Dr. Orloff’s Monster VHS Something Weird - Jess Franco

Jess Francon (Jesus Franco) kauhuelokuva 1964. Something Weird -sarjan VHS, esittely Frank Henenlotter.

Two years after modernizing the Spanish horror scene with his classic The Awful Dr. Orlof, director Jess Franco returned to similar territory in a contemporary setting (but with plenty of creaky Gothic trappings) for a Christmas horror film that sort of closes out a neat trilogy with that prior film and the one in between, The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus. This was Franco's least favorite of the three due to financial and shooting constraints that left some key moments unfilmed, but you'd barely guess it from the final result, a beautifully shot and highly atmospheric shocker.

The fact that this film was financed by French, Austrian, and Spanish backers (and shot entirely in Spain with an international cast) meant that this film was prepared in several different versions, with even the titles ranging from The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll, The Secret of Dr. Orloff, and the current title it bears on American home video, Dr. Orloff's Monster. The actual Dr. Orloff vamooses to the afterlife in the opening minutes of the film, but you do kind of get a version of his monster henchman, Morpho, here in the form of Andros (Texas, Addios' Blanco), a shambling killing machine created in the castle laboratory of Dr. Conrad Jekyll Dr. Orloff's Monster(Arroita-Jáuregui), whose name tends to change (he's Fisherman in the international dub) depending on which version you watch. Andros is actually the robotized body of the doctor's brother, murdered in a fit of rage and now controlled with an ear-piercing Dr. Orloff's Monstersignal that will have you scrambling for your remote. Things get complicated when Andros's niece, Melissa (Spaak, sister of actress Catherine), arrives for the holidays and ends up stumbling into a crime wave of murdered women including a stripper who's been brutally strangled in her dressing room.

Despite a fairly bland cast apart from the fetching Spaak (a really juicy villainous presence like Howard Vernon would have been welcome), this is a fine example of early Franco as he was testing the waters of what he could get away with before plunging headfirst into pure delirium. Franco haters will likely be shocked at how nicely mounted the entire production is with a number of inventive camera angles and skillful use of light and shadow, all of which glide the proceedings past a few narrative speed bumps likely caused by those aforementioned production issues.

Dr. Orloff's Monster first appeared in the U.S. as an AIP pickup for television distribution in a heavily edited form that at least retained the English dub prepared by the European rights holders. That version ended up on Dr. Orloff's MonsterVHS from Something Weird as part of Frank Henenlotter's Sexy Shockers from the Vault line, while the longer.