Jesús Franco
Birthday: 1930-05-12 Place of Birth: Madrid, Spain
Synopsis
Jesús "Jess" Franco was a Spanish film director, writer, cinematographer and actor. His career took off in 1961 with his cult classic The Awful Dr. Orloff, which received wide distribution in the United States and England. Though he had some American box office success with Necronomicon, his first women-in-prison film Ninety-Nine Women, and his two Christopher Lee films, The Bloody Judge and Count Dracula, he never achieved wide commercial success. Franco moved from Spain to France in 1970 so that he could make more violent and sexual films, and it was at this point that his career began to go downhill commercially, as he turned to low-budget filmmaking with a heavier accent on adult-oriented films. Although he produced a few well-received, low budget horror films in the early 70's, many people in the industry considered him a porn director due to the huge number of X-rated adult films he began churning out. Franco returned to low-budget horror in a brief comeback period from 1980-1983, but after 1983, his career took a second downturn. With the exception of his Faceless and Killer Barbys, his post-1984 films are almost unwatchable due to the incredibly low budgets he was forced to work with. Franco has nevertheless retained a large cult following through the years with his sexually-charged horror films, some of which are regarded as masterpieces by his avid followers.
Acting
Drácula Barcelona
In 1969, Jesús Franco and Christopher Lee shot Count Dracula in Barcelona. At the same time, Pere Portabella became aware of this filming, vampirizing it in Cuadecuc, Vampir. Genre and Art-house films had never been so close. Drácula Barcelona tells the story of these two movies.
Revenge of the Alligator Ladies
After the passing of director Jesús Franco the movie was finished by Antonio Mayans. It follows "Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Ladies".
The Rhythm of Jess
Málaga, July 2012. With a nonexistent budget, the legendary director Jesus "Jess" Franco faces, at 82 years of age, what will end up being his last shoot. With only four actors and three technicians on set should have prevailed stillness. But with a whirlwind as Jess Franco in control, confusion and chaos do not slow to appear, giving rise to an ineffable and insane shooting in which young crew are unable to keep up.
On the Threshold to Another World
A documentary shot on the set of "Killer Barbys vs. Dracula" directed by Viktor Seastrom.
Macumba Sexual
Princess Obongo, the Goddess of Unspeakable Lust, uses dark powers to ensnare a hapless couple of yuppies, so that she can imbue them with evil and conquer the world.
Sex Is Crazy
Adult film actresses get abducted and impregnated by aliens after appearing in a sci-fi porno in this outrageous sex comedy from Jess Franco. Knocked up with high-powered extraterrestrial sperm that allows them to conceive and give birth in a matter of seconds, the starlets become human breeding machines for a race of ultra-horny invaders.
Sadomania
Soon after newlyweds Olga and Michel set foot on the grounds of a notorious women's prison, they're arrested by topless guards and ushered behind bars where the warden quickly dismisses Michel but demands that Olga do a little time.
Greta, the Mad Butcher
A young woman feigns illness in order to infiltrate a mental hospital, where she investigates the disappearance of her sister, a former patient. Meanwhile, the hospital warden and her attendants abuse and torture their charges, forcing them to star in cheap skinflicks.
The Sadist of Notre Dame
Jesus Franco directs and stars in this cut-copy-and-paste-version of one of his own movies. Here, he plays a mad priest going around killing sinful people in the name of God, all while trying to get a book published.
Slaves
A brothel owner is questioned in the disappearance of the daughter of a wealthy man after she is still not returned, or told of her possible whereabouts, after the $5,000,000 ransom was paid.
Midnight Party
Sylvia, a stripper, attends a party where the theme is a mock spy adventure. Unfortunately, she soon finds herself thrust in a real espionage adventure. There are these two playboys that invite her to their midnight orgy. Later, her communist rock star lover shows up in her dressing room and starts shouting anti-capitalist rhetoric. In the mean time, her hypochondriac husband keeps loosing money in poker games. And in between, she talks directly into the camera, trying to entertain us.
The Hot Nights of Linda
A young woman is hired to care for an elderly man who lives on an island off the Greek coast. When she arrives there the man warns her that his daughters are evil and dangerous. The woman discovers that one of the daughters is a crazed nymphomaniac who pursues, and seduces, everyone in the house, including her crippled sister.
Exorcism
A disturbed priest, who witness an occult ritual, thinks the people are possessed and start a private inquisition to exorcise the demons by torturing them to death.
Celestine
The story opens with Celestine eluding arrest with a friend as the police raid a brothel. While hiding out in the hayloft of the Count de la Braquette's estate, she meets the hayseed handyman Sébastien and the butler Malou, who reward her favors with the offer of employment. In a manner recalling Terence Stamp's effect on the household in TEOREMA, Celestine's open and relaxed attitude toward sexuality has a transformative effect on the isolated, moribund inhabitants of the mansion, imbuing them with gift of renewed life for the men and women alike, that remains even after a third act twist that forces her to betray them.
Eugenie de Sade
Eugenie, a beautiful but shy young girl, lives with her stepfather, a famous writer specializing in stories of erotica. One day she happens to read one of his "erotic" books and its power so affects her that begins to find herself sexually attracted to her stepfather. He notices this, and eventually brings her into his dark world of sexual perversion and murder.
Female Vampire
A mute noblewoman's vampiric heritage compels her to drain the life force from all of her lovers.
Daughter of Dracula
Luisa is called to the bed of her dying mother Edith at Karlstein Castle. Before she dies, she tells Luisa that the Karlsteins are a family of vampires and that her ancestor, the original Count Karlstein, lies buried in the crypt. Afterwards, Luisa goes and finds the count's coffin and discovers that he is undead. As she takes Karine, her cousin as her lover, a police inspector, Ptuschko investigates a series of killings around the town, dismissing the locals who insist these are being caused by vampires.
The Castle of Fu Manchu
The evil mastermind Fu Manchu plots his latest scheme to basically freeze over the Earth's oceans with his diabolical new device. Opposing him is his arch-nemesis, Interpol's very British Nayland Smith.
She Killed in Ecstasy
A young doctor kills himself after a medical committee terminates his research into human embryos, considering it too inhumane. His wife then seeks revenge on those who drove her husband to his death by luring each member of the committee into compromising situations and then killing them one by one.
Vampyros Lesbos
An erotic horror tale about a vixen vampiress seducing and killing women to appease her insatiable thirst for female blood.
Venus in Furs
A musician finds the corpse of a beautiful woman on the beach. The woman returns from the dead to take revenge on the group of wealthy sadists responsible for her death.
Succubus
Janine Reynaud stars as a nightclub stripper who free-floats through a spectral 60's landscape littered with dream-figures, dancing midgets and bizarre S&M games.
The Diabolical Dr. Z
A woman seeks to avenge her father's death using a local dancer, with long poisonous fingernails, to do her bidding.
