And so here we are, lucky 13. I look like I've been grasping for a light switch in the night so far and now I've got my hand caught in a generator. If this film isn't Franco at the top of his game then damn yo, I am not set for the succeeding one. I feel haunted and a little fucked up. Meh, forget the intro, let's do this.
Franco Friday #13
Eugenie de Sade
Directed by Jess Franco
1974
Starring Soledad Miranda, Paul Muller, Andres Monales, Greta Schmidt, Alice Arno, Jess Franco
86 minutes
The movie opens with Eugenie (played by Soledad Miranda) undressing a woman. They are laughing. The woman lies down on the bed. This is a family movie. Eugenie`s stepfather, Albert (Paul Muller), steps into flesh and strangles the daughter to death. This is a snuff film. Next time we see her, Eugenie has been beaten badly and is seemingly recuperating in a hospital bed. A writer named Attila Tanner (played by Jess Franco) comes to her bedside and asks that she tell her story. Eugenie agrees but only if Tanner agrees to put her out of her misery when her story is finished. Tanner agrees.
Next, Eugenie tells of being raised by Albert after her father died right after she was born. As she grew up, her stepfather, a writer of great talent but little recognition, became increasingly obsessed with erotic writing and literature. After she gets caught reading a particularly disturbing book from Albert`s library, Eugenie discovers the genuine nature of her father. The man is a sadist who wants to get his psychosexual experiments to the next floor and return a person`s life. Eugenie agrees.
The two go out on the prowl for strippers, hookers, and hitchhikers. They make to be newlyweds, nice people, or perhaps only a pair of perverts looking for kicks. Then they strike, murdering these people for their own sick desires, photographing or filming the event. With apiece of their evil little games, the stakes get higher and they become crueler. Albert suggests a halt in which Eugenie take a fan and cause him to the threshold of madness. He chooses Paul (played by Andres Monales), a sensitive jazz musician, for Eugenie to make and manipulate. But things do not go as planned and for the start time, Eugenie breaks the rules.
For me, Eugenie de Sade is the cinematic equivalent of getting hit by a bus. This erotic thriller is ice cold and, in price of cold-blooded and ruthless villains, it makes many giallo villains I`ve seen look like Captain Kangaroo. It is likewise a breathy, dizzy, and mesmerizing experience. Jess Franco directs this extremely well written part of sex and violence like a man possessed.The colors are vibrant, the tempo is really good, and the narrative is intriguing. The account by the always brilliant Bruno Nicolai is achingly beautiful and menacing.
First and foremost, the performances of Soledad Miranda and Paul Muller are phenomenal. In the heart of this movie, I was like "Damn, these two have such a weird marriage. Oh shit, I forgot, that`s her stepdad! AAAAAHHH!" In the beginning, one gets a smell that Albert is merely a normal guy raising his stepdaughter and you believe that some trigger is leaving to be pulled and he`s going to go off the bass end. Then as the story unfolds, it`s fairly obvious that there is something awfully wrong with the man who would raise Eugenie in total isolation and take her mind with crazy ideas.
I didn`t actually get Soledad Miranda until I saw her as Eugenie. Until then, I but knew her as the striptease vamp from Vampyros Lesbos and Lucy the juicebox from Franco`s Count Dracula. She is a girl in bed with her stepdad, a man who has ever been her entire world. This is a soul whose fate has been set since day 1 and the instant she strays and sees outside the small cozy cage she`s been kept prison in, she comes to living and is willing to risk disappointing the one man who she has looked up to her entire life. She is the tragic heroine and likewise a demon capable of squeezing the spirit out of soul and having one wicked orgasm afterwards. Shit man, I can't even looking at her now without wanting to cry.
Wait a second. There has to be a catch, right? This movie can`t be a perfect masterpiece, can it? Okay, fine, I acknowledge that the movie is a little cheap. Some of the sets are a little more than slightly less than extravagant. I actually wrote in my notes: "How often of this movie is leaving to make order in the library?" When somebody is stabbed, a short bit of red pigment is all the paltry effects budget would allow. And yes, that same red pigment is exploited for bruising. Then there`s the body hair. If you took Paul Muller`s back and shoulder hair and Andres Monales` leg and butt hair and combined them, you`d have three Wookiees and half a Robin Williams. But seriously, folks_
This picture is pure evil and yet it is a joy to behold. Innocence is shaped and shaped into cruelty and horror by a madman. And then, during the awakening, when scarcely for an instant, things are right and good; the darkness swoops in to beat the dream. Eugenie de Sade feels dangerous. Its subject matter is very dreary and yet, once again, I connected with the characters emotionally. How does Franco keep doing that to me? Even when those characters are sick bastards toying with their feed to enhance their own satisfaction when they have a human life, I`m still utterly fascinated. If you are curious about Jess Franco and desire to recognize what the mother is all about, check this one out.
"I`ll never leave the start time snow fell that winter. As if by some enchantment, everything became, white, neat, unreal, strange."
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