La comtesse noire

People will tell you all kinds of things about Jesus Franco. He's made about five billion films over the past five decades so he must be doing something right, right? Wrong! Nearly every single film I have seen of his reeks of Eurotrash amateurism. Even more depressingly, the man does not seem interested in making anything other than tedious soft-core porn with wafer thin plot lines that pretentious people like to claim is art because he'll throw in a shot of a mountain or the ocean every once in awhile. I guess some people just need to find an excuse to justify the fact they like watching porn, as if something like this somehow brings T&A flicks to a more respectable level. Unfortunately for Jess, many films from the same decade literally crush his lame efforts when it comes to style, plot, direction, acting and eroticism. "Les Avaleuses" or one of its five hundred different titles is nothing more than dull trash with neither the talent or imagination to make it worthy of note. Franco also is rather obnoxious any time you see him interviewed. He has an inflated sense of his own importance, which in the film-making world is almost nonexistent. On several occasions, I've even seen him insult far more talented directors whose ideas he in turn blatantly steals. I've often wondered if this man is obnoxious, clueless or just senile. It's hard to tell but one thing he is not is a good film director.

I hate even referring to this as a film. There is almost no plot and from a technical standpoint it is inept. Things going out of focus all the time is not art, it's laziness and incompetence on the part of someone more interested in zooming in on unkempt crotches than making a decent erotic vampire film. What storyline there is is basically gratuitous nude shots of Franco's wife Lina Romay repeated over and over again. Though a fairly attractive woman, once you've seen a few of these films you're already bored seeing her naked. She's not a very good actress either. She brings nothing to the film or her role other than what God gave her, some of which could use a good trimming. The others nude actresses on display here aren't especially attractive either. Unless you are an obsessive fan of this director (believe it or not, he does have fans) or can't get your hands on more explicit adult material, I wouldn't waste my time viewing this.

Many of Jess Franco's movies are slim on plot, and strong on atmosphere. 'Female Vampire' is a typical example. The story can be summarized in two lines, and the climax is actually revealed on the back of the Redemption version video case, so there's no mystery or suspense in this movie. What there is though is the gorgeous Lina Romay naked throughout. She may not be much of an actress (and her character is mute, so there is no dialogue), but she is beautiful, and makes one of the hottest screen vampires ever. The sight of her walking through the mist wearing nothing but a cape and a belt will stay with you for a long time! Judging this movie is difficult. As a horror movie it fails, but as a voyeuristic treat it certainly succeeds! Not Franco's best by a long shot, especially as large chunks of it are out of focus(!), but highly recommended 1970s sexploitation nevertheless.

Personally, I am a huge fan of Jess Franco, who has enriched the world of Eurohorror/Exploitation by a vast variety of films, including masterpieces such as "Gritos En La Noche", ("The Awful Dr. Orloff", 1962) and Miss Muerte" ("The Diabolical Dr. Z", 1966), a vast amount of entertaining sleaze, as well as big-time stinkers (such as "Sadomania"). With a repertoire of over 190 films, Franco must be the most prolific Exploitation director of all-time; and while I can understand those who do not share my admiration for the Spanish Trash-deity, one has to give it to Franco that even his lesser films always have a certain weird style, which is almost impossible not to like for a cult-cinema fan. Take this film, for example: "Les Avaleuses" (aka. "Female Vampire"/"Bare Breasted Countess"/"Erotikill") of 1973 is, without any doubt, an incredibly nonsensical film that is more Porn than it is Horror and ranges among the most shamelessly plot-less Euro-Exploitation features ever produced. And yet I cannot claim I didn't enjoy it.

The main attraction is Franco's Nr. 1 muse (and real-life wife) the stunning Lina Romay. Sexy Lina plays Countess Irina Karlstein, a female vampire who walks around wearing only a cape and a belt, who kills her victims (of both sexes) during sex, and who does not limit herself to sucking blood exclusively. Then there's also a weird-looking pathologist (played by director Franco) who desperately tries to convince the police that the mutilated corpse are victims of a vampire, not a madman... This may not sound like a proper plot-description, but fact is that this confused little film does not really have a proper plot. About 90 per cent of the film are soft-core porn (or hard-core porn, depending on which version you see), sleaze, and shots of beautiful Lina Romay walking naked through the forest. The 'Horror' is quite ridiculous, and the dialogue ranges among the most nonsensical things ever written. Lina Romay's leading character is mute, but her communicating through body language is quite welcome! There is also a character named Professor Orloff (is it Franco's own Dr. Orloff?) who only talks truly bizarre nonsense. The rest of the cast includes Eurocult regular Jack Taylor (who was in many Franco films, and also starred in many other Spanish Horror productions including many films in which he played alongside the late Paul Naschy), as well as the weird-looking Franco-flick bit-part-player Luis Barboo.

Basically, this film is recommendable for two reasons, the first and most convicting one being Lina Romay who walks around naked for almost the entire film. The second reason is that it is a Jess Franco film, and therefore delivers the nonsensical plot in a particular, stylish manner. It is obvious that Franco didn't even bother about the plot, and he certainly doesn't give a crap about people nagging about the lack of it. In typical Franco-fashion, the film is atmospheric, nicely shot in beautiful locations and accompanied by a nice score. The plot may be almost non-existent, and the film may be a mere repetition of sleazy sequences - one still doesn't get bored. The sequences shot in the car, by the way, are a nice tribute to Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula" with Bela Lugosi.

