AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Scott LeBrun The intoxicatingly sexy Marie Liljedahl plays the title role, an innocent young woman who is invited to spend time on an island paradise with Madame Saint Ange (Maria Rohm) and her creepy brother Mirvel (Jack Taylor). She discovers that the intention is to initiate her into a variety of depravities presided over by the dapper, elegant Dolmance (Sir Christopher Lee)."Eugenie...the Story of Her Journey Into Perversion" will not be to all tastes, and indeed it has been deemed controversial over the years. Based on the novel "Philosophy in the Boudoir" by none other than The Marquis de Sade, it makes ideal material for the celebrated cult filmmaker Jess Franco. Franco had made more than his fair share of trash during his career, and viewers will likely be impressed with the way that he marries art and sleaze in this stylish production. Granted, it moves at a snails' pace, there are too many out of focus shots, and the music score is loud and Godawful enough at times to really take you out of the action. But Francos' creation of imagery is highly striking, and he does a fine job working with the cinematic aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The dialogue is provocative and literate, especially when it's spoken by Lee. Prolific producer Harry Alan Towers scripted, using his standard pseudonym of "Peter Welbeck".Franco always had some incredibly beautiful and sexy women in his films, and this is no exception. Liljedahl is very appealing and is particularly easy to watch. The whole cast - also including Paul Muller and Anney Kablan - is good, with Lee providing a special treat with his cameo appearance(s).While pretty explicit - there's a generous dose of nudity - the film is also violent without being very gory. It should do the trick for any lover of exploitation.Seven out of 10.

FacemeltingFilms The way the mainstream chooses to see humanity is very strange. It is excepted that on the norm we are kind, generous, loving people. All and all innocents. Their view is some people are lead astray by greed or mental imbalances and do crazy things. At our heart humans are all good, "normal", healthy people. This is the view point most have as a child also.Unfortunately this is a very skewed outlook. Yes humans have the ability to be kind, and loving and we do it often. But in reality, I believe, it is in our nature to also be mean, disrespectful psychos. The mind is not an easy thing to deal with and each person reacts differently. To think otherwise you must completely ignore the news on TV, most of your friends and family, and the overall sense of lunacy that you feel in your heart when things go wrong.This mental illness that we all have largely stems from wanting sex. It may not look that way a lot of the time. A lot of your actions may be very round about ways to getting there but everything in the end comes down to finding another person to be with intimately. If you have not realized this within yourself there is a good chance you are scared and embarrassed of the way you truly feel and are burying these emotions deep within you. When people do this they manifest in different ways. Mostly it ends up being anger towards themselves or towards others. This does not account for all the anger in the world but I think may account for a large majority of the religious anger.One of our hardest jobs growing up is dealing with this. As children most of us do not understand any sort of sexual interest. As we grow older we are perverted and start noticing the strange new feelings we have. How we deal with them based on our situations becomes a large part of who we are for the rest of our lives. Jess Franco's 1970 film Eugenie addresses this part of our lives directly though the story of a young girl named after the title.Eugenie is a beautiful young girl who becomes captivated by an older woman named Ange. Ange invites Eugenie to spend the weekend with her on her private island in Spain. What Eugenie doesn't know is Ange and her step brother/lover Mirvel have brought her to the island to seduce her.(SPOILERS) After taking a bath with Ange and a little light kissing she is drugged at dinner and molested. The next day she wakes up not sure if it was a dream or real. As the vacation continues Eugenie is molested more and more to the point of rape and whippings. Ange and Mirvel invite a sect of Marquis De Sade followers who enter the house to kill her. Eugenie stabs Mirvel while he tries to rape her and kills him. The Marquis de Sade group decides not to kill Eugenie but instead Ange. After torturing Ange Eugenie runs off naked into the beach only to be confronted with a large graveyard of sacrificed victims. In a fit of anger and terror she runs aimlessly through the beach collapsing on the sand sobbing. (END SPOILERS)Eugenie's "journey" is a beautiful, truthful and disgusting metaphor for the perversion each one of us must go through in our lives. The difference is her journey happens in two days therefore it is much more extreme. We start as children with strange dreams. Thoughts of kissing, of touching bodies, all confusing ideas thoughts that we cannot