That was an excellent one.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Buoyed by his film 'Vampyros Lesbos', Director Jess Franco quickly employed a very similar cast and crew for this typically leery-titled horror/drama.The mighty Soledad Miranda plays the wife of Doctor Johnson, whose experiments with embryos has caused him to be vilified by his peers and banned from continuing his work. Taking care to wear a series of tight shirts unbuttoned to reveal some handsome jewellery, he then goes through spiralling turmoil ending in suicide. His wife determines to get revenge on those who drove him to this.As with just about all Franco films, scenes of tension are accompanied by exotic and jaunty jazz music that sometimes works because it is so inappropriate and sometimes doesn't. The former Mrs Johnson's subsequent seductions-prior-to-murder are scored with grimly fitting incidentals, and together with Franco's obsession with close-ups and zoom-outs, concoct a heady, disorientating nightmare. Surprisingly, Franco regular Howard Vernon is the first person to cop it.Apart from making her name in 'exploitation' films, there's no denying Miranda's power as an actress. She is tremendous throughout despite (on the DVD I am watching), she is buried beneath unbefitting dubbing and subtitles, and has a genuine sense of presence that makes the routine seduction/death plot line far more interesting than it would have otherwise been. Her early death on the eve of what looked like global stardom remains a great tragedy.

"Sie tötete in Ekstase" or "She Killed In Ecstasy" is a pretty short West German / Spanish horror movie about a woman who goes insane after her husband commits suicide. The husband was a renowned doctor, but one of his studies was performed in a way that other important doctors could not accept and that is why they publicly humiliated him and forbid him to keep working in his profession. As a consequence, the man commits suicide and his wife takes revenge on the people who caused this to her husband. The director is the famous Jesús Franco and the lead actress is played by his muse Soledad Miranda. Miranda was already dead when this was released here and there is certainly some irony to the last scene of the movie and her tragic death. The most known 8at least to me) actor in here is Horst Tappert, who plays a police detective who does apparently not have 1% of Derrick's wit and intelligence.You can watch this film for a couple reasons. Taking it seriously in terms of story, however, is not one of them. It was obvious who the killer was after the first murder and yet nobody came to stop her. Instead the police still wonders almost at the end of the film who did this. Pretty ridiculous. The murder scenes are also not too scare actually, more like funny how weird they are and there are several more scenes for which this applies. The best reason to watch this is either because of Miranda's stunning beauty (some nudity in here too) or simply as a guilty pleasure. Yes sexuality certainly was different in the 1970s and I am not only talking about the protagonist's bush down there. At one point, the film almost sounded like an installment of the popular "Schulmädchen" franchise. Solid watch all in all, but by today's standards really more funny than scary. I recommend it. Maybe my favorite from Franco.

I think on the conscious level, Franco isn't worth knowing. Why I come to him is for semiconscious blurs wrapped around a love for women. This one is utterly childish on a story level, probably written in two days. Its notion of madness is yelling and voices. It isn't much of a horror film either. The violence is tame, a bit of red paint here, a grimace of asphyxiation there. Visually it is unremarkable, even sloppy whereas Eugenie De Sade was hazy remembrance. The sole reason to watch it? Four different scenarios with the beautiful Soledad Miranda as she tracks down four doctors responsible for her man's suicide. In each one she gets naked, each one a slight variation of seduction. The sunny Mediterranean locales, the loose commitment to sex, it maybe even works as comfortable lounging.I'd like to think she could be on her way to become another Adjani, the same petite frame and mysterious air. Under Franco's direction, she's still trying to act with her mouth. But her glimmering eyes were the true article.

A young doctor experiments with fusing animal and human embryos, which incurs the wrath of the ruling medical board. They humiliate him and banish him; he then goes berserk and kills himself. After a decent interval of mourning, his widow–-played to the sultry hilt by Soledad Miranda–goes all-out for revenge. She's determined to wipe out all those bad doctors–male and female–who did her hubby wrong.Most of the killings involve Miranda using her (considerable) womanly wiles to seduce her victims before slashing or stabbing them. (One scene, however, would have us believe that it only takes 20 seconds to smother someone to death.) Once the slaying starts–about 30 minutes into the movie–things move along at a rapid clip. (Possibly a bad choice of words considering what our Black Widow does to her male victims afterward.) In any case, this rampage gives us many shots of Miranda's beautiful bod. Female viewers, meanwhile, can enjoy the scenes of Jess Franco shirtless and Howard Vernon in the buff. And everybody can amuse themselves by counting the spelling errors in the English subtitles, or relaxing to a music score better suited to a nightclub than a horror movie.The tired old "crime does not pay" ending involves some of the worst deductive reasoning I've heard on-screen. It's also oddly prophetic, considering what happened to Soledad Miranda in real life.