Overall, I can only recommend "Female Vampire" to my fellow enthusiastic fans of Jess Franco. To anybody not familiar with Franco, I would recommend to check out his brilliant early works, such as "The Awful Dr. Orloff", "The Diabolical Dr. Z" or "Venus in Furs" and skip this one. While it does range in the lesser half of his repertoire, it isn't the worst film he has ever made, though. Once asked about the reason for film-making, Franco replied: "Showing the female body naked." How can one not appreciate such honesty?

Female Vampire, or whatever you'd like to call it, is maybe a difficult film to rate/review, because there are supposedly so many different versions floating around. I watched the Image Entertainment Region 1 DVD released in 2000 (ID9105BIDVD). However, even though the film isn't a complete loss artistically, I can't imagine it getting a passing score unless there's a "version" out there that has completely different scenes than the film I watched, because this one was basically horrendous. This is the first Jesus Franco film I've seen so far that I have hated, but admittedly, I don't think I've even seen a quarter of them.

At least for this version of Female Vampire, there's an easy way to tell if you might like it. The film is basically 10 – 15 minutes of dialogue, scattered throughout, with ridiculously bad English language dubbing (no subtitles were available), and about an hour and 20 minutes of poorly filmed softcore porn, featuring mostly unattractive looking people (Lina Romay, the star, doesn't do much for me), alternated with scenes of people sitting and staring, random ocean shots, shots of an odd hood ornament from a car's windshield, etc. Basically, if you're into early 1970s softcore porn, then you should like Female Vampire.

Since Romay ended up as Franco's wife (I'm not sure if they were married before Female Vampire or not), it seems like maybe the film was just an excuse to get her naked and encourage her to have sex with a bunch of different people, including women (by the way, there was one woman whom I thought was attractive--the strawberry blonde--but she doesn't get very physical with anyone).

I actually watched the dialogue scenes twice to try to make some sense of the plot, because it's very "poetic" if we're being overly generous, and mostly incoherent gibberish if we're being honest. The first time through I had difficulty listening to more than a sentence or two at a stretch. Once it stopped making sense, my attention would wander.

But as far as I can tell the plot is something like this: Countess Irina Karlstein (Romay) ends up on the island of Madeira, off the coast of Portugal, presumably because her family owns some property there. For some reason, there are a number of other people on the island who know something about her and who suspect that she's around. When corpses, who have been "sucked dry" by this female vampire, start showing up, it confirms the other characters' suspicions. The other characters include Baron Von Rathony (Jack Taylor), who likes to sit and stare at nature and read us passages from a travel guide, Dr. Roberts (none other than Jesus Franco, using the pseudonym of "Jess Franck" in this version), who does the autopsies on the bodies--which we unfortunately never get to see except for one humorous occasion, Dr. Orloff (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou), a blind doctor of something or other who gives us the weird autopsy occasion (it involves manually checking a female corpse's bite wound), Anna (who seems to have been played by two actresses, Gilda Arancio and Anna Watican), who is a journalist, and some other assorted men and women whom I could never figure out who they were. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Irina is mute through all of this. I don't know why. Maybe Romay has a voice like Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) in Singing in the Rain (1952).

Anyway, some of these characters encounter each other at various times and talk about Irina, the bodies, read more travel guide passages to us, randomly start muttering gibberish--er, uh, getting poetic--and so forth. There is little sense of a dramatic arc, there's no climax (snicker), and so on. Don't forget that this "plot" stuff takes up only about 10 – 15 minutes.

What happens instead is that Franco gives us a lot of lingering shots of Romay in various states of undress, occasionally wearing lingerie, with random out of focus zooms into her breasts, crotch, and so on. Just as often Romay is in various states of undress with another actor or two, and we get the same kinds of crappy shots, which show us extremely arbitrary "sex", before Romay "kills" her "lover/opponent" (in other words, before they stop moving). Most of the cinematography (unfortunately by Franco, as "Joan Vincent") in the film is really horrible. A large percentage of it is out of focus. It is often jerky. The zooms are ill timed, rough and awkward.

There was one softcore scene that was entertaining, if only because it was so odd. Romay starts making love to a bed--licking the bedpost, gyrating against it, mounting a long, round pillow, etc. Of course, the cinematography was crappy again, so it was difficult to award any bonus points.

All of this is accompanied by one of the two pieces of music that Franco paid for--some swanky jazz (almost Vince Guaraldi-ish) and more often, a melancholy orchestral piece that sounds like a mutation of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows". This latter piece receives some typical porno music variations, if that's the kind of music you're into.

And if the above doesn't dissuade you enough, by the last couple "love scenes", I had to fast forward through them a bit--something I _never_ do with any film--because I just couldn't take it any longer. Boring sex--I would have said it was an oxymoron before watching Female Vampire. The extra point I awarded was for the idea at the end of the film, where Romay is in a "bloodbath". There are almost a couple attractive shots in this scene, even if the "blood" looked more like light pink Kool-Aid.

I came to hear of Jess Franco, like most of those in my generation, from Vampyros Lesbos, and was quite keen to see "Female Vampyre" (as it appears on DVD). These are two completely different movies, to say the least.

First, the directing of Les Avaleuses is surprisingly inept. Shots are often out-of-focus in inappropriate situations, otherwise beautiful panoramas are ruined by unsteady hand-holding of the camera, and the zoom lens is frankly abused.

The plot is even thinner than that of Vampyros, which is saying quite a bit. The acting on the part of practically everyone is bloody awful. "Lina Romay" may look a bit like Soledad Miranda but she has none of the screen presence which was Soledad's.

Also, let's face, this is a very silly film. It is neither explicit enough to be a porno, nor interesting enough to be a decent movie.

Also the music sucks. I was most disappointed in that. I was expecting something much more funky.