Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

A Virgin Among the Living Dead Blu-ray Movie Review

Franco at his most morbidly poetic.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater August 23, 2013

When low-budget horror and Euro-sleaze auteur Jesus "Jess" Franco died this past April, at age 82, he left behind an enormous body of work, with over 150 features to his credit in a career that spanned from 1959 until this year, when poor health left him unable to complete his final movie, Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Women. We can certainly use the word "prolific" to describe his output, but even the most ardent Franco fans will acknowledge that many—if not the vast majority—of his films are totally forgettable. In his creatively lean years, he churned out one X-rated grindhouse cheapie after another, paying the bills but disassociating himself from any real consideration as a serious filmmaker. (Or, at least, one to be taken seriously.) Still, inside this sea of sleaze, several films worthy of lasting appreciation have bobbed to the surface, notable for their unexpectedly buoyant mixture of deliberate artiness and low-brow voyeurism. Redemption Films and their distribution partner, Kino-Lorber, have been reissuing these more-successful Franco efforts in deluxe Blu-ray editions, and their latest batch of titles includes three films—The Awful Dr. Orlof, Nightmares Come at Night, and A Virgin Among the Living Dead—that find the director at his most visually compelling.

The Virgin

Like many of Franco's movies—which were often chopped down, added to, or sexed-up for different markets—there are a number of versions of the film that is most often referred to as A Virgin Among the Living Dead. Franco's original 1973 cut was initially known as Night of the Shooting Stars, which more faithfully captures the film's mournful, poetic mood, but the title was changed to the Living Dead moniker to better attract horror audiences for its first round of French distribution. Soon after, a "softcore" iteration was commissioned without Franco's involvement under the title Christina, Princess of Eroticism, which added a five-minute dream sequence of goofily simulated sex. The film was further butchered seven years later, in 1980—at the height of the nascent zombie craze—when fellow Euro-sleaze director Jean Rollin was hired to shoot new scenes featuring shambling George A. Romero-style zombies for a version once again called A Virgin Among the Living Dead. (A popular cult item on VHS, this has been the most widely seen version.) Rollin's inserted scenes have nothing to do with the plot, and the walking corpses are absurdly out of place in Franco's story, where the "undead" are of the ghostly variety, cursed to hang around a deserted chateaux until a sacrifice frees their spirits. Redemption Films includes the Rollin-supplemented edition in its entirety as an extra, but thankfully presents as the main feature a cut of the film that's probably as close to Franco's original as we're ever going to get.

The film might best be described as a morbid surrealist mood piece and fever dream, less dependent on causal A-to-B-to-C plotting than an emotional intuition for how the story should wander from one strange incident to the next. Christina Mont Blanc plays Christina Benson, a newly orphaned girl who leaves her boarding school in England and comes to the continent—to the small village of Monteserate—for the reading of her father's will. When she arrives at his chateaux, just in time to witness her step-mother's Herminia's death—presumably of some mixture of heartache and illness—she meets for the first time her extended family of cold, emotionally distant weirdos. Her leering Uncle Howard (The Awful Dr. Orlof's Howard Vernon) and suspicious Aunt Abigail (Rosa Palomar). Her lascivious step-cousin Carmencé (Britt Nichols), who walks around the house in white stockings with her nightgown undone. Franco himself plays the dim-witted Basilio, who carries a severed chicken's head and chitters to himself unintelligibly. The funeral service they hold for Herminia is a bizarre parody of Catholic rites, turned into Latin gibberish, and we soon get the feeling— long before Christina, who's simply happy to have family again—that these relations are more spectral than truly alive. Our hunch proves correct when the dark-haired Queen of the Night (Anne Libert) appears and makes it known that she has imprisoned Christina's father's soul for committing suicide. Strangers Christina meets outside the chateaux confirm that the mansion has long been deserted, and that "the ghost of the people who lived in the house come back to haunt it." And still she stays, more willing to be accepted among the dead than alone in the world of the living.

