Schmollywood Babylon

The Devil of Kreuzberg (Alexander Bakshaev, 2015)

I've been a fan of director Alexander Bakshaev for years now, and it’s always a pleasure when a new production of his falls into my hands! Being one of the few truly emotionally mature filmmakers from Russia since Andrei Tarkovsky, Bakshaev always delivers extreme strong dramas with a surreal and/or supernatural touches. The Devil of Kreuzberg might be his best movie so far, and deals with all these ingredients.

Linda (Sandra Bourdonnec) and Jakob (Ludwig Reuter) is in love, they’re in love like few other human beings. But Jakob have begun to get terrible nightmares, where Linda appears. This bothers him more and more until one day when he asks his friend Kurt (Suleyman Yuceer - a deadringer for Stephen Rea by the way) if he can kill her for him. Kurt, an amateur killer himself, takes on the mission, but gets slowly sucked into this strange, strange story of cursed love.

Clocking in on approximate 50 minutes, this a perfect, poetic little drama with some heavy influences of Jean Rollin, Jess Franco and random European artiness. Capturing the streets and grey look of Germany, it’s a familiar kind of environments for fans of euro art movies. Don’t expect pure horror, it’s pretty far from it. No, very far from it. But the fascination here - like in most Franco films of a certain class - relies on human relationships.

There’s an excellent drama-threesome going on here, between Bourdonnec, Reuter and Yuceer, which is multilayered, crisp and with a high EQ. I’m especially happy with the intimate friendship Jakob and Kurt shows, which is so rare in a world where men should behave a certain way. They love each other in a platonic way. They hold each others arms when out walking, dancing together - in my favorite scene in the movie, fucking genius I tell ya, and I love Jakob’s angora sweater in that scene. A nod to Ed Wood? The performances from the two guys are subtle and still intensive - “they’re there”, compared to many big stars nowadays.

Sandra Bourdonnec looks like she stepped right out of a Jean Rollin film, at least looking at her performance and haunted look. She’s an updated vampire, a succubus but still normal woman. It could easily have been something flatter in the hands of the wrong actress, but Bourdonnec is excellent. Around her and the rest of the cast is a wonderful collection of locations, from seedy Reeperbahn to gorgeous Argento-esque building exteriors.

The devil of Kreuzberg is a beautifully crafted story, shot with a unique sense of intimacy. You’re there with the characters. The absurdities of the story, like the disco dancing, adds a perfect balance to a mix of Bakshaev’s always fantastic combination of exploitation and arthouse.

Raw: Der Fluch der Grete Müller (Marcel Walz, 2013)

Last year when visiting Weekend of Horrors I met the very friendly Marcel Walz, a director who seems to be getting bad reviews at IMDB - but that just encourages me to see his movies. I mean, I’m judging the humanity by looking at the comments on IMDB, so you know what I think about those opinions. Anyway, I also bought Raw: Der Fluch der Grete Müller from him (he was friendly enough to also sign it for me) and then it took me one year to see it. I could say it was because I’ve seen too many found footage films and grown tired of the genre - but I’m not. I still love it and it surprises me how many people (aka IMDB users, and some even more incredibly lazy amateur movie critics thinking their fucking blog have some importance) can be so lazy they can’t see the excellent in movies like Borderlands and Exists. Raw is a very simplistic movie, and maybe a bit too much for its own good. But that doesn’t stop it from being pretty good.

A couple of girls goes out in the forest to shoot a documentary about Grete Müller, a witch which is said to have roamed the countryside a long time ago. The interview a local historian, interview each other about the experiences out in the nature... until one night one of them disappears. The others think she’s just gave up the project and went home - but we know what happen! Soon they’re hunted by something unknown, something that wants them to die!

It’s a bit difficult to write down a story which hardly is a story. This is a very traditional storyline with very little originality, but Walz is - even if you don’t agree with me - a fine storyteller and his talent works extremely good here. We’re talking a standard, generic found footage film which is not boring for one second. The leading actresses is good, the locations looks nice and there’s an effective mythology around the witch and the surrounding legends.

