The awful Dr. Orlof.
This early 1962 effort from Jess Franco has Howard Vernon as the Titular Dr. Stalking the streets at night with his blind, vampiric henchman stalking sexy women so he can steal their faces to graft onto his daughter.
Franco borrows the visual style of classic british gothic as well as a certain amount of German expressionism. Thrown into the mix is the obvious plot theft of eyes without a face, an idea he would return to with films such as faceless.
Orlof is a great little gothic horror and a great jumping in point for anyone curious about his films. It's possibly his most accessible work and as with a lot of his horror output he can turn out a genuinely atmospheric horror movie when he's on form.
The redemption blu-ray is region free. As they don't really restore stuff there is plenty of print damage evident but for me that adds to the charm, certainly with Jess Franco films at least. Its also the full strength uncut print as well which is nice.
|