MANSION is the story of 4 topless dancers (perfect!) that take a vacation to a Spanish Island resort. When the ladies show up to the lush resort it is completely deserted with the exception of the hotel owner, and a creepy groundskeeper. The ladies are told that the hotel is, in fact, full of guests, and the ladies assume there may be an event of some kind on the other side of the island where every one is at--they seem only slightly bothered by this, but they also seem very air headed too. Of course they are all bi-sexual (yes!), so they break off into pairs, and we see some lesbian one-on-one in the hotel rooms. The women take to the topless beach, and get a butcher's axe tossed at them from one of the hotel balconies--but do they let that stop there fun? Hells no! They get over that scene really quick, and the ladies break up to do their own things. One of the women leaves the resort to take some pictures of an old monastery nearby--and that is the last we see of her. Another takes a ride w/the hotel owner to the very same monastery, and there she is held captive by a group of undead monks that have pledge allegiance to Satan, and they kill her, after she is gang raped by them all.

Back at the hotel, the last two ladies hook-up, but soon start to worry about their two friends...but not too much. Candy, played by Lina Romay (under her alter ego, Candy Coster)--hears strange moans in the night, and sets out to find where they are coming from, and finds a naked woman chained to a wall in one of the other hotel rooms. She is the sex slave (somewhat willing it seems) for the hotel owner, Carlos (played quite well by Antonio Mayans--looking a lot like a Spanish James Spader), and she proceeds to tell Candy about the cursed island, the monks, that the island as been abandoned for years, and that Carlos is a psycho---now at this point, the normal person would probably flee the island, but this is a Jess Franco movie remember.

Soon the Carlos falls for Candy, and wants her as his bride, and she is also taken to the monastery and given the ol' gangbang treatment, but Carlos begs for her life to be spared, Candy goes back and kills the last girl, and they all live happily ever after. Yay!

Whoooo! What a mess--but damn if I didn't stay glued to it. Franco has a great eye for scenery. The way he uses shafts of light, and off-the-wall camera shots are just awesome. The acting is bad for the most part, but the characters (and plot) are secondary to the film--his films are all about atmosphere, and this one (as well as MACUMBA) has it. Sonic-wise; the church bells, howling winds, ocean waves--all enhance the film, and make it watchable. Of course Franco loads the film w/T&A, and semi-graphic sex (sadly no gore to speak of) which helps--all the women are naked, half naked or almost naked throughout the whole film. Lina Romay is hot--not all will agree probably--but I love her curves (I prefer a full figured woman) and she doesn't hide them. Too bad she has a mouth full of horse teeth or she'd be even hotter. She goes w/her alternate screen name Candy Coster in both films, a name inspired by the blond wig she wears in the films (I actually prefer her with black hair).

Calling the film a "horror" movie would be sort of misleading--a sexploitation film w/elements of horror would be more accurate, which seems strange to say about a film with "living dead" in the title. I can imagine this film has pissed off a lot of zombie nuts expecting a zombie movie a la George Romero/Lucio Fulci. Speaking of Romero, in an interview on the DVD, Franco goes into detail about his dislike of Romero-esque zombies and shows more affection to the zombies from the Blind Dead series (of which the monks in this film are an obvious homage to). Personally, I like 'em all--people that nit-pick about different kinds of zombies, and how they should or should not act, bug me.

Macumba Sexual (1983)

Now for something completely different...MACUMBA SEXUAL. Starring post-op' tranny, Ajita Wilson--any rumors about her 'not' being a tranny should check out Lina Romay's comments about the subject on the DVD. Romay gets up close and personal w/Ajita's nether regions in this film--so she really would know. MACUMBA SEXUAL also takes place seaside, like MANSION and features Candy Coster on vacation, with her husband. He's a writer, and she's some sort of housing agent. She gets a call from her boss to try and sell a house to a one, Princess Obongo (Wilson), stating she will get a large bonus for the sell. So even though she's on vacation, she agrees, and sets off to meet the Princess...or does she? The whole film seems like a sexually driven fever dream sequence that never ends...is she dreaming this scene? Or is it really happening? We never truly know.

MACUMBA's sex scenes are slightly more graphic than MANSION, but are never full-on porn. Franco shoots the sex scenes (which are obviously real) in a way that stays on soft side of soft-core porn, but borders on hardcore. It's not as though Franco hasn't made porn before or after this film, so it's a wonder why he decided to keep the movie soft-core, but I would never begin to try and figure out the mind of Jess Franco.

Say what you will about Ajita Wilson, but she/he is one scary looking dude/chick. She (I'm just gonna go w/she) has screen presence, and she plays her part well. Romay's job was to run around naked, all freaked out and scared, and she accomplishes that, I suppose. Antonio Mayans is here as well, as the husband, looking like a completely different person than in MANSION (here he sports black hair and a moustache). The only other people in the cast are Obongo's slaves that she walks around on all fours w/chains, and big dog collars (one of which looks eerily like Will Ferrel), and of course there is, Mr. Franco himself, playing a hotel clerk--yet another half retarded character, as he plays them very well. You can only laugh at Franco's dubbed voice, slightly sounding like a high pitched, Adam Sandler. For as serious as Franco's films seem, he always throws in some extra dry humor in the mix (the pube-in-the-teeth scene in MANSION had me rolling).

If MANSION was all about atmosphere, MACUMBA SEXUAL is about that, but ten-fold. The only word I can use to describe some of the shots in the film would be--amazing. Some of the vista shots of the desert don't even look real, but the film didn't have the budget to fake them, so you know they are real. Franco is best when he shoots outside, in the daylight; he uses natural light like no other director, which may be why some of his films that take place in the dark look so crappy. Watch the way he catches the sparkles off of Ajita's headwrap, or the shafts of light in Romay's hotel room scenes. One of my biggest gripes about Franco is that he is truly capable of greatness—which he proves time after time, but he's too bogged down in his own vision to achieve it. As can be seen in any interview with the man (both DVDs feature great interviews w/Franco and Romay), he's quite a character and he plays to the rhythm of his own drummer, which is why after witnessing some of his really bad flicks, I still respect the man.

All Franco love aside, both of these films are not suitable for mass-consumption. I say that not to sound like a snob, as if to say, "Only I am intelligent enough to understand these films, and if you don't you're in some way inferior to me"--far from it. Both of these films, for the most part, are bad movies--depending on what your idea of a "good" movie is. Most will be bored, some will just flat out hate them both--and I completely respect that. Like I said previously, I can't defend Franco's films, but I also can't say I hate them all--whatever it is the man is trying to accomplish with his films, I like it and will keep watching them, bad or good.

Hail Franco, King of the Freex!!

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