MANSION OF THE LIVING DEAD – This overlooked Jess Franco number is pretty crazy. Four swingin’ German women, about to embark on a holiday shagfest, think the big, deserted hotel they’ve just booked into is a bit strange. Not content to wait around until they can snare some other hotties, they pair off and get into a little softcore action themselves. On taking a breather between all the gymnastics, a couple of them find that the ruined monastery next door just happens to host a cult of Blind Dead-esque zombie monks, who give some spiel about how slutty the girls are before brutally raping them! It’s all Franco, but ‘Mansion of the Living Dead’ is like a forbidden hybrid of Benny Hill, Bunuel and JG Ballard. It’s so dreamlike that it passes over into surrealism, the tone drifting from whimsy to nasty with the lazy ease of an afternoon on a sunbed (laid out next to someone in a white cowl and a skull mask). It’s a film where throwaway comedy with a lecherous gardener-type pulls back to reveal chained up nudes in bleached-out chalets, twilit passageways flooded with eerie light, and the miasma of unease blown in by that ever-howling wind and the bell’s distant toll. As always with Franco, there is a sense of something a bit metaphysical teetering on the verge of silliness. If that doesn’t float your boat, there’s always Lina Romay in a blond wig.
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