At times, and I’m completely serious, it’s actually quite creepy. I like the idea of what’s following them, it’s handled very good. We don’t see so much of it, but we can still clearly figure what the hell it is. There’s also a couple of lovely shots where this thing is visible in night shots, but no one is reacting to them. You will just see them if you look carefully.

But sure, there’s a few instances of pure stupidity. For example how the thing chasing one of the girl can miss her when she’s two meters away, on the floor in a house, filming it with her camera switched to night vision - which means there’s a light coming from it, clearly visible like a flashlight directly on the target! But directly afterwards the movie is saved by a clever idea which I always wanted to see, leading up the ambiguous ending.

Raw: Der Fluch der Grete Müller was a very nice surprise, a lot better than I ever could imagine.

Help me I am Dead (Andreas Bethmann, 2013)

I don’t like German splatter. I really don’t. Mostly because the story always gets fucked and instead the filmmakers focus on long, boring gore scenes which leads nowhere. So one thing I appreciate with Andreas Bethmann’s Help me I am Dead is that he actually tries to do something different and do it with some class. SOME class that is, not 100 % class - I mean, he’s a German director of gore and porn, what to expect? I bought this blu-ray last year when visiting Weekend of Horrors (and I even got Olaf Ittenbach - he did the special effects - to sign it, because he was wandering around the con like a normal, mortal man!) and it’s not until now, a year later, just a couple of days before the next Weekend of Horrors, I sat down to watch it. Was it worth the wait? Well, read on…

During a flashback to world war 2 we see a man getting executed on a country road by two high ranking nazi officers. We skip to present time when a young woman, Jennifer (Margarethe von Stern), bound to a wheelchair, interviews people in the small town she’s living in why they want to live there. In her research she finds an old abandoned house deep in a forest and decides to go there. When she enter the premises she suddenly realizes she can walk again, but only in there - when she tries to leave she’s forced to use her wheelchair again. So she stays, and slowly the mystery of the old house is creeping up on her, there’s ghosts behind these walls… and in the middle of it two criminals - played by Carsten Frank and Antonio Mayans - breaks in for some hours of “entertainment” with her! But the ghost refuse to look away and soon they’re all in grave dangers!

Oh, and there’s a VERY unnecessary hard softcore sex scene with director Bethmann (as a character named Mike) and the leading lady for a few minutes. That didn’t help the movie at all, let me tell you that.

First the good things: it looks quite good, the photography is crispy and looks good - even of Bethmann have no clue how to work with that 180-degree-rule, which makes the film confusing to watch the first 10-15 minutes, before you get use to it. Antonio Mayans is good, and I think Margarethe von Stern is quite decent also. Nothing fantastic, but it works in a movie like this. There’s a couple of gore scene, not many though, and the effects are made by Olaf Ittenbach - and he’s a talented man and it’s very graphic and nasty. Not bad at all. The location by itself is also cool, gives the movie some production values.

The bad things is that it’s two hours long and at least one hour of those is spent with the character Jennifer walking around doing absolutely fucking nothing. I’m not kidding ya! She looks, thinks, do stuff very slowly (this is something you completely can blame on Bethmann!), sleeps a bit, thinks more, look around corners… well, that’s about it. There’s a few flashbacks more explaining the story of the house and the terrible crime committed there a long time ago, but that’s it. Then the bad guys shows up and gets killed - but not until we’ve seen one of them take a leak in super-detail. It’s just a boring, boring story.

What I can give Bethmann here is that he tries to do something else than the usual German gore-fest. He works hard on the atmosphere of the house, he tries to build up a tension. The ghost is very inspired by Japanese horror and I dig that, not bad at all. He could have kept the ghost more in the shadows though, now it’s a bit too obvious it’s just a asian chick wearing make-up.

But he could have cut… let’s say, 30 minutes from the story - maybe even 40 minutes - and Help me I am Dead would have worked so much better. Then it could have been an okay ghost story instead of an overlong and tedious ghost story. Still, I can’t wait to see his next film, Terror Creek - I hope it’s available at the Weekend of Horrors!

