Exorcisme

My wife bought me this by mistake! Some company called Boulevard entertainment had somehow mixed this up with another film called Exorcism (and American religious film or something), but when Lina Romay's pubic hair appeared within 0.001% of a second of the film starting, I thought "We're back in the land of Jess Franco!"

That's bad news for most of us, by the way. There is a small fraction of the populace that rather enjoys a Franco film, but if you've sat through any of his films you know what to expect here: Endless scenes, much nudity and little sex, plenty of misogyny, and zoom shots.

Truth be told, this is nowhere near as painful as Succubus or Oasis of the Zombies, but it's also nowhere near as funny as White Cannibal Queen or the Devil Hunter. It involves Franco himself as a crazy ex-priest running around Paris carving up women that are involved in some sort of half-arsed black mass ceremony, with his prize being Lina Romay, who, surprisingly, spends most of the film naked or tied up and naked.

That's your plot, and reading that back over I realised that I've made Exorcism sound a bit exciting, which it's not. "Crazy ex-priest running around Paris" doesn't sound right. How about 'slowly moping around Paris, usually hiding behind things, staring"? Instead of 'carving up women' I'll say 'very slowly tormenting women and gibbering on about how they've got the devil in them for endless minutes'? I'll stick by the 'half-arsed black mass' though. Plus there's an orgy scene which seems to involve nothing but naked people writhing around and not doing much (and this is the early seventies – all them naked bodies must have reeked!). Additionally, there's this old guy who has a hilarious blue rinse, so watch out for that.

I loved how, when the dust settled and the film was over, the police just got back into their car and drove off, leaving all the bodies/victims behind. Hurrah for realism! Also, hurrah for nepotism as Franco himself gets to run his gnarled hands over quite a few naked actresses!This film gets an extra point for the sadly departed Lina Romay, who is the only good thing about this film. Do they have pubes in heaven?

I've just noticed Jess has now gone off to the soft-core film in the sky too. Shame - I know I rag on most of his films but still, he'll be missed.

'Exorcism' is not Jess Franco's best film, but it's certainly not the worst either - which doesn't say much for much of the rest of his oeuvre! From the title, I was expecting this to be a rip-off of The Exorcist, but it's more like Ken Russell's classic nunsploitation flick 'The Devils'. As usual with films like this, there is little plot and the thin plot we do get is rather difficult to follow as most of the film is taken up by sex and torture sequences. Basically, the plot focuses on a priest who takes it upon himself to exorcise demons from a group of people he believes to be possessed. The film starts with a torture sequence involving a couple of naked women, which is well filmed and lead me to believe that this might be a halfway decent flick. However, most of the film is really quite boring; there are plenty of scenes that see naked women strung up, getting tortured but the lack of any real point does get in the way. The film stars the beautiful Lina Romay which is always sure to increase the watchability of any film; and we've also got a surprisingly decent performance from the man himself Jess Franco (under yet another moniker). All that aside, Exorcism isn't a good film, and therefore I don't recommend seeing it!

As much as I hate watching cut and dubbed versions of Euro horror movies I'll take any opportunity to watch a Jess Franco movie. So I haven't seen either the softcore or hardcore versions of this film but the butchered cut known as 'Demoniac'. Maybe anything I say about this version is worthless, but as it is it's far from Franco's best, yet still surprisingly watchable. Despite the lousy English dubbing I thought Franco's acting was more than adequate, in fact he easily gives the best performance in the picture. He plays Vogel, an intense and tortured defrocked priest who writes salacious stories for a racy magazine, the editor of which hangs with a swinging crowd who stage fake sadomasochistic performances for fun (shades of one of Franco's best 'Succubus', but don't get your hopes up). Vogel secretly witnesses a black mass, and not realizing it is fake, decides he must save the souls of the participants via exorcism, which in reality basically equates to murdering them. 'Demoniac' is presumably a lot less explicit than the other versions available. There is a fair bit of nudity including arguably the dullest orgy ever seen on screen. Franco's wife and frequent star Lina Romay is always a pleasure to look at, but if you want to see her at her best check out 'Female Vampire', the one where she kills via fellatio, remember? As I haven't seen the "real" version of this movie I can't honestly say whether it's good Franco or bad Franco, but if you're wanting to explore his work try and see 'Vampyros Lesbos', 'Eugenie De Sade', or 'Succubus' first.

