She Killed in Ecstasy (Jess Franco, 1971)

Did Paul Muller's character in She Killed in Ecstasy (a.k.a. Sie tötete in Ekstase) seriously just tell Soledad Miranda to leave her alone after she asked him for a light? Is that what just happened. Please tell me there's a logical explanation for this, as I just saw Soledad Miranda get shutdown by a middle-aged Euro-creep. Forget that, I don't need no stinkin' logical explanation. What I just saw was unacceptable. I don't care if Paul Muller's character knows for a fact that Soledad Miranda plans on knifing him in the dick (multiple times, mind you), you still give her a light. That being said, who doesn't want to be murdered by Soledad Miranda? Exactly. Nobody. Okay, while I can't speak for straight women, I'm positive that most gay men, straight men and lesbians would agree that being murdered by a vengeful Soledad Miranda would be the greatest thing to ever happen to them. Or how 'bout this. Let's say there's some kind of after life, and you're sitting around swapping stories with your fellow dead. Suddenly, the topic of how you died comes up. When everyone else has finished boring the group with the details surrounding their pathetic deaths, you get to stand up and say, in a loud and steady voice, I died as a direct result of being stabbed multiple times by a lingerie clad Soledad Miranda. Trust me, you will be the envy of the after life.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I happen to think that Soledad Miranda is an attractive woman. And the only director I can trust to capture her attractiveness in a manner that I deem satisfactory is Jess Franco. (So, does he manage to capture her attractiveness in a manner that you...) I'm sorry to cut off like that, but you must already know that the answer is... yes. Of course, I'm not saying Soledad Miranda should be allowed to murder the scientists who fucked over her hunky scientist husband just because she looks like Soledad Miranda. No, what I am saying is that the scientists should be thankful that their final moments on planet earth are being spent straddling a half-naked Soledad Miranda. In other words, if you have to be murdered, wouldn't you want Soledad Miranda to be the one holding the knife that plunges deep into your worthless, improperly utilized genitals?

Now that I've established to the best of my ability that being murdered by Soledad Miranda isn't all that bad, can we talk about the top Mrs. Johnson (Soledad Miranda) is wearing when her husband, Dr. Johnson (Fred Williams), shows her his lab?

Looking as if she cut off a chunk of a chandelier and taped it to her chest, Soledad Miranda's top is too ridiculous for words.

I'm not kidding around, Soledad Miranda's chandelier top left me speechless. So much so, that I didn't hear a single word Dr. Johnson said as blathered on and on about his research. Or, I should say, groundbreaking research.

Unfortunately, Dr. Johnson seems to be the only one who thinks his research is "groundbreaking." Submitting his research to a panel of his fellow scientists, Dr. Johnson is devastated by what they have to say about it. Words like, unethical, immoral and criminal are bandied about as Dr. Johnson's colleagues eviscerate his work.

If you're wondering what Dr. Johnson's research entails exactly. I'm sorry, I can't help you. As I said earlier, Soledad Miranda's metallic steampunk chandelier top was too distracting.

How does she manage to keep that thing on?!? There are no sleeves and there are no straps visible. It sort of just hovers there.

Nevertheless, the film's opening credits features words written in a frosty pink font, foetuses in jars, and the funkiest, the trippiest, most psychedelic music you'll ever hear.

If that wasn't enough to convince me that Jess Franco plans on delivering the goods, he then shows a forlorn Soledad Miranda running down multiple flights of stairs in jet black stockings (you get a glimpse of them with every other step) and a crocheted purple cape.

The reason Soledad Miranda is forlorn is because she misses her dead scientist husband. Oh, sure, she still has sex with him every now and then. But it's just not the same.

Driven to suicide by his fellow scientists (their harsh words of disapproval haunt his very existence), Dr. Johnson slits his wrists.

Instead of calling the authorities to haul away his corpse, Soledad Miranda holds on to it. You see, instead heading down to local pub to find another hunky scientist to marry, Soledad Miranda decides to murder those who caused her husband so much pain.

The first target on her list is Prof. Walker (Howard Vernon), a kinky blowhard with a thing for beige suits and degrading sex. This is guy is relatively easy for Soledad Miranda to snag, as all she has to do is flash the tops of her stockings and... boom. Look who's escorting you to his hotel room for some femdom fun. Well, there's fun to be had in the early going. But I think even the most ardent of femdom enthusiasts would frown upon being stabbed so forcefully in the junk.

