The Awful Dr. Orlof Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

The Awful Dr. Orlof Blu-ray Movie Review

Spain's—and Franco's—First Horror Film

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 200 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 most—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 Awful Dr. Orlof

Made in 1962, The Awful Dr. Orlof—Franco's breakthrough film—holds the distinction of being Spain's first proper horror movie. (To be more accurate, it was a Spanish-French coproduction.) At the time, the horror genre as a whole was very much stuck in the Hammer mold—fusty, turn-of- the-century stories, mad scientists, disfigured monsters, stormy nights—a mold that Dr. Orlof certainly doesn't break. In fact, the project landed in Franco's lap when he specifically insisted to his producers that he could make a commercially successful movie in the Hammer Horror style. Now, "commercially successful" is not a phrase often attached to Franco, who increasingly favored opaque, hard-to-sell narratives, but at this stage in his career he was apparently willing to be conventional. Compared to his later films, Dr. Orlof is extremely straightforward, and though Franco denied any influence, the story bears a striking resemblance to Georges Franju's (far superior) 1960 film, Eyes Without a Face, about a doctor going to murderous lengths to repair his disfigured daughter's visage.

Swiss actor Howard Vernon—who would appear in many subsequent Franco films—is suave and menacing as the titular Orlof, a former prison doctor who gave up his career when his daughter's face was burned or otherwise marred in some unnamed accident. With the girl kept in a kind of medically induced coma, Orlof preys on easy nighttime targets—drunk women, cabaret singers, gold diggers—luring them back to his decrepit mansion so he can drug them and flay off their skin for experimental grafts. He's been unsuccessful thus far, and now that five women have disappeared in three months under nearly identical circumstances, the police are beginning to suspect a serial killer. Orlof's strategic advantage, though, is that he has his blind and near-mute manservant Morpho (Ricardo Valle) do some of the dirty work for him, causing discrepancies in witnesses' accounts of the murderer's appearance. (Morpho also has a thing for feeling up the victims, which gives Franco an excuse for some brief nudity.) Hot on the case is the goodnatured Inspector Tanner (Conrado San Martín), who has some help courtesy of the feminine intuition of his ballerina girlfriend, Wanda (Diana Lorys), who—it should not surprise you to find out—lands in danger herself when Orloff pursues her as his next victim.

It's a simple, derivative plot, and it loses momentum during the criminal investigation scenes, since the dramatic irony—we know who the killer is, though Tanner doesn't—means that everything the detective discovers feels like repetitive information to us. The film is better when it stays inside Dr. Orloff's obsessive, single-focused mind. We're meant to empathize with his attempts to heal his daughter, while also feeling disgust for the means in which he sets about doing so, and this gives the character some appreciable dimension. He's as awful as the title suggests, but there's a human side to his uncaring cruelty. While the film is hardly scary, it does deliver a few old-fashioned horror movie shocks—including Morpho busting out of a closet and Dr. Orloff taking a scalpel to a topless victim's chest—and the atmosphere is thick with dread. What's most impressive here is how keenly Franco was able to imitate the look and feel of a Hammer Horror production on an exceedingly small budget, conjuring up deep Expressionist shadows and shooting in Madrid's empty midnight streets. The film is nearly classical in its presentation, a style Franco would quickly abandon for more lurid cinematic delights.

The Awful Dr. Orlof Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

If you've seen other Franco films from Redemption—or any Redemption titles, really—you should already know what to expect from The Awful Dr. Orlof. That is, a print that hasn't been significantly cleaned up but still looks drastically better than previous home video editions, simply on the merit of being newly transferred in high definition. Age-related damage runs pretty much constantly through the film in the form of small scratches and white specks—nothing more intense, thankfully—but that's par for the course for these kinds of films, and you quickly get used to it. More importantly, the 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer appears largely true to source and free from compression problems. The film's grain structure is intact— there's no smearing from digital noise reduction—and the picture has a warm, organic look. Clarity is much improved from older standard definition versions, and the the newfound level of fine detail and texture is often impressive, especially in closeups. The one oddity I noticed is that the black and white gradation seems somewhat limited, dynamically, with a combination of muted highlights and crushed shadows at times. Regardless, the image never looks flat or lifeless because of it, and I think it's safe to say that The Awful Dr. Orlof looks dashing in his high definition debut.

The Awful Dr. Orlof Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

We're given two audio options here, the original French dub and an English dub, both presented in uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 mono. The English mix is quite good, surprisingly, so don't hesitate to switch over from the default French track if you feel like it. Aside from the language, both tracks are nearly identical; the only substantive difference I noted is that the dialogue in the French version sounds just a hair brighter and more to the forefront of the mix. Still, even in the English dub vocals are clear and easy to understand, with a minimum of peaking or muffling. You will hear a slight hiss at times, and occasional splice pops and crackles, but nothing out of the usual for a film of this pedigree. There's also some brashness to the clattering, discordant score, particularly in the opening scenes, but it eventually mellows out. The disc includes only English subtitles.

The Awful Dr. Orlof Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary: Video Watchdog editor and Franco expert Tim Lucas gives a thorough and thoughtful dissection of the film, its place as the kickstarter of the director's career, and its technical achievements on a tiny budget.
• Jess Franco Interview (HD, 15:46): In the last video interview before his death, Franco discusses Orlof and his early career.
• "Making Of" Documentary (HD, 18:42): Filmmaker Daniel Gouyette has interviewed film historians Alain Petite and Lucas Balbo, along with Daniel Lesoeur—the son of Orlof's producer—who talk about the making of the film, particularly its relationship to several thematically similar movies of the time.
• Homage to Jess (HD, 8:24): The same interview subjects above reminisce about the director and his work.
• Trailers (HD): Includes trailers for The Awful Dr. Orlof, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, Female Vampire, Exorcism/Demoniac, and Oasis of the Zombies.
• Photo Gallery (HD): A collection 16 stills and poster images.

The Awful Dr. Orlof Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As the starting point for Jess Franco's horror career, The Awful Dr. Orlof is notable not so much for how it previsioned the rest of the director's work—though some of his thematic preoccupations are visible here—but for how conventional it is compared to his later films, which would become far more erotic and surreal. Orlof is Franco in a short-lived Hammer Horror mode, telling the story of an obsessed doctor through a gloomy, Gothic Romantic sensibility, complete with a disfigured monster and a drafty chateaux. It's certainly worth seeing for fans of classic horror, and Kino/Redemption's new Blu-ray release is by far the best home video release of the film, featuring a new high definition transfer, lossless audio, and some excellent bonus features. Recommended!