There are reportedly at least three very different versions of "Exorcism" around. I am reporting here on Eurocine's original version as recently released by Anchor Bay.

Jess Franco surely is a gifted director. Although most of the few movies I know from his immense production are below average, they often include some ingenious scenes and a good soundtrack which largely saves the movie. Nevertheless, I start to get disappointed when the movie does not develop its potential because the director just didn't take the pain to think a little about constructing some tension and a climax.

This applies, e.g., to "Female Vampire" and to "Exorcism". The first part of the movie brings us to a strange world. People are visiting phony black masses featuring the slaughter of a pidgeon and sadomasochistic rituals in order to get sexually aroused. Jess Franco plays an ex-priest who writes S/M-stories for a magazine "based on true experience" stating that "you have to know evil in order to fight it". He is attracted to the lesbian S/M-performer Anna and on the other hand pursues the participators of the black masses with bloody and deadly exocirsm rituals. There are nice interiors which were shot in a beautifully decorated "day time hotel" near Paris.Unfortunately, after having introduced all this material, the movie gets completly stuck. Instead of developing, e.g., the character of the priest, his madness (as he did for example in "Jack the Ripper"), Franco just repeats the shots of black masses and exorcism over and over again or fills the movie with extended sex scenes. This leads utterly to boredom and the ending lacks any interest to justify the waiting.

As usual, Franco has trouble to keep his camera in focus and the editing is crude. Take for instance the ending. Franco brings Anna to his castle outside of Paris. Then, Anna phones somehow her friend to tell her that she is alright. A few seconds later, we see Franco back in his Paris appartment and then driving back to the castle (so that his pursuers have the chance to follow him). Although the timing might be possible, I found this unnecessarily confusing.

So the movie is just another unfulfilled promise by the director. It is without technical merits and doesn't deserve much attention.

*This is a review of the version with the international aka. Title "EXORCISM".

Does the plot of this movie serve mainly as an excuse to show tons of sleaze, gratuitous female nudity, sadomasochistic perversions and violence? Yes, it does, and if you have a problem with that you better stay away from this film, as from any other film made by the prolific Spanish Exploitation-deity Jess Franco after the mid-70s. To my fellow fans of the man, however, L'ÉVENTREUR DE NOTRE-DAME aka. EXORCISME aka. EXORCISM of 1979 is highly recommendable, as it combines Franco's passions for sleaze, elegance and controversy in a highly entertaining manner. Franco had cameos and supporting roles in many of his 190+ films, but he plays the main psychopath here.

Mathis Vogel (Franco), an author who writes sadomasochistic stories for a sleaze magazine, is really a religious fanatic who kidnaps, tortures and murders sexually promiscuous young women in order to save their souls. The hot girls working for the sleaze-magazine, who also appear in sadomasochistic fake black masses in front of decadent audiences, soon begin to disappear...

EXORCISM is interesting for a variety of reasons. Jess Franco, who was once labeled "The most dangerous film-maker alive" by the Vatican has been one of the most active adversaries (and victims) of censorship throughout his career; some decades ago, censorship in the name of morality still came partly from the influence of the church. While evil devil-worshipers were very popular villains in 70s cinema, Franco actually gives us an evil Christian who is out to murder promiscuous girls and innocent leisure-time-Satanists. The sleaze-level is high in this one, and anybody disgusted by the combination of sexuality and violence in a movie should stay away from this as from most other Franco-flicks. The young Lina Romay (Franco's real-life wife) is the most beautiful member of the entirely exhibitionist female cast. The story is often ridiculous but fun to follow, even though some clichéd elements like super-idiotic police might make viewers roll their eyes. As in the majority of Franco's films, the set-pieces, cinematography and score are great. As it is the case with many other Franco-movies, there are (hardcore-pornographic) alternate cuts of this movie available, this is a review of the non-porn 'Horror' version. Sleazy Franco-typical nastiness, recommended to my fellow fans of the man.