Carnal Cinema

“The blood was all over the place. I can’t take it.”

After an extended break, a look at the three Franco films which became entangled in the video nasties net . . . here.

“You and your troop of lesbians were useful to us for a while.” 

My review of Das Fraunhaus / Blue Rita (1977) can be found here.

“It is the destiny of all beauty to be destroyed.”

My review of Franco’s mesmerising Das Bildnis der Doriana Gray can be found here.

“I’m a doll. A real doll.”

I haven’t forgotten about or given up on this blog. My circumstances simply changed and I’ve not been able to dedicate any resource to it.

My intention is to write an essay on the Women in Prison films Franco directed for Erwin Dietrich – specifically Barbed Wire Dolls, Wanda the Wicked Warden, Love Camp and Women in Cellblock 9 – and publish it this side of Christmas. I will then endeavour to get one more piece up over the festive period – most likely a review of either Doriana Grey or Blue Rita.

Updated to add, Barbed Wire Butchers can be found here.

“You are like some mysterious, compelling character from the pages of a fairy tale.”

This may be my last post for a little while. Fittingly, it feels like the end of a chapter. My review of Lorna . . . The Exorcist can be found here.

“We must know evil to be able to fight it.”

As stated elsewhere, my first exposure to Franco’s cinema came in the mid-nineties, when Redemption Films released a slew of key titles on VHS. Sadly, the UK was subject to severe censorship during this period and a number of those releases – A Virgin Among the Living Dead and Female Vampire, to name but two – suffered cuts as a result. Worse still, two films – namely, Demoniac and Sadomania – were banned outright. I’m working on a review of the former – better known as Exorcism these days – at the moment. In the meantime, my long overdue introductory essay can be found here.

Updated to add that the review of Exorcism can be found here.