Director: Jess Franco
Year:
1966
Country:
France
Rating:
7.5
Aka - Miss Muerte
Watched in Franch with English subs
Director Jess Franco follows his Lemmie
Caution/Euro Spy influenced film, Attack of the Robots, with this one that
brings in influences from everywhere. It is delicious. At the top of the
pile, I would put the German Krimi films that were very popular in Europe
at the time. They could be outrageous, filled with stylish murders and over
the top insanity. This even has an inspector from Scotland Yard, as many
of the Krimis did. But I also see bits and pieces of 1930s Universal horror
in certain scenes - Hitchcock in others, the mad scientist films of Hollywood
as a central theme. It is like Franco absorbed all the horror films he had
seen and gave birth to this deformed beast. I really liked it and have to
admit that after not being very fond of any of Franco's later films, these
early black and white ones are great fun. The ingredients of his later films
are in them, but the censorship of the day kept him from going there. There
is no graphic exploitation and they also don't feel as slapdash as his later
films when he was always scrambling for financing. This is a well-made film
with great camera movement, well-chosen shooting angles, clever set designs
and some scenes that will stick in your brain like one of RFK's worms.
Dr. Zimmer is a protégé of
Dr. Orloff (Franco made two earlier Orloff films) and believes that morality
is located in the nervous system and by manipulating certain areas in the
body with sharp needles, he can turn people good or evil. With his shopworn
look of dark goggle glasses, white hair, wheelchair and a cat on his lap,
he has mad scientist all over him. He has two female assistants - his daughter
Irma (Mabel Karr) and Barbara. He has tested his theory on animals - rabbits
and a hyena successfully. A killer rabbit. He wants to experiment on a human
and coincidentally a murderer who was set to be executed escapes and ends
up on his doorstep. Some guys have all the luck.
He goes to a conference of neurological
scientists and puts forward his theory and asks for permission to try on
a human. They all boo him down in a frenzy calling him a Nazi, three men
in particular demand that he leave. Instead, he has a heart attack and dies.
The end of the Diabolical Dr. Z? No, because it turns out the real crazy
one in the family is quiet Irma. Totally mad. Like a wild feral beaver on
psychotronic drugs. She plots to kill all three of the men (Howard Vernon
who had played Orloff being one) and uses her father's research to turn the
murderer, Barbara and a femme fatale into her zombie slaves. First though
in a lovely scene, she wants the world to think she is dead - and he injects
a bit of Hitchcock into her running over a woman that looks like her.
She tells Barbara "Now I need a woman of
blood and fire to seduce and destroy these three men". Who better than Miss
Muerte - a nightclub performer whose act consists of crawling across the
floor in her revealing spider-web suit to a mannequin sitting on a chair.
With her long blonde hair and longer, sharp fingernails, she will do just
fine. Miss Muerte is played by Estella Blain, a French actress and singer
(some of her songs are up on YouTube). The three killings are meticulously
plotted - on a train, on the deserted streets and in an office. All nicely
shot, a wonderful delirious spiral staircase that is pure Hitchcock. I don't
want to over play this film too much - by today's standards, it is fairly
tame but every aspect of it works. Jess Franco has a small role as an Inspector
looking for a murderer and the hero who figures it out is played by Fernando
Montes. The last shot of him hugging Miss Muerte and her fingernails coated
with curare caressing his face is classic.