Der Samurai (Till Kleinert, 2014)

I won’t hide the fact that Der Samurai is one of my favorite films this year, so much of a favorite I’ve always been promoting it - the upcoming release from Last Exit Entertainment, screenings at Monsters of Film etc. It’s such an important, original and odd film - with one part in arty-farty land and the other in the land of German gory horror. The question after watching it again yester at the above mentioned film festival is if it can be considered a horror film, or just really fucked-up little drama with some decapitations thrown in for good measure? But first take a look at the story, and I’m quoting myself from the Monsters of Film festival program:

“A wolf is circling a sleepy town somewhere in Germany. The lovesick police officer Jakob is desperately trying to scare off the animal at the same time as he has to keep an eye on the local troublemakers. One night he meets a man with long hair, a classy dress and a sharpened samurai sword – a Katana – in his hands. Helplessly Jakob watches the man destroy everything around him, but still decides to follow him to arrest this strange creature. But where is the hunt heading? The samurai does not only become a lunatic without a cause, but might be part of something bigger. Through good and evil, towards acceptance or downfall.”

It’s awesome watching a film together with an audience who have no friggin’ idea what they’re gonna see. It’s like watching a magic trick unfold, or one of those funny cat videos where only you know what will happen in the end, eagerly looking forward to the laughter from your friends. Der Samurai is of course a lot more than a funny cat video, but I wonder if it’s not quite close to a magic trick? What it does it to lure horror fans into what I consider to be the ultimate match against small town bigotry. There’s so much in the character of Jakob, very subtle stuff. I love how he obviously seems attracted to the tough guy, the leader of the local bunch of misfits, how the filmmakers focus on an imaginary kissing scene between him and a woman - and it wasn’t until yesterday it struck me this could be HER fantasy and not his, which makes him even more distanced to women.

It’s a bizarre love story, but what kind of story is it? When I watched it the first time I was pretty convinced this story tells about two personalities of the same person, but now… I’m not so sure anymore. My personal theory is that he summons a spirit, a ghost or whatever. This being takes on his biggest fear his small town mind: being different, being gay, being attracted to the forbidden. In the end I was a bit confused, because you could read it as a negative thing towards being different - but once again, watching it on a big screen made me realize what happens it actually the total opposite. I won’t go into more details, I’ve spoiled it enough.

Der Samurai was born through a campaign over at IndieGoGo, but I promise you this looks as far from a cheap production as possible. It’s a small film, yeah, but it the visuals is fantastic - so much atmosphere in every shot! So even the set design, the cinematography and the talent of director Till Kleinert. But what really makes this film work is the two actors playing the leads, the charismatic and absurdly sexy Pit Bukowski as the Samurai and the magnetic and cute Michel Diercks as Jacob, the police officer. It’s their film, and they’re in it from beginning to end. This is acting, this is real acting. We’re having here two credible characters - both on the opposite side of being normal, the wickedly twisted male succubus and the closet-hiding, shy and somehow - after a while - very brave cop living in a homophobic and macho society, trying to not be himself. Until the Samurai comes…

The ending is brilliant. Hands down one of the best this year, but also - for a Swedish audience - extra bizarre because of the music used at the end. First time I was really skeptical, but after watching the scene a couple of times it grew on me and I think it’s perfect. It’s a glorious moment of tragedy, happiness and an explosion of madness and freedom. For you gorehounds there’s some nice bloodshed also, involving the Samurai sword - it’s pretty bloody, but never disturbing. The violence contains the same dreamlike quality as the rest of the film.

Watch out for Der Samurai on DVD from Last Exit Entertainment sooner or later. This is one of those films I will double-dip every time I find a release of it. Till Kleinert and his cast and crew needs to make another movie, soon - and one way to make that happen is to support Der Samurai.

