Credits

Director: Jess Franco Starring: Olivia Pascal, Christopher Moosbrugger, Nadja Gerganhoff, Alexander Waechter Screenplay: Rayo Casablanca Country: West Germany

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Our first murder occurs (and our first boobs are seen), and it's not as bloody and horrible as this film's reputation would have you believe. The boobs are quite nice though. Turns out that Fried-Chicken-Skin-Face-man – okay, his name is Miguel – has been locked up in a loony bin for some time after this murder, and would therefore be somewhat socially maladjusted. He's been released into his rather pert young sister Manuela's care, rather ill-advisedly by yet another Franco cameo, and therefore the carnage can continue.

Manuela and Miguel's insane wheelchair-bound aunt Maria dominates their lives – she's the kind of character you see in horror films who you want to see dead from the word go. Mrs Bates for the new decade, basically. And then there's a new teacher at the International School of Languages the family helps to fund, who is rubbish, but manages to throw in a new red herring, alongside Paco, the retarded groundsman. Has Miguel taken up his earlier murderous ways again, or is it someone else from the equally ill-acting cast? That's the question we should be answering.

As with most stalk-and-slash films, the protagonists main concerns seem to be rooting, rooting and more rooting. Oh, and if the opportunity turns up, they're all up for a bit of dirty talk and/or sexual innuendo. Don't these fools realise that this kind of thing will get them killed? Apparently not.

Turns out that Miguel and Manuela are a little closer than the average brother and sister – that's right, folks, incest – a game the whole family can play. Aunt Maria's hostility towards Manuela suddenly seems a little more understandable, although her condemnation of Manuela in favour of Miguel is a little ridiculous; after all, it takes too to tango – ol' fried chicken skin face can't be entirely without blame. Manuela won't fuck Miguel anymore, despite the fact he now has five years worth of blue balls to work out of his system, and also despite the fact that she kinda sorta seems to want to fuck him. Is she simply being a cock-tease? Could be. This, of course may lead to sundry folks being slain.

At this point, a couple of things become apparent. Firstly, Countess Maria must really have been hated, as she's been dead for a day (with a flaming torch to the face) and no fucker seems to have noticed. Secondly, Eva, one of the many faceless nubile young things who populate this film, is stabbed to death in a rather improbable fashion – the knife entering her back and exiting via her nipple. Leave it to Jess Franco to give us sex and death in such a fashion.

Angela, our rather obvious Final Girl, has some serious threats to deal with, delivered while learning Spanish (well, at least that's new, even if nothing else in the script is). She has nice cowboy boots, by the way. Everyone thinks she's a nutcase, of course. Including the coppers she runs into after nearly being crushed to death by a random falling boulder. You read that correctly. Outta nowhere, a boulder comes falling towards her. This could be seen by the average viewer as kind of silly.

Angela is trying to get people to believe that Eva is dead, has been murdered (she was killed in Angela's flat), but no-one is having a bar of it. Especially not our resident blunt instrument Antonio – he's a right cunt and the kind of self-loving Lothario that folks like you and I would kick to the kerb without a second's thought. He thinks he's God's gift to women, but really he's just a cowardly twat with no more character than the average cactus. The standard kind of alpha-male to populate a Franco film, or any kind of stalk'n'slash, really.

And so we reach the film's most notorious set piece, where Angela's mate Inga is beheaded via an industrial rotary saw. Again, the footage changes quality as an uncut print is inserted into the film – but hey, we get the fully uncut scene, so I'm not complaining. The effects aren't the best, as a matter of fact, they're close to laughable, but it's a fuck's sight more gruesome than any of the Friday The 13th wannabes around at the time. And it's followed up with a visceral piece of child slaughter that I'm sure was one of the reasons why the BBFC had this on the "Video Nasty" list.

Angela wants to tip the fuck outta there, with a level of intelligence and prescience that you normally don't find in stalk'n'slash heroines, but you just know that something is going to prevent that – after all, our Final Girl hasn't had her showdown with the killer yet. Yes, I'm aware that I'm reducing this to a formula, but isn't that what all of these films do? Teens want to have sex, teens die one by one, the assailant is unseen until the very end when facing off against the Final Girl (and it's always a girl) – this is nothing new, has the same level of red herrings as you'd expect, and atmosphere of a kind Franco can produce, even when not on his A game, which he certainly isn't here. This film has a certain amount of cache with slasher fans, but personally I don't rate it too highly. To me, this is one of Franco's most un-Franco films. It doesn't have the level of personal attachment that his best work does (say, his adaptations of de Sade, or Female Vampire), and really just apes the clichés of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, Prom Night and The Prowler kind of films that it's trying to exploit the success of.