Jess Franco’s Top Five Sleaziest Horror Films

This week we have opted to showcase Jess Franco’s five sleaziest horror films! Franco was the prolific director of a series of sexploitation horror pictures. Owning the title of master of sleaze is quite the achievement. Franco had a fetish for graphic violence, beautiful photography, and female nudity. With that in mind, he made more than 150 films depicting explicit, erotic, violent imagery. Although many of his films were completely tasteless, they were nonetheless entertaining. So, let’s revisit five of his sleaziest, shall we?

Barbed Wire Dolls (1975)

In this women’s prison tale, a woman named Maria is thrown into jail after murdering her father, who tried to rape her. Once in jail, the clichés abound: A masculine, cruel warden, excessive lesbianism, nudity, a male doctor who may be able to save Maria, and a hysterical inmate. The sleaze in this film is outrageous, depicting but not limited to masturbation with a cigarette and extreme close ups of rape scenes. The film is never boring, just a bit hard to watch at times.

Female Vampire (1973)

A mute, beautiful young woman walks around, wears a cape and gives strangers fellatio because that’s how she captures their life energy. Ridiculous, I know. From the title I was expecting, I don’t know, a vampire flick? But I was wrong. The plot for this one is largely detached and Female Vampire really seems like more of a soft core adult film. The majority of the movie sees this ‘female vampire’ literally sucking the life from men’s genitals. The film is somehwat pointless; however, if you enjoy bizarre, nonsensical sleaze, this one is likely up your alley.

Voodoo Passion (1977)

A woman named Susan arrives in Haiti to live with her husband, who lives with a lesbian housekeeper who is always naked and just so happens to be a nymphomaniac. When Susan first meets this housekeeper, she’s introduced to her as Jack’s sister. Why? No clue. After that, Susan begins to have nightmares about brutal murders and voodoo ceremonies. I’m sure you can imagine what happens from there.

Sadomania (1981)

This is another women’s prison film with another heartless warden. A newlywed couple parks their car so they can fondle each other, but it just so happens to be on private property. The two are caught and taken to a women’s prison. The husband is released but his wife is out of luck. She is arrested and subsequently sexually abused by the ruthless lesbian warden, the governor, and his wife.

I’m unsure what Franco was trying to do with this one. There are some horror elements, however there’s more sleaze. In one particular scene, a man has sex with his wife while watching another women being raped by a dog. Yes, a dog. And of course it wouldn’t be a Jesús Franco film if women weren’t tied up with chains.

Lorna the Exorcist (1974)

There’s a woman named Lorna who is tormenting her ex-lover. This film doesn’t have anything to do with exorcism, but it is all about possession. The atmosphere in this flick is completely hypnotizing; however, it’s filled with obscenity. It is banned in several countries due to the fact that it has small black crabs crawling out of a woman’s downstairs. I could elaborate more on why it’s banned, but I’d prefer to just stop there.

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