I broke down and watched The Awful Dr. Orlof  for the first time in at least 15 years last night, and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a bit. Yes, it does seem a little old fashioned at times (it is well over fifty years old), and it’s pretty mind-boggling to think that Franco would make A Virgin Among The Living Dead within ten years, but it’s historically significant, beautiful to look at and the obvious starting point for my project. So, the plan as it stands is to work chronologically and write a series of essays based on the key periods and relationships (I appreciate many of the films were co-productions). I envisage them breaking down as follows. Note, what follows is not a comprehensive list of the films produced during the respective phases, it’s simply the ones I intend to refer to.

Eurocine in the Sixties

The Awful R. Orlof (1962)
The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus (1962)
Dr Orlof’s Monster (1964)

With Harry Alan Towers

Justine (1968)
99 Women (1969)
Venus in Furs (1969)
Eugenie, the story of her journey into perversion (1970)
Count Dracula (1970)

Although it’s not a Towers production, I might also address Necronomicon / Succubus here, given it is a key film and fits more naturally with this group than any other.

Starring Soledad Miranda

The Devil came from Akasava (1970)
Eugenie DeSade (1970)
Vampyros Lesbos (1970)
She Killed in Ecstasy (1970)

For Robert De Nesle
The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1972)
The Demons (1972)
Plaisir a trois (1973)
La Comtesse Perverse (1974)
Lorna the Exorcist (1974)

Eurocine in the seventies

A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1971)
Female Vampire / La Comtesse Noir (1973)
Exorcism (1974)
The Hot Nights of Linda (1975)

For Erwin C Dietrich

Barbed Wire Dolls (1976)
Doriana Gray (1976)
Blue Rita (1977)
Greta the Mad Butcher / Wanda the Wicked Warden (1977)

Golden Films

Macumba Sexual (1983)
Sexual Story of O (1984)
The Night has a Thousand Desires (1984)

Later works

Killer Barbies (1996)
Tender Flesh (1997)
Marie Cookie and the Killer Tarantula (1998)
Vampire Blues (1999)

As we’ve seen, a number of key films fall outside of these groupings – in addition to Succubus, I’m thinking of Bloody Moon and Faceless so I will either incorporate them into the relevant timeframe or write individual reviews.

Totally unrelated, I revisited The Opening of Misty Beethoven recently, and my thoughts can be found here.