The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus

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Audience Member Silly early Jess Franco thriller. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member The highest rated (on IMDB anyway) film in my recent Franco Marathon is actually his earliest. An interesting little Gothic potboiler, it is indeed the most technically proficient and linear of the films I watched, so perhaps I should delve deeper into his early career before he succumbed to his own personal pleasures of the flesh and started just filming his girlfriends naked. A family curse leads the local villagers to believe that the descendant of Baron Von Klaus has fallen into his relative's torturous habits when women begin to turn up mutilated. There aren't any big surprises here, but it's a fun ride. Worth a look, I'd actually suggest starting with this one vs the reverse order (lowest to highest rated) that I approached these in. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member This isn't one of Franco's best movies, the story isn't great, nor are the actors. It's not a really bad movie, it's just okay. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Decent early offering from Jess Franco. This is easily the smoothest, least flawed Franco film I've seen, yet it's also the least interesting. The production and photography are of a higher quality than his later works, yet the story feels less ambitious and more generic. Though somewhat disappointing, the overall aesthetic is certainly less frustrating than latter day Franco, and has some intriguing similarities to some later Italian horrors. I'd bet that Bloody Pit of Horror and Baron Blood were both more than a little inspired by this film, though each take their similar premise in radically different directions. Though the characters often refer to supernatural phenomena, Franco eschews much of that gothic imagery for some suspense and murder sequences straight out of a giallo (viewers wanting to see something of that ilk should check out Bava's Baron Blood). The murder mystery is fairly engaging and managed to keep me off the scent with a fair share of red herrings, but I can't say it was up there with the best of them. The ending, though, was curiously reminiscent of the later A Virgin Among the Living Dead, both visually and thematically. It occurred to me as I watched that all of the three Franco films I've watched recently (this, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, and Female Vampire) share some strong thematic connections, strengthening the reading of Franco as an auteur. Most significant is the cursed family and tragic killer. I plan to watch more Franco films now to see if any more connections occur to me. I have seen The Bloody Judge but barely remember a thing about it. In the meantime, my final word on this film is that it's decent but lacks the artistic ambition of a later work like A Virgin Among the Living Dead that would warrant repeat viewing. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Belonging to Franco's early Period with other films like The Awful Dr. Orloff and Dr. Orloff's Monster, this film blends a gothic atmosphere with elements of police procedurals, giallos, and torture films to create a nice little film that is rather brutal for its day. The dungeon scene at the end presaging Franco's later blend of eroticism and violence, and in the film he creates a artistically rendered horror film. In many ways, some might argue that some of the directorial rigor and restraint might have paid off handsomely in some of his later works which sometimes devolve into pure lunacy. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus

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