Zombies from Outer Space (Martin Faltermeier, 2012)

When I first saw Martin Faltermeier’s Zombies from Outer Space I was bit underwhelmed, the movie didn’t live up to the awesome poster and goofy trailer. I’ve always felt it was ambitious and original. but something was lacking. Now when I’ve seen it a second time I find I’ve changed my mind. I’m better prepared for dialogue heavy first part and also come to more fully understand the concept of Heimatfilms. Which is very important to really, really GET Zombies from Outer Space.

Bavaria in the fifties, crop circles has started to appear and in one of them the police discovers a shallow grave… containing a dead alien Grey! The bring it to the local morgue, but what really stresses the small police force is the sudden deaths of young women around the neighborhood! There’s a local American base nearby? Do they have anything to do with it, or is the UFO’s visible over the place the reason for the mysterious deaths? Prepare for a melodrama with love, broad comedy, blood-spurting terror and of course beautiful Bavarian landscapes!

There’s a lot of landscapes, romantic melodrama (the local doctor wonder boy vs the military super-soldier, who will get the girl?!) and a portly cop as the comic relief. And that’s what Heimatfilms is about. Countryside drama, views over mountains, cows, corny dialogue and some kind of humour which will attract every kind of viewers. Nothing upsetting, nothing too radical. That’s why mixing this with living dead aliens is nothing short but brilliant! The thing is, if you manage to get through the Heimat stuff, you’re treated to an equally entertaining alien invasion film - just a lot gorier than we use to see them.

The idea of the aliens using the crop circles as their graves, maybe even connected to some kind of intergalactical black magic, is a fantastic idea, and here the filmmakers use it to it’s potential - and so far the budget could go. The aliens themselves are most more or less slender men dressed in nylon tights and masks, but the bizarre living dead alien walks are creepy, almost crab-like, and it often leads to a lot of blood spraying everywhere. The gore itself is not that plenty, but there’s a few instances of nice graphic violence - but it’s the spurting blood that gets most of the screen time. This comes later in the movie, and together with nice small-scale war scenes and village-panic sequences, it kinda seems a bit more expensive than it probably was.

The acting is so-so. It’s a bit stiff, and it seldom works with German actors pretending to be Americans, which is the case in - I think - in all of the American parts. The long dialogues, which I guess should be funny and romantic and whatever, well, they rarely translates well to someone who never seen a Heimatfilm. It’s more like “Come one, get on with it! Give us some blood and gore!”.

Now after seeing it a second time I’m more impressed. The story works (quite) good and it delivers entertainment in good doses, even if I wished more graphic gore and less talk. It’s already a bit too long, so I - if I was a producer - would have demanded some cuts, maybe to get it down to 85 minutes. Then it would have been perfect, cheesy entertainment. Now it’s a ambitious, good, crazy and very well-made oddity that deserves a bigger audience!

And hey, don't miss our Weekend of Horrors special where we talk with the makers of this fun film! 

Rammbock (Marvin Kren, 2010)

A couple of days ago I watched Blood Glacier, an odd and very European take on the traditional creature feature á The Thing. I never seen anything like it, in some ways - and still it was extremely familiar. It takes courage to make a movie like that and therefore I had to see Rammbock, the one hour long take on zombie movies from 2010 - also directed by Marvin Kren of course. The English title is so silly I've stayed away from it - SIEGE OF THE DEAD - which makes it sound like yet another cheap-ass zombie film we've all seen before, but my buddy Jason loaned it to me the other day and there where was nothing stopping me anymore.

Michael (a very impressive performance by Michael Fuith) arrives to Berlin to give the keys to his ex-girlfriend Gabi. But just when he steps into the apartment a zombie epidemic breaks out and he's trapped there together with  teenage boy in the same apartment and some other neighbours holding out on the opposite side of the courtyard. But Michael just wants to get in contact with Gabi. In the meantime the stories around him unfold, from infected neighbors to suicides. 

