2012. Then, they took it off and it seems to have vanished with very little mention of it on the internet. When you Google histories mysteries you find very little except for a few reviews on TV.com and 1 review on IMDb and a Wikipedia page listing all the episodes. Other than that nothing! I still remember this series very well for it's great narration on the history of the topics discussed and the episodes had an atmospheric documentary style quality about them. My favorite episodes were Witchcraft, Lost colony of Roanoke, The Death of Marilyn Monroe, Miracles, Mystics and Prophecies, The Catacombs of Rome, Body Snatchers,The Occult and the Third Reich, and the mystery of Rob Roy and so many more I can't remember the names of. They even had an episode of Zombies and Haitian voodoo! Histories Mysteries was a great show for people who were into weird and mysterious historical events and even though the show catered to conspiracy buffs for which I am not. There was enough eye candy for me to keep me tuned in even though some of the episodes were pure BS. I still thought the stories and the history behind them were fascinating. The old History Channel right before Pawn Stars and Ancient Aliens took over had great educational programing that was for people who are actually interested in "History". I'm hoping that one day the History Channel will release this series on a DVD box set. I would hate to see such a great TV series just get forgotten about and lost in relative obscurity without a proper DVD release to fall back on. 8/10

Debut film from Dante Tomaselli gives us a nice little campy atmospheric horror film but other than that there's not much to say about this film. It's good, but not great. There are some very creepy standout scenes that stick in your mind for awhile, but there's nothing really special about this film that would make me rave about it. The negative reviews say that Desecration is lousy and very bad well I've seen a lot worse so don't be discouraged out of seeing this film it's still a decent effort by a then rookie director. Horror buffs out there that like hypnotic creepy horror films that make no sense like this should be/will be pleased with the effort. 6/10