SNAKEWOMAN Jess Franco 2005

US-SP

Jess Franco doesn't make "films" anymore, he makes video but the results are still, even in glossy HI-DEF, 100% Jess Franco. I spoke to Jess during the conception of this film and he was quite excited about attempting an updating of VAMPYROS LESBOS (1970), which this in essence is, but it's also more than that. Carmen Montes is the title character, a female vampire who wears nothing but a long red lined black cape and a tatoo of a double headed python which curls around her torso. She dominates a netherworld {Malaga, Spain} where "walk-ins" appear and disappear as suddenly as her attacks. Her most recent victim is a female reporter (FATA MORGANA), the Jonathan Harker character, and Christie Levin is the demented female Renfield who is kept in a private asylum by the mad Dr. Nostradamus (Antonio Mayans). The reporter has come to invesitage the estate of the legendary actress-composer Oriana Balasz. The Snakewoman may be her descendant or her continuation. It begins and ends and is often interrupted by telezooms onto flocks of tropical birds which recall the kites in VAMPYROS LESBOS. The music is spectral but will not enter the imagination in the same way as the ground breaking score for that 1970 cult classic. Carmen Montes does evoke the late, great Soledad Miranda and the film is filled with captivating images. Franco's director credit appears over an old b&w photo of Marlene Dietrich and this may be another subterranean hommage to the cinema of Von Sternberg. There are a lot of lesbian interludes (Franco told me he wanted to call it VAMPIRE INTERLUDE) but not as many as in some of his recent work and they don't smother the film. The acting is above average and it's worth seeing on the SRS DVD where it is coupled with DR. WONG'S VIRTUAL HELL and some still galleries.
(c)Robert Monell-2006: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Welcome Back Robert. Glad to hear good news about Jess Franco. Will look forward to see this one, as i liked Vampiros Lesbos. You corpyright brings the question: Can we still put your review on our Jess Franco Pages ?

Anyway, glad to read you again !

It probably won't achieve the status of VL, but I find it one of his better recent videos. Yes, please go ahead and add it to the page.

In 2002 I interviewed Jess and he told me that he was actively working on a Dr. ORLOFF remake - he also said that a "big star" would held the role of the infamous scientist, and that the film would be shot on DV. I didn't really believed in the fact that Jodorowsky or Udo Kier would act in the film like he stated, but I was honestly expecting this "remake". Any news about it ?

He still wanted to make a film with Udo Kier when I interviewed him in 2005 and he said he wanted to make a film based on a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne called THE TOWER BY THE CEMETERY, but he still hasn't found the funding to make a new ORLOF.

That's a shame...

And seeing Udo Kier in a Franco film... well, I really hope this is realistic, but if Franco can make the film, will Udo Kier really participate ? I'm not sure.

With Jess Franco anything is possible, if not probable.