Rammback is a darkly comedic - on the verge of not being comedic at all - tale of the undead that cleverly mixes European arty farty with traditional zombie mayhem. The strength in the story is the realistic characters, which is far from the typical stereotypes. Michael is a man somewhere between 30 and 40 who slowly is loosing his hair, obsessing over his girlfriend and just being very, very pointless. But when the zomes arrive he's probably more effective than he's ever been. Kren is always delivering everything we want to see in a movie like this, but it's still very far from any kind of clichés. How the hell does he do it?

Imagine a zombie movie partly shot like Hitchcock's Rear Window, but later feels more like the inside of a huge and bizarre - and pretty gruesome - dollhouse. It's a touching love story in the middle of it all, free from the normal stupidity. I love it when people dare to do something like this, to step outside the usual shit and do something different. 

It feels - and looks - like a well-made European TV-movie, not just because of the length, but because of the focus on characters instead of gore (even if it has some of that to, don't worry!). It's not just a story about a zombie epidemic, it's about breaking up a relationship and realizing it never will be the same again. Or, to boilt it down to less words: to be a nice human being. That's powerful storytelling.

Rammbock is a mature and intelligent zombie movie, something we haven't seen in many years. It deserves a hug for being so good.  

Prisoners of the Sun (Roger Christian, 2013)

It's finally out, Prisoners of the Sun. According to legend (aka Wikipedia) it was actually completed in 2007, but not released until now. What caught my attention was a fun combination of talents: Roger Christian directing, Uwe Boll co-producing and Peter Atkins and Anthony Hickox doing the writing. All of them competent modern exploitation filmmakers. Roger Christian is mostly famous for that terribly boring scientology flop starring John Travolta, but he's a more talented director than that - just watch the original 80's horror The Sender and you'll see! Uwe Boll needs no introduction, he's an old favorite of mine, and Peter Atkins is one of the men behind the Hellraiser and Wishmaster films and Anthony Hickox is a brilliant director of his own. At least in my shallow eyes.

Rumours says that Sean Patrick Flanery was set to play the lead, but instead they cast the Sean Patrick Flanery-lookalike David Charvet as the cocky, Indian Jones-esque doctor joining John Rhys-Davies and a bunch of other generic DTV actors in their biggest adventure ever; to enter the holy catacombs of a newly discovered pyramid that is said to hold the secrets to how to contact the "gods" up there. And with gods they all mean aliens, but you know that. I'm sure Erich Von Däniken is happy when yet another film will make people buy his old books! Anyway, of course shit hits the fan and the whole world is in danger!!! Cue loud, dramatic horrifying music!

First the bad thing, it's actually not much of a horror movie. It sure has some of those elements during the first half and while entering the pyramid, but it feel more like a mix of Alien vs Predator (the hidden pyramid used by aliens for something) with a big dose of the legend of the Chinese emperor Qin's hidden underground tomb and a dash of the latest Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser - but I was hoping for a big budget version of Dawn of the Mummy. You can't have it all.

On the good side, it's a competent, cozy adventure movie which quite good captures trigger of imagination I love so much. The special effects is not bad, but not really fantastic either. There's a lot of cool physical effects - the killer mummy for example, looks cool as hell - so also the sets inside the pyramid. There's some fine make-up effects, one bloody impaling and one graphic head crush - so it's not a kids movie, thank Satan for that! My man G who was watching the movie from time to time when not working with his computer said it seemed like something from a Hellraiser-movie, especially when a big special effect goes to work - much like a scene in Hellraiser: Bloodline, and that's cool because Peter Atkins and Anthony Hickox both were involved in the series: Atkins have written several of those films, including Bloodline, and Hickox of course directed the fun and silly Hellraiser III!

If you're like me and like slick, glossy DTV movies, Prisoners of the Sun is the flick for you. It's 18 million dollars compressed into something that could be an over-budgeted SyFy flick, and that makes it so much better.