A skeleton key for understanding A Virgin Among the Living Dead—as much as that's possible—is the knowledge that Franco made it shortly after the tragic vehicular death of his self-described muse Soledad Miranda, who had appeared in eight of his movies, starting with his Christopher Lee- starring Count Dracula. The film, then, seems to be an expression of grief, an examination of depression—not unlike Lars Von Trier's Melancholia, in a way—and a bleak satire of the rituals that surround the death of a loved one. (Watch how Franco's character snores through the reading of Christina's father's will.) In typical Franco fashion, there's a strange blend of muted black comedy and out-of-left-field eroticism—see the large black phallus that shows up in Christina's bedroom one morning, or a lesbian encounter that involves scissoring of the literal, metal-cutting-device type—but Virgin Among the Living Dead is much more restrained and thoughtful than many of the director's gaudier, trashier productions. The film has a sustained mood of pervasive sadness, a morbid dreaminess that would be more at home in a Jean Rollin movie, and it's home to some of the most striking imagery of Franco's career. If you thought Franco made only garbage—and he certainly worked hard at making that his reputation—this is the film that might convince you otherwise.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like most Kino/Redemption collaborations, A Virgin Among the Living Dead is presented essentially "as-is," without any notable cleanup, digital or otherwise. On the one hand, this means the picture is covered from start to finish with white specks, small scratches, and bits of black debris—the opening title sequence is especially messy—but on the other, this kind of come-as-you-are presentation does give an impression of the history of the print. It's honest. Authentic. I may be in the minority here, but I think it works, and it's not unlike watching the film in some run-down grindhouse theater. (That's not to say I wouldn't like to see a miraculous frame-by-frame restoration of A Virgin Among the Living Dead someday, but I'm not holding my breath.) Print damage aside, this new 1080p/AVC-encoded Blu-ray is miles better than previous DVD editions, not to mention the various poorly-cut and dubiously transferred VHS versions, both official and bootlegged. The biggest leap, obviously, is in clarity. On a technical level, Franco was always a shabby, by-the-seat-of-his-pants filmmaker—working with low budgets and quick shoots—so you can't expect every shot to be tack sharp, or even in focus at all. That said, this new transfer gives a clear and natural-looking reproduction of what was captured on film, and when the image is sharp, fine details emerge that we could never make out in standard definition. Just as importantly, the film's grain structure is preserved, and there are no signs of edge enhancement or adverse compression issues. Color is keenly balanced for the most part as well—never oversaturated or flat— although there are some inevitable moments where detail is thoroughly crushed in the shadows. Overall, a worthwhile upgrade for Franco fans.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The disc includes two audio options, the default French track and an English mix, both in uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 mono. I suppose the French track will be the purist's choice, but the English dub—like the one for The Awful Dr. Orlof—is actually quite good. (In his commentary track, Tim Lucas mentions his opinion that the English dialogue is more fittingly poetic.) So take your pick. Quality-wise, both have their age-related issues—a low, sometimes noticeable hiss, short pops and crackles—but nothing particularly distracting. Dialogue is always fairly clear and easily understood and, dynamically, the mix never sounds overly thin or brash. The highlight here is the absolutely haunting score from Bruno Nicolai (Caligula), which weds perfectly to Franco's otherworldly visuals. English subtitles are available for those who need or want them.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary: Video Watchdog editor and human Jess Franco encyclopedia Tim Lucas delivers a new commentary track that will be invaluable to fans of A Virgin Among the Living Dead, parsing out the details in the film that you might only pick up on a second or third viewing.
• A Virgin Among the Living Dead (HD, 1:30:08): The disc also includes the entire 1980 cut of the film, with Jean Rollin's inane additions, including two exceptionally slow zombie sequences and a more graphic rape scene.
• Alternate Erotic Footage (HD, 5:18): Here you'll find the single inserted sex scene from the Christine, Princess of Erotica edition, wherein a red-masked queen orders four couples to make love on a lawn. Boring stuff, and far less erotic than the material that's actually in Franco's original cut.
• Jess Franco Interview (HD, 11:12): In his last video interview, the snaggletoothed Franco talks about his hate for the title Virgin Among the Living Dead, and how the film has "no realistic meanings."
• The Three Faces of Christina (HD, 11:52): A series of interviews with two film historians and the son of Virgin's producer, who discuss the three main cuts of the film.
• Homage to Jess (HD, 8:24): These same interview subjects reflect on Franco's life and career. (This feature is included on all three of this week's Franco releases.)
• Trailers (HD): Includes trailers for A Virgin Among the Living Dead, The Awful Dr. Orlof, Female Vampire, Exorcism/Demoniac, and Oasis of the Zombies.
• Photo Gallery (HD): A collection of sixteen stills and promo images.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm admittedly not the biggest Francophile, but his moody original cut of A Virgin Among the Living Dead—while not what I might call a great film—is a bizarre and haunting experience, led more by emotional intuition than a conventional plot. This is Franco at his most thoughtful and personal, expressing his own grief and thoughts about death and family through the medium of film. If you're drawn to le fantastique and the more mid-brow Euro-sleaze movies of the 1970s, it's definitely a movie worth watching at least once. Kino and Redemption's new Blu-ray set is clearly the best way to set about doing this; the new high definition transfer is excellent, and the disc includes some extras that will be invaluable for a fuller understanding of Franco's intent.