When word of Prof. Walker's grisly demise gets out to the other scientists, nothing much happens. It's true, Jess Franco's Dr. Donen organizes an impromptu scientist meeting on a secluded beach to discuss the situation. But none of them changes their routine. Just look at the way Dr. Crawford (Ewa Strömberg) hits on Soledad Miranda while on vacation. Actually, I think the reason Dr. Crawford was so bold was because Dr. Donen tells them that a "vulgar brunette" was seen leaving Prof. Walker's hotel room on the night he was murdered, and, as we can clearly see, Soledad Miranda is not a vulgar brunette. Thanks to a short blonde wig and a well-worn paperback, Soledad Miranda has transformed herself into a bookish blonde who is itching to smother to death a smug blonde lesbian with a giant translucent pillow.

Which reminds me. Are you tired of not being able to see the face of the person you're murdering as you smother them to death with a pillow? Well, here at Giant Translucent Pillows, we want you experience the full magnitude of your victim's suffering by allowing you see them gasp for air in graphic detail. So, the next time you're thinking about smothering to death a loved one, or that pesky smug blonde lesbian lady scientist who caused your hunky scientist husband to kill himself, make sure to have a Giant Translucent Pillow handy.

If Soledad Miranda didn't have a Giant Translucent Pillow handy, she could have simply killed Dr. Crawford by plunging her face into the shag carpeting. Seriously, I've never seen shag carpeting so thick. I know, it's 1971, and such carpet-based anomalies were quite commonplace back then. But damn, that was some bushy shag.

Maybe I was a little harsh on Paul Muller's Dr. Houston earlier when I scolded him for not being receptive to Soledad Miranda's advances. I mean, if I saw Soledad Miranda eye-balling me the way she eye-balls people in this movie, I, too, would be somewhat hesitant. What I think I'm trying to say is that Soledad Miranda's eyes are like dark whirlpools filled with nothing but rage and contempt.

While Prof. Walker and Dr. Crawford were unable to pick up on this (the rage and contempt), Dr. Houston spots it almost immediately. However, even the most perceptive of scientists have their weaknesses. And like most men, that weakness is black silk stockings. In other words, flash a little thigh, and you'll have them eating out of the palm of your hand in no time.

If you think about it, that sums up the effect the film's of Jess Franco have on his audience rather nicely. The sensation one experiences while watching a Jess Franco film, when he's firing on all cylinders, is unlike anything in the known universe. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if I can buy myself one of them metallic steampunk chandelier tops on Etsy.

How to Seduce a Virgin (Jess Franco, 1974)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Countess Perverse (Jess Franco, 1974)

I've been known for going on these long tangents about a certain fleshy appendage, especially when they appear in the cinematic works of Jess Franco. If the exaggerated language that is typically used to describe these stem-like entities has caused many a reader to question my sanity, than so be it; I'd rather be insane than live in a world without Jess Franco-approved legginess. When I first approached Countess Perverse, with my usual usual mix of arrogance and stupidity, I knew exactly what to expect: Gorgeous European woman cavorting about in a slightly surreal paradise as Howard Vernon stands creepily in the background. And, yes, it delivers all that and more. However, I had no idea what a profound impact the slits that adorn the dress worn by Alice Arno would have on my fragile psyche. Now, I've seen a lot of slits over the years (large slits, small slits), but never have I seen a slit like this. The moment I first saw it, I thought there might be something wrong with my television; in that, there's no way that slit can be real. When I realized that there was nothing technically wrong with my television, I started to panic. How can a slit like that actually exist? I asked myself as I lay curled up in a ball underneath my coffee table (a.k.a. a piece of glass supported by two milk crates) mumbling a disturbing mishmash of slit-based gibberish and profanity-laden nonsense. After taking a brisk walk to clear my head, I returned to the scene of the slit. In other words, I re-watched the scene where Alica Arno first appears in the now infamous slit-heavy garment. As I watched Alice's massive slit flap erotically in the wind, I knew almost immediately that the slit in question would take up the bulk of my time whenever I got around to typing words about this particular film.   
 

