gavin6942 A mad scientist creates a hideous monster to carry out his murderous plans.I watched this on Netflix streaming, so I have to say I do not think they had the best copy possible. At times it seemed like a poor digital transfer from an old source. This did not really hurt the movie, but I just want to say if you want to see this film in its best light, you may want to look elsewhere. (Though, for all I know, no good copy exists.) How this film ties together Orlof, Jekyll, an robots is a bit confusing, not helped in the least by the translation issue. I watched it as "Monster of Dr. Orlof", which seems to suggest a far different film than "The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll", and yet they are one and the same.

MARIO GAUCI The second "Orloff" movie is apparently unrelated to the first (a re-acquaintance with which will follow): in fact, this name is omnipresent throughout Franco's filmography; anyway, it is more or less on the same level of THE SADISTIC BARON VON KLAUS (1962) – even if I watched ORLOFF in English rather than French (or, for that matter, the original Spanish language). Again, Franco shows to be fairly adept with genre conventions and even manages to blend them relatively easily with a modern-day setting – still, he cannot help being himself and resist incorporating nightclub performances (in fact, this rather lazily makes the artistes themselves the victims so that we get a song every 20 minutes or so!) and, inevitably, erotic overtones.Incidentally, Howard Vernon (the actor most associated with the Orloff role) is sorely missed here – the character himself is only of secondary importance and appears very briefly – but the memorable Morpho figure, a disfigured zombie-like creature obeying its master's will (not unlike Cesare from the German Expressionist landmark THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI {1920}), is now assumed by Andros. The latter – played by Hugo Blanco, the villainous latest member of the Von Klaus family and whose brooding good looks suit his mute stalker here – is perversely turned into a monster (hence the title, though the print actually bears the absurd moniker DR. JEKYLL'S MISTRESSES - which would, in any case, have better suited Walerian Borowczyk's masterful 1981 film, DOCTEUR JEKYLL ET LES FEMMES!) by his own scientist brother (Vernon's bearded, rather gruff replacement and saddled with the peculiar surname of Fisherman) when he catches him in bed with his own wife (she, of course, also pays for her infidelity by being driven to the bottle).However, the plot this time around is decidedly contrived: we never learn why Andros (who sleeps upright in a class cage, as Cesare himself did albeit in a wooden-box) is sent on a murderous rampage – after being revived, and subsequently controlled, by sound-waves – every once in a while (most effectively when he nonchalantly moves through a crowded nightspot following yet another attack). The "Digitally Obsessed" website review suggests the reason for the various killings is because Fisherman wanted to get even with his spouse…but this is hardly EYES WIDE SHUT (1999), is it?! Similarly, the heroine – the monster's daughter, whom she believed was dead and buried (at one point, he even visits his own grave!) – turns up to stay with the central family only so that we get the obligatory damsel-in-distress and add an admittedly refreshing touch of pathos to Andros' condition; Agnes Spaak, sister of the more famous Catherine(!), appears in this part. On the other hand, the girl's bland male counterpart is extremely annoying, and the presence of the Police basically only serves to keep the audience abreast of the villains' eventual apprehension.

Coventry It's sometimes hard to keep your faith in Jess Franco when you've seen so much of his by-the-numbers horror and sleaze crap like I have... This notorious Spanish director made over 180 films in approximately 40 years. That's an average of more than four films each year, so it shouldn't be a surprise that really a lot of his movies are carelessly filmed and poorly edited routine jobs. However, his older films (let's say, everything released before 1972) are definite cinema classics and particularly the black & white Gothic horror try-outs of the early 60's are highly listed among my personal favorites. "Dr. Jekyll's Mistresses" is some sort of sequel to Franco's biggest success "The Awful Dr. Orloff", even though it mainly introduces new characters and an entirely different storyline. The uncanny castle setting was maintained, however, and so were the sinister atmosphere and inventive camera angles. Beautiful young orphan Melissa spends Christmas with her drunk aunt and scientist uncle up in their old, ramshackle castle. The uncle, Dr. Conrad Jekyll, can't dedicate much time to her as he inherited the secret formula of his tutor Dr. Orloff, which causes the dead to walk again and their actions can by controlled by ultrasonic noises. Jekyll resurrects his own dead brother (whom he killed for having an affair with his wife) and uses him to strangle random strip-bar dancers and prostitutes. Deceased Andros slowly begins to develop his own will again when he finds out that his poor and defenseless daughter stays at the castle. The script leaves too many questions unanswered (does Jekyll has anything against strippers or are they just test cases for his experiments?) but it's more coherent than most of Franco's other movies and there's a constant tension surrounding the film. Many sequences are stunningly beautiful and almost poetic, like when the "zombie" visits his own final resting place at the graveyard or when he pays nightly visits to his daughter's bedroom to look at her. The sound effects during the murder sequences are quite disturbing and the acting performances are overall very adequate. Even the dialogues are professionally written and that truly proves that "Dr. Jekyll's Mistresses" is one of Jess Franco's absolute finest achievements. Recommended!

goblinhairedguy If you've suffered through some of the hack work Jess Franco cranked out in the last two decades, you may find it difficult to believe that he once took some pride in his craft and evinced a certain mastery of cinematic technique, as well as a modicum of discipline. "Dr Orloff's Monster" is a case in point. Despite the title, it bears no direct relation to the creepy and perverse opus, "The Awful Dr Orloff", which put the director on the map back in the early 60s. However, it shares the same doom-laden aura -- with the expected (but always riveting) kinky asides -- that so resemble that earlier picture as well as the German Edgar Wallace 'krimi' series which was reaching its peak at the same time.The picture is rife with carefully-executed camera angles and atmospherics, something that would become anathema to Franco's slash-and-burn methods of the 80s. The best scenes are reminiscent of (dare I say) Lewton and Franju. It builds up a strong pathos for the title character, thanks to a subtle, wordless portrayal that evokes Cesar in 'Cabinet of Dr Caligari' and Christiane in 'Eyes without a Face' (such homages were a Franco specialty). There is a particularly poignant sequence in which the zombie stumbles about near his own tombstone in a bleak, wintry cemetery. No matter what depths Franco's movies plunged to, they always offered a few wonderfully oddball cabaret scenes in smoky jazz or rock bars, and this is no exception. One singer performs a wacky, rhythmic Latin ditty that must have sparked the imagination of the members of the retro band 'Les Rita Mitsouko'. (These cabaret scenes were a welcome staple of the Euro-thriller genre of the 60s, also perking up the krimi series, several of the campier works of the Italian Gothic revival, and especially the outlaw melodramas of Jose Benazeraf.)There are already foreshadowings of the director's latter-day carelessness -- a few too many zooms, cutting from the middle of one scene to another, and a general neglect of motivation. And, of course, he'd end up doing the revenge plot to death. But overall, this one (along with the much more perverse 'Sadistic Baron von Klaus') comes highly recommended for Franco skeptics and genre fans alike. Surprisingly, this film was immediately followed by his magnum opus, the delirious 'Succubus' (aka 'Necronomicon'), which in its pseudo-sophisticated Radley-Metzger-like style is miles removed from the Gothic horror of his early work.