Nigel P
This One Shot Production appears to be once again shot on digital video, which robs the sumptuous scenery of depth. And yet it is true to say also that the rawness of video heightens the colours, and the almost dazzling contrast between them. As a result, scenes look stylised, but stylish too.This partial reimagining of 'Vampyros Lesbos (1971)' – one of Director Jess Franco's most highly regarded productions – is my favourite One Shot Production. Technically, it is on a par with 'Blind Target (2000)', but benefits from a far more interesting, although stretched-out, storyline. Uncle Jess's belief on the DVD packaging that 'Snakewoman is among the most sincere and creative films of my career' is … admirably enthusiastic.The 'Snakewoman' is played by Carmen Montes, complete with fangs and a body-straddling snake tattoo. Her nakedness beneath a black cloak recalls 'Female Vampire (1975)', or even Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin's 'Fascination (1979)'; it is a memorable and effective look. There's even a 'Renfield' character in the form of Christie Levin's very effective Alpha, who glides from being a victim to being pretty unnerving in her own right. In fact, the acting is uniformly impressive. A fully clothed Lina Romay makes a couple of fleeting appearances (her character's name appears to be Van Helsing), and looking elegant and dapper, Franco regular Antonio Mayans – or Robert Foster as he's sometimes credited – plays the doctor, or 'Nostradamus!' Of course, you would expect plenty of skin and elongated sex scenes, and you wouldn't be disappointed - often to the sound of jazzy piano music and some fairly copious amounts of bright red blood. Some scenes are seen from the victim's point-of-view, with blood falling from the attacker's lips onto the camera lens. A simple but effective trick, used by Chris Alexander in his 2012 'Blood for Irina' to great, and gross, effect.Not a classic, but many steps up from other One Shot Productions, and one of Franco's more stylish and enjoyable latter-day offerings.
MARIO GAUCI
Having finally watched one of Jess Franco's notoriously cheap filmed-on-video efforts for the American company One Shot, I can safely say that these are not for me: considering this is supposed to be a return to form and his most notable work in 20 years (if I remember correctly, my Venetian friend and veritable Jess Franco authority Francesco Cesari even went so far as to call it his very best upon first viewing!), I was thoroughly unenthused by what I got! As was the director's fashion, he has revamped (no pun intended) one of his earlier successes, VAMPYROS LESBOS (1970); since that had been among his more stylish outings (with a killer soundtrack to boot), the utterly flat look here is all the more disheartening! Incidentally, this is a sure sign of how Franco's approach has changed (to its ultimate detriment) with the passage of time: the earlier film had complemented the nudity and psychedelia with narrative strands recognizably derived from Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (which he had already officially adapted the previous year!); from the mid-1970s onwards, however, his plots grew increasingly thinner (though, at his best, he could still prove intriguing – as amply demonstrated by the recently-viewed and somewhat similar LORNA…THE EXORCIST {1974}, which is why I decided to follow it with this one) and the films basically became a succession of protracted sex scenes (which SNAKEWOMAN certainly is)! Anyway, what we have here is a female reporter going to a remote house to catalogue the property of a legendary uninhibited entertainer; before she has even arrived, the woman starts to feel her subject's influence (even if the latter is supposed to have died 60 years before!). However, the girl who lives there, adorned by a snake tattoo across her entire body (hence the title: thankfully, she is not made to turn into a reptile but is rather fitted with vampire fangs and cape, and nothing else!), claims to be her – apparently, she went into hiding after WWII and kept her youth by somehow becoming undead! She is flanked by a couple of servants (inevitably named Morpho and Andros but, apart from parading around stark naked, they do very little of any consequence!) and, as was the case with both VAMPYROS and LORNA, we are also introduced to a former lover/victim of hers who has gone bonkers and is being 'treated' in a clinic. In her case, however, it is by an even loonier monk (Franco regular Antonio Mayans) who spends much of his scenes "chanting in Latin" (as per the English subtitles on the print I watched, except that a lot of it is mumbo-jumbo and occasionally slipping into Italian)!; eventually, he is bitten by his patient but, rather than becoming a vampire, he kills himself! As I said, a sizeable chunk of the 98-minute running-time is taken up by lesbian matings – with a man being involved only, in old hardcore footage with a bloody climax (pardon the pun), ostensibly unearthed among the artifacts, its value being hilariously overstated by the heroine's newspaper editor as "of the Host"! While I did not mind watching the Snakewoman herself in action, Carmen Montes (since she is truly one of the most gorgeous Franco leading ladies ever – this is her 4th of 6 appearances for Franco so far – and I even liked her performance in general…though the feral vampire attacks, especially given the spot she literally sinks her teeth into for sustenance, are overdone!), her partners were somewhat less photogenic (and engaging on a personal level). Incidentally, we even have a cameo by Lina Romay aka Mrs. Franco – who, for once, keeps her clothes on (she is getting on in years, after all!) – as a psychiatrist dealing with the heroine's 'conversion' to the ranks of the undead; in the end, the reporter and her 'mentor' are re-united in the latter's house. While there are some attempts at atmosphere via the usual shots of birds (which may or may not be intended as symbolism) but also crude optical effects, and the music score is not too bad, it is sad to see film-making freedom being squandered on such trivial fare (so much so that I was tempted to dub this DRECKULA!); it is also highly ironic, then, that Franco frequently berated associates for compromising his vision but, more often than not, those situations yielded superior (or, at least, more palatable) results in the long run!
Kelly Maureen
This blew me out of my seat. It's almost x-rated as many Jess Franco films are. Lot's of skin and sex but it's all held together by a minimalist story that is somehow very interesting and makes it all worth it. Maybe it's a changing of the times with Jess Franco and his production company One Shot because long time star Lina Romay has been moved to a supporting, non-sexual, role and the stars are Carmen Montes as the Snakewoman and Fata Morgana as Carla, a roving reporter who winds up with the story of her life and an experience of a lifetime ~ she finds an old time actress who is not only still young and beautiful but also some kind of a vampire or succubus. What I really enjoyed was the comfortableness of the sexuality and the way the appealing actresses carried themselves. I don't care much for subtitles so I would have preferred an English language print. The DVD is only in Spanish with subtitles. But it's easy to follow and very easy to enjoy. The only thing that I couldn't understand is that there is no snake anywhere except on a tattoo.