 

If I didn't broach the slit subject right out of the gate, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror. And now that I have, I believe I can continue in a calm, rational, non-slit obsessed manner. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm still going to give the slit its due in the coming paragraphs. It's just that I wanted to get some slit out of my system before moving on to less slity ground.
 

 

What's great about Countess Perverse, besides the slit on Alice Arno's slit-tastic dress (hey, behave yourself), is the fact that Talia Busselier (Isla, the Wicked Warden) wears pants in the opening scene. Are you serious? Pants?!? That's exactly what I thought. Pants plus Jess Franco is an equation I never want to see scribbled on the nylon-infused blackboard that is my sick and twisted subconscious. You didn't let me finish. What's great about it is that Talia Busselier's tantalizing lower half is encased in pants (a bland pair of dark blue jeans), yet seconds later, she's wearing brown bikini bottoms. Maybe she changed when you weren't looking. Get out of here. She's clearly wearing pants when she runs down to the beach with Bob (Robert Woods), her male companion, to collect the naked body of a woman who has just washed ashore (an everyday occurrence in the gauzy world of Jess Franco). When she changed into a brown bikini is anyone's guess. Either way, I'm happy the pants fiasco is over and done with.
 

 

Carrying the naked body belonging to Kali (Kali Hansa), a woman who looks like the lovechild of Mary Woronov, Karen Black and a frisky Siamese cat, into their swanky bungalow on the Mediterranean, Moira (Tania Busselier) and Bob try to figure out where she came from. Suddenly, Kali starts rambling about this strange-looking house that sits atop a hill on a desolate island. After she's finished her bungalow-based rambling, a more coherent Kali begins to tell us why she went over to the island in the first place. Traveling by boat, Kali, who, on top of wanting to find her missing sister, is wearing a red floral shirt, is instantly troubled by the rocks that cover the island's shoreline. Even though she hasn't made much sense so far, I have to agree with her when it comes to those rocks, as they straight-up give me the willies. In order to hammer home this point, Jess Franco films the rocks from a number of different angles; okay, we get it, Jess, the rocks are willie-inducing monstrosities.
 

 

Greeted on shore by a man and a woman, Kali, who eventually changes into a blue dress with a red stripe across the top, finds herself the guest of Countess Ivanna Zaroff (Alice Arno) and Count Rabor Zaroff (Howard Vernon), two eccentric aristocrats with an unorthodox approach to fine dinning.
 

 

As they sat at the dinner table to eat something Rabor describes as "different and unique," I couldn't help but notice that both Alice Arno and Kali Hansa have sexy biceps.
 

 

Alluring arms aside, Alice proceeds to show Kali her hunting trophies. Are some of those heads supposed to be human? If they are, they don't look very convincing. Nonetheless, Ivanna and Rabor rape Kali. After employing some mild lesbian groping, Ivanna steps aside to to allow Rabor the opportunity to plunge his probably pockmarked penis balls deep into her forlorn vagina.
 

 

Later that night, Kali wakes up to find that she's been chained to the wall of their dungeon. Just as she begins to scream, Kali wakes up again. But this time, she's back on Moira and Bob's couch. Giving her a sedative to help her sleep, Bob asks Moira what she thinks they should do with her. Without missing a beat, Moira says, "Take her back to the island." You mean? Yep, Moira and Bob are in cahoots with the aristocratic cannibals. Well I never. They seemed like such a nice couple. Hey, man, times are tough. Some times you have to do things you wouldn't normally do to make ends meet. That's true, but luring young women to an island so that they can be eaten by a couple of aristocratic cannibals? That's low.
 

 

Well, Moira and Bob don't seem to think so, as they have already got another hot, underage piece of fresh meat for the Zaroff's ready to go.
 

 

Since telephones are for trailer trash housewives and acne-scarred bed-wetters, they place their order for fresh young girl patty via heliograph.
 

 

Please let the hot, underage piece of fresh meat be played by Lina Romay. Please let the hot, underage piece of fresh meat be played by Lina Romay. Please let the...Yes! Lina Romay is on the screen. I repeat, Lina Romay is on the screen. Wearing a busy red shirt dress with a pair of white [almost] thigh-high boots, Lina Romay is Silvia Aguado, a naive young  woman who...Wait, Lina Romay is playing someone who is naive? That's strange, I don't think I have ever seen Lina play "naive" before. In fact, she usually plays strong, independent women who don't take no guff from anyone. This should be interesting.
 

