L'éventreur de Notre-Dame

My copy is titled Exorcism and is absolutely great. There's naked girls chained upside down getting whipped and covered in sacrificial blood and some demented ex-priest stabbing people with at least one scene of guts or a heart or something removed from what was probably a dead pig.

I think maybe this movie should be viewed as a comedy, its certainly believable that it was intended as such.

My wife bought me this by mistake! Some company called Boulevard entertainment had somehow mixed this up with another film called Exorcism (and American religious film or something), but when Lina Romay's pubic hair appeared within 0.001% of a second of the film starting, I thought "We're back in the land of Jess Franco!"

That's bad news for most of us, by the way. There is a small fraction of the populace that rather enjoys a Franco film, but if you've sat through any of his films you know what to expect here: Endless scenes, much nudity and little sex, plenty of misogyny, and zoom shots.

Truth be told, this is nowhere near as painful as Succubus or Oasis of the Zombies, but it's also nowhere near as funny as White Cannibal Queen or the Devil Hunter. It involves Franco himself as a crazy ex-priest running around Paris carving up women that are involved in some sort of half-arsed black mass ceremony, with his prize being Lina Romay, who, surprisingly, spends most of the film naked or tied up and naked.

That's your plot, and reading that back over I realised that I've made Exorcism sound a bit exciting, which it's not. "Crazy ex-priest running around Paris" doesn't sound right. How about 'slowly moping around Paris, usually hiding behind things, staring"? Instead of 'carving up women' I'll say 'very slowly tormenting women and gibbering on about how they've got the devil in them for endless minutes'? I'll stick by the 'half-arsed black mass' though. Plus there's an orgy scene which seems to involve nothing but naked people writhing around and not doing much (and this is the early seventies – all them naked bodies must have reeked!). Additionally, there's this old guy who has a hilarious blue rinse, so watch out for that.

I loved how, when the dust settled and the film was over, the police just got back into their car and drove off, leaving all the bodies/victims behind. Hurrah for realism! Also, hurrah for nepotism as Franco himself gets to run his gnarled hands over quite a few naked actresses!This film gets an extra point for the sadly departed Lina Romay, who is the only good thing about this film. Do they have pubes in heaven?

I've just noticed Jess has now gone off to the soft-core film in the sky too. Shame - I know I rag on most of his films but still, he'll be missed.

EXORCISME (1974) ** Jesus Franco, Lina Romay. Jesus Franco directs and stars in this story about a crazed ex-priest who witnesses a series of staged "Black Masses." Convinced the participants are possessed by Satan, he kills them in order to "exorcise" their demons. Although this storyline has a lot of promise, numbingly repetitive dialogue and Franco's amateurish acting keep the film from reaching its true potential. It's also padded with numerous sex scenes--featuring suggested autoerotism, bondage, sexualized torture, lesbianism and an orgy, among other things--none of which serve to advance the plot. The result is a film that tries to be both porno and horror film, but doesn't really succeed at either.

In Paris, the former priest Mathis Vogel (Jesus Franco) writes pornography for a magazine. When the deranged priest watches an erotic show based on a Black Mass, he believes that the cast and audience are possessed and he goes on a murder spree to exorcise the demons of his victims.

"L'Éventreur de Notre-Dame" is another Eurotrash by Jess Franco, who is also the lead actor. His trademark is present in every scene, with sexploitation, violence, nudity, bad acting and gore, but for fans of this genre it is funny to watch this trash. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Exorcista Diabólico" ("The Devilish Exorcist")

As much as I hate watching cut and dubbed versions of Euro horror movies I'll take any opportunity to watch a Jess Franco movie. So I haven't seen either the softcore or hardcore versions of this film but the butchered cut known as 'Demoniac'. Maybe anything I say about this version is worthless, but as it is it's far from Franco's best, yet still surprisingly watchable. Despite the lousy English dubbing I thought Franco's acting was more than adequate, in fact he easily gives the best performance in the picture. He plays Vogel, an intense and tortured defrocked priest who writes salacious stories for a racy magazine, the editor of which hangs with a swinging crowd who stage fake sadomasochistic performances for fun (shades of one of Franco's best 'Succubus', but don't get your hopes up). Vogel secretly witnesses a black mass, and not realizing it is fake, decides he must save the souls of the participants via exorcism, which in reality basically equates to murdering them. 'Demoniac' is presumably a lot less explicit than the other versions available. There is a fair bit of nudity including arguably the dullest orgy ever seen on screen. Franco's wife and frequent star Lina Romay is always a pleasure to look at, but if you want to see her at her best check out 'Female Vampire', the one where she kills via fellatio, remember? As I haven't seen the "real" version of this movie I can't honestly say whether it's good Franco or bad Franco, but if you're wanting to explore his work try and see 'Vampyros Lesbos', 'Eugenie De Sade', or 'Succubus' first.