Wake of Death (Philippe Martinez, 2004)

I noticed already in Replicant how Van Damme had raised the bar for what he could deliver, but it wasn’t until Wake of Death until I really understood that he truly transformed himself to a great actor. He’s always been charming and charismatic of course, but the scripts never rose above good. Van Damme has a tendency to look very haunted, even when he was younger, behind that boyish smile. Compared to his fellow action actors he often smiled, played good-hearted guys, not really the form of machismo made popular with the old conservative muscle bulls of Hollywood. Van Damme dared – and still dares – to be a softie, to be human. That’s why I like him so much.

JCVD is Ben Archer, a small time gangster and thug, working at clubs and bars. Every day is packed with violence and threats and he’s getting tired being harassed. So he tells his boss he wants to retire, but happiness doesn’t last long until his wife is brutally killed by some Hong Kong criminals, led by the Sun Quan (Simon Yam). Why? His daughter has escaped and is now taking shelter with the Archer-family! Destroyed by sorrow and anger, Ben builds up all the power he has and goes on a violent revenge-fuelled killing-spree!

Wake of Death, with the silly artwork and boring title, is a French-German-US-something co-production shot in South Africa. When I first saw it and did my research I heard rumors of a plagued and troubled production, maybe even a change of director just before the shooting started. This could be a fake memory, but anyway, whatever happened on the set it doesn’t show in the movie. Instead Wake of Death is a very stylish, dark (literary dark, it’s so black!) and violent revenge-drama. And when I saw drama I mean it. The first half is more talk and emotions and less action, which also showcases the fine acting talents of Van Damme. He truly gives it all, and it’s a touching story unfolding; A middle-aged man seeing his life crumbling around him, while still have violence in his blood and it’s obviously the only solution he can come up with.

When the violence hits it’s nasty as hell. Not as graphic as, for example, Universal Soldier: The Day of Reckoning, but much of the aggressive power comes from the drawn-out torture, bloody squibs (Burt Kwouk of all people gets shot in a scene!), violent kick in the heads and the cool stunts involving motocross’s and cars. It’s not a light-hearted film, not the typical DTV film to watch after a hard day of work for the regular Joe. Even the finale, which could have been something more spectacular, becomes a more realistic, almost sad show between two violent men. I also like how Ben Archer suddenly, during a kill, loses power and it seems he’s close to crying, like he suddenly understands the pointlessness of killing someone.

Wake of Death is a deeply underrated film. It’s one of the highlights of Van Damme’s later career. It’s not one of those fun martial arts romps, it feels more like something Gaspar Noé would direct if he was forced in the magical word of direct to dvd action flicks. And that’s not a bad thing. 

The Castle of Fu Manchu (Jess Franco, 1969)

So, finally the last in Christopher Lee's series of Fu Manchu-movies, produced by Harry Alan Towers and written by Harry Alan Towers - but under his iconic alias of Peter Welbeck. I wrote about The Blood of Fu Manchu yesterday, which was far from Franco's glorious moments - still a good-looking movie with some decent acting. Franco is also behind the last movie in the franchise, which is said to have been such flop that the sixth movie was cancelled directly before it went into production. Some people say Castle is the worst in the series - I don't know that, but compared to Blood it's actually superior. That doesn't mean it's a good movie, but it sure offers more entertainment for the money and a more inspired Franco letting the zoom on his camera work a little bit extra hard.

In all fairness, this isn't much better or worse than most James Bond-ish adventures produced between 1967-1969. It's the usual (real or fake) globetrotting, a super-baddie who wants to take over the world and a stiff agent (here played by the slightly over-aged, but charming, Richard Greene - who also played the same character, Nayland Smith in Blood). Here Fu Manchu has some kind of invention that can control... something. He makes Titanic... I mean, a random luxury cruiser hit an iceberg in the beginning (stock footage from 1958's A Night to Remember) and later makes a big dam break (stock footage from 1957's Campbell's Kingdom) and also more or less hijacks a crime lords palace in Istanbul to hide even better from Interpol and the dashing agents chasing in everywhere.

Also, Burt Kwouk has a small part. Always fun.