 

If you think Tania Busselier is going to stand idly by and let Lina Romay steal her thunder, think again. I ain't kidding around, think again! Has another thought been thunk yet? Good. In an attempt to stay relevant, Tania Busselier allows herself to be filmed lounging on the deck in a manner that can best be described as "leggy." Sipping a tropical beverage through a straw, Tania, her legs resting on the deck's railing, seems to get a perverse thrill out of knowing that perverts the world over will be drinking in every nuanced nook and cream-filled cranny of her sun-baked gams in forty years time thanks to the miracle of home video.
 

 

In order to milk her stems for all they're worth, Jess Franco zooms in on Tania's feet, then proceeds to pan across her reclining legs in a slow, deliberate fashion.
 

 

After some yawn-inducing lesbian sex (yeah, that's right, yawn-inducing), Bob, Sylvia, and Moira head over to the island. Hardcore fans of Jess Franco will probably notice that Lina Romay is sitting exactly like Soledad Miranda does in Eugénie de Sade (hugging her legs while resting her head on her arms) during the boat ride over. At any rate, as expected, Sylvia, like Kali before her, starts to feel a tad uneasy when they come upon the rocks. Who would have thought that a bunch of rocks would turn out to be more interesting than lesbian sex? Weird, wild stuff.
 

 

Speaking of weird and wild, I think we're about to get our first glimpse of the infamous dress that may or may not contain the largest slit ever to appear in a motion picture. Here it comes. Boom! Now that's a slit. Slicing its way all the way up to her armpit, the slits on the dress worn by Alice Arno, as she watches Tania and Lina frolic naked in the sand (both, by the way, have similar bums), are, to put it bluntly, fucking insane. And just like Tania Busselier's reclining leg pan, Jess Franco makes sure we get to view her slit from every angle imaginable. 
 

 

Here's a close-up shot of the slit from an angle that practically screams slit.
 

 

The dress itself is white and is covered with green, blue and gold dots, but it's the massive, atypical slits that appear on either side that grab our attention. Of course, you can't wear panties with a dress like this. In other words, the contents of Alice Arno's crotch were at the mercy of the wind. And let's just say, the wind was not kind on that day, my friend.
 

 

Realizing that she is in a losing battle with the wind, Alice Arno decides to let her slit flag fly, and stands for a moment on the stairs that lead to the front door of her creepy ass home. You can tell that Alice Arno is totally at ease with the winds mockery of her slit-generous garment as she stands there in defiance of nature. It was almost as if she was saying, "Yes, the slits on my dress are ridiculously large, and, not to mention, impractical. And, yes, everyone can see the colour of my cunt. But you wanna know what? I don't care. I'm more fabulous than you. Deal with it."
 

 

If you should come across a review of Countess Perverse that doesn't mention the slits on Alice Arno's dress, question their sanity right away. Of course, I'm not saying they should devout three or four paragraphs just to slits. No, I'm just talking about a single mention. As in, "the luminous Alice Arno plays Ivanna Zaroff, a cannibalistic countess with an affinity for nude archery and dresses with overreaching slits."  
 

 

Fashion must be cyclical, because I could have sworn I saw the same black frilly robe Alice Arno gives Lina Romay to wear to bed in the window of my neighbourhood Gucci store the other day. At any rate, as is the custom in Europe, when Alice Arno gives you frilly sleepwear, you must thank her by licking her ass. What a continent!
 

 

I was shocked when the infamous extra high-slit dress makes its second appearance; I assumed that cannibalistic aristocrats rarely ever wore the same outfit more than once. But then again, they do live on an isolated island. Meaning, unlike my neighbourhood, there's no Prada, Zara, Escada, Max Mara, Chanel, Guess, or Louis Vuitton to shop at. Anyway, Lina Romay suddenly realizes that her blemish-free thighs are in serious danger of becoming a tender, succulent roast, and the film goes into naked hunt mode. Replacing her slit-bountiful dress with a belt and a determined sneer, Countess Zaroff chases Sylvia (who is completely naked) through the arid underbrush with a bow and arrow. Will anyone step in to help Lina Romay? Who's to say? All I know is, I want to go to Calpe, Spain (come from the creepy rocks, stay for the free-range cunnilingus), and, of course, get my hands on Alice Arno's slitful dress. Slit sliding away.