place. This was represented before Eugene got to the island. In one scene she lays on her bed staring at a picture of Ange. This is the first hint of perversion entering her life. She is then confronted with Mirvel who confesses his crush to her. Being confronted with a powerful sexual presence such as a person or a sexual picture is a second step we can all relate to. Eugenie crosses the boundary when she first kisses Ange in the bathtub. She has now confronted a part of her that can never be taken back. As the film progresses we see each step of Eugenies perversion. Confusion (not knowing if it's a dream or reality) Blind acceptance (kissing and touching Ange and Mirvel while stoned) Guilt and Self Hate (represented as Mirvel and Ange beating her with whips) Recovery (the bruises are gone!) More Sexual Partners, Betrayal, Anger at others, Confusion and ultimately insanity cover the rest of the film.The final scene where she is confronted by the graveyard represents humanity and her realization that everyone has been through this journey in some way and many have died from it. She weeps for herself and she weeps for the world, for humans, for the insanity of being human.Not to say this is how everyone's journey is. Some are easier than poor Eugenie's and some are much harder. The simple act of accepting this as a part of life and depicting it in two days is what is so genius about Jess Franco's film.Expecting to see a shlocky, sex filled, Eurotrash film I was blown away by the power and brilliance of Eugenie and the Story of her Journey into Perversion. Anyone willing to be truthful when contemplating the human condition can relate and be effected by this film.

summerisle This is an film which is based on the book "Philosophy in the Boudoir" by the Marquis de Sade. Originally written in 1795, it is perhaps the most representative of all the Marquis de Sade's works. The script very cleverly adapts the original story for the modern time (that is 1970). Dialog is brilliant (Christopher Lee is mostly reading the original text by de Sade). Music is excellent. Acting is superb by all actors, most notably Maria Rohm, Jack Taylor and Christopher Lee. Marie Liljedahl is very convincing as the innocent young girl (she was just 19 while shooting). I don't like the idea to have an even younger actress for the part (like some other comment here seems to advise)! The cinematography fascinatingly uses the space on screen in focusing (and sometimes not focusing) different aspects of the image. But I must admit that this technique works much better on the big screen. Luckily I had the possibility the see this amazing piece of art in a theatrical screening. The film is highly recommended if you like the work of Luis Bunuel, Orson Welles, Douglas Sirk, Roman Polanski, Perdo Almodovar or David Lynch. That all said, avoid the film if your just looking for a cheap skin flick. You won't find it here. Go to your next videostore and rent something else: "If you want to watch porn, then buy the real thing" (like one other reviewer said). This one has absolutely nothing to do with porn. If you never heard of de Sade and if you have no interest in art and an experimental approach of film-making, you will find this film boring, stupid and you won't understand what's it about.

MARIO GAUCI Having read a lot of positive reviews about this film on the Internet (and the mystique surrounding it due to unavailability), it was no real surprise that it would be the first Jess Franco title I decided to seek out. Overall, I'm very glad I finally took the plunge to discover for myself Franco's very distinctive world-view. And I know this is one film I'll be looking forward to watch again – and not purely for its exploitation value, mind you!De Sade was most certainly a writer ahead of his time, so the updating to modern times comes off particularly well here. Production values are efficient enough and generally manage to belie the low-budget Franco and producer Harry Alan Towers had to work with; Franco's mise-en-scene is quite confident and the film is certainly good to look at. Still, what holds one's attention here is the invigorating 'atmosphere' of decadence which Franco manages to create around a flimsy but fascinating plot. Perhaps thankfully, the film is not all that long so that it does not overstay its welcome.While there is certainly a great deal of nudity on display, the film rises above being mere exploitation fare - which I assume is a rare feat for this director, considering his notorious reputation. It is aided a great deal by genuinely interesting characterizations, particularly the two female leads: Eugenie's blind faith in her obviously more experienced mentor is so complete that she doesn't realize until too late that she is being manipulated; Marianne herself comes off as fairly sympathetic despite her devious nature – all in all, a human being, and we feel sorry for her when she dies (at least, I did!); even the minor supporting characters are put to good use, like the black boatman/guitar player and the deaf-mute servant, which is not often the case with these type of films.Having said all this, I would be lying if I said I thought that