There's a helluva lot of more energy in Castle than in Blood. Franco is more wild, there's more action and the use of stock footage and that grandious palace (shot at the Parque Güell, Barcelona), more meat-bags pretending to be guards and a sidestory about a couple of kidnapped scientists (who falls in love at the same time) makes it quite packed with story. Still a magnificent mess though, and this is one of those movies you can leave for five minutes and still haven't miss anything of importance when you come back. That's of course not a good thing, but hey... it's just a movie!

Another highlight is Franco himself as a Inspector Ahmet. There's seems to be some general opinion that Franco is a lousy actor, but he's not. He's hardly brilliant, but his low-key, almost insomniac style is pretty interestning and gives a more natural feeling to his movies. Here's my Instagram-moment of him in The Castle of Fu Manchu:

Cool, eh? Always cool. He's Jess Franco, which explains it all. 

I don't think I've have mention Christopher Lee's performance so far in the Fu Manchu-movies, but everyone else does so maybe there's no reason for me to do it. Anyway, I think he's good - but the cheesy Chinese make-up makes him quite stiff and it's hard to judge his performance. The part is not that well written, it's just Lee in his mansion/cave giving orders - more or less. A thankless role, at least in the two movies Franco directed. But it's Lee and we all love Lee. #TrueStory

Which this I've met my goal of forcing myself through the infamously bashed and sometimes boring The Blood of Fu Manchu and The Castle of Fu Manchu. I've spent crappier evenings to be honest, but they're still far down on Franco's list of movies worth watching. 

(and if you want to follow me on Instagram, my user name is fredzilla666)

The Blood of Fu Manchu (Jess Franco, 1968)

Sometimes I decides to read Jess Franco's biography at Wikipedia and every time I realize how patronizing and sniffy it is, obviously written by someone who's intelligence is on the level of Swedish nazi party leader Jimmie Åkessson. Which says a lot, if you know who that fucker is. Stuff like "In many ways, Franco was the European Ed Wood, in that he churned out an endless array of mostly bad movies filmed on shoestring budgets" and "Franco moved from Spain to France in 1970 so that he could make more violent and sexual films, and it was at this point that his career began to go downhill commercially". I never understood the reason why some people in text that's suppose to be neutral and informative must add their own stupid opinions? Wikipedia isn't a review site, or?

Anyway, this frustrating read made me remember that there's one movie (or two actually) in my collection I haven't seen yet, The Blood of Fu Manchu and The Castle of Fu Manchu. I've tried many, many times to watch Blood, but it's so uninspired I've always turned it off and watched something more alive instead. But as the Franco-fan I am I must see them all - and tonight I did it. I watched Blood from start to finish... and wasn't impressed either. But I suspected that already from the beginning. A movie needs a good hook - this didn't even have the bait.

The story is some nonsense about Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee, of course) sitting in jungle fortress taking out revenge on 20 of his enemies. How? By sending out beautiful women with literally deadly kisses! But one of his victims survive, he's - I think - a boss for some anti-crime organization in London, and he sends out his best agent to finally take down Fu Manchu and save the world. Or something.

The story IS a mess and I'm afraid not much is happening either. This agent is cool, and Götz George is decent in the part, but his character kinda disappears from time to time and there's other characters taking over, including a fat bandit and the stunning Maria Rohm - and I could never figure out why. Everything is very confusing. It's also low on action and adventure, which is very dangerous for being an adventure movie. Fu Manchu sits in his fortress yelling orders to people watching him, then he walks around a bit and then he sits down a bit. That's what Lee does and it's not much fun.

On the good side, The Blood of Fu Manchu looks damn good, with some fine locations and the direction itself isn't bad at all - it's just the boring script dragging it to crap-heaven. Daniel White, another Jess Franco veteran, delivers a fine and glossy score, which saves a lot of of the movie from being totally wasted. 

I'm a huge fan of Franco and I love when he goes secret agent/kitch adventure in the 60's - The Girl From Rio is one of my all-time favorites for example - but The Blood of Fu Manchu just doesn't work. Damn pity. 

But hey, I always have one hundred more movies from Uncle Jess to watch, I'm sure there's both worse and better productions among them!