EUGENIE… THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION was a perfect viewing experience. Despite the attractive scenery, I found the numerous out-of-focus shots very distracting and rather than aiding the hallucinatory nature of the story, they end up being merely annoying. Furthermore, I felt that some of the S & M sequences could have been better staged. Besides, there are some inconsistencies in the plot as well: whereas the black boatman is at first depicted as being contrary to the pagan practices, he is seen to join in during the final ceremony where Marianne meets her come-uppance.The casting is OK, I guess, but it still comes up short in my opinion: Marie Liljedahl, nice-looking though she obviously is, is not entirely comfortable with the complexities of her role (particularly towards the end, where she is unable to properly communicate Eugenie's psychological 'degradation') [N.B.: I tend to agree with what Glenn Erickson wrote about this in his review of the R1 DVD on the 'DVD Savant' website: 'The supposed 'corruption' of Eugenie is completely unconvincing - she remains a duped puppet. When she kills the first time it is out of fear, and the second time is just not fully explained. You don't get the idea that she's progressed to the point where she can 'replace' her hostess in the cult, and that turns out not to be the plan anyway.']; likewise, Jack Taylor - though suitably enigmatic and, at times, even vulnerable - hardly makes for a compelling screen presence. On the other hand, for me, Maria Rohm is the focus of the entire film and she also gives the best performance. Christopher Lee, despite his brief appearance, is smoothly sinister and a definite plus to the proceedings; in fact, he and Rohm make for a much more convincingly 'evil' pair. Then there is Bruno Nicolai's music: a very fine score and a memorable one, but which I feel is, in spots, a bit too jovial for its purpose.I had already read that the story of the film was 'imagined' by Marianne in online reviews, but it still managed to take me by surprise when it happened. At first I was a bit let-down by this 'flashback' device – for me the film would have ended ideally when Eugenie runs out of the house, comes upon the graves on the beach and realizes that she is trapped on the island which is enclosed by barbed wire. Even the next morning shot when the police siren is heard sounding off in the distance was rather unnecessary. However, upon realizing that everything that we had been watching has yet to take place, rather than seeming a 'cop-out' (akin to what contemporary critics had said of the similar ending to Fritz Lang's marvelous THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW [1944]), it just added a new layer of subversion to the proceedings. It not only implies that Marianne actually relishes the thought of perishing at the hands of her beloved Eugenie but also that this eventuality would be the epitome of a vicious circle of lovers killing each other as a climactic finale on which to end their relationship, tenuous as that may have been: Mirvel (Marianne's stepbrother and long-time lover) kills Theresa (also perhaps once Marianne's lover); Mirvel is in turn killed by Eugenie (Marianne's present lover); Eugenie was to have been killed by Marianne but with the aid of Dolmance (conceivably once also Marianne's lover) kills Marianne instead; Dolmance (also presumably lusting for Eugenie) double-crosses her and pins all three murders onto her, etc.The acceptance of the dream-state as the environment in which the film is ultimately taking place seems to excuse and indeed justify some of those technical fallacies and character inconsistencies of which I spoke earlier, for what dream is anything but an imperfect and half-remembered rendition of real-life events? In the end, therefore, the impression I was left with regarding the ending was more comparable to the open-ended and ambiguous one found in Luis Bunuel's magnificent BELLE DE JOUR (1967) which could be interpreted in any number of legitimate ways.Though the film was apparently shot in English, the soundtrack was looped later in the studio. In this respect, it isn't too bad if not always in synch which can prove a distraction. After the many glowing reviews I had read, I found the DVD transfer to be somewhat disappointing (even if I can entirely understand its shortcomings) but, as it is, there is simply too much grain in exterior shots and the print is also a little faded in spots. The extras are fantastic: the 17-minute documentary is excellent indeed, particularly Franco's sincere ruminations about the film and his own working conditions; he comes off as a quite pleasant, even intelligent, man – and completely unpretentious. Tim Lucas' liner notes are a good read, even if he feels a bit over-awed by the film's many (and doubtless genuine) 'qualities'.In the end, EUGENIE…THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION - or, as it's called on Anchor Bay UK's R2 disc, MARQUIS DE SADE'S PHILOSOPHY IN THE BOUDOIR - may not be a very subtle film (certainly not much is left to the spectator's imagination) but, for all its faults, is quite often a sublime one.