Chatverock Takes itself way too seriously

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues Jess Franco had finally a big budge to make this production,but have some mishaps along the movie to take over,like using Klaus Kinski just for a day only to save money,he didn't wants Romina Power as Justine imposed by the producers, this way the picture has some damages,nevertheless the results are acceptable anyway,Jess Franco is a legend to me whatever he did is relevant,he is a genius,immoral and provocative but a true genius!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.5

Rapeman Here is yet another of the various exploitation flicks based on De Sade's Justine (the best of which are credited to the prolific Jess Franco). This one is an English production starring Koo Stark, onetime girlfriend of Prince Andrew.Set sometime in 18th Century England, two sisters, 16-year-old Justine and 17-year-old Juliette, are expelled from their convent school after they are orphaned and can no longer afford the fees. Juliette comes up with the brilliant idea of going to the London whorehouse where their cousin works and learning the "tricks of the trade", regardless of the fact they are both still virgins.At the whorehouse the older and more worldly Juliette gets on fine and embraces the brothel lifestyle while the naïve & innocent Justine can't handle it and runs away back to the convent, into Pastor John's welcoming arms. Although, after the good Pastor has had a few wines he can no longer contain his lecherous urges and attempts to rape poor, pure Justine. Luckily she escapes with her virginity intact but Pastor John ends up dead and she is now wanted for murder.Whilst escaping through the church graveyard she encounters a gang of graverobbers who kidnap her and force her into their way of life - she becomes their bait for luring stagecoaches to a halt so the thieves can rob & murder the occupants. Meanwhile, Juliette has become concerned by the absence of her sister and sends her heroic aristocrat boyfriend, Lord Carlisle (Martin Potter of Fellini's Satyricon fame) out to search for her.Lord Carlisle eventually catches up with the thieves as they use their ploy to rob his stagecoach and murder all the occupants, only sparing him after Justine's pleading. The two soon escape only to be hunted down by dogs and brutally slaughtered (and in Justine's case gang-raped).Compared to De Sade's original story (and indeed even Jess Franco's adaptations) Justine is pretty tame, there's the odd splatter of blood, infrequent nudity and even some non-graphic rape & necrophilia but overall - even with those acts included - there's still not much for exploitation aficionados to get excited about. The film focuses more on Justine's plight and the eventual tarnishing of her innocence.Strangely enough this film is included as part of Redemption's Nunsploitation box set but it's only really the first twenty to thirty minutes that are set in the convent - the rest is either in the countryside or the brothel - although, aside from the downbeat ending and Justine's surreal catholic guilt nightmare sequences, the convent scenes are the best & sleaziest parts of the film, with the usual forced lesbianism and debauched Mother Superior.

MARIO GAUCI I watched this last week, my sixth Jess Franco movie. After the relative disappointment with EUGENIE DE SADE (1970), I had hoped that the next Franco would relight my initial admiration for his work. In this respect, I was not a little wary of trying JUSTINE, as its reception on the Internet since its DVD release has not been exactly positive! But since it was the only thing available at the moment… Well, I wasn't wrong about my reservations regarding this film, as I must say that I found it truly abysmal! Not so much a waste of time as a wasted opportunity: as Rod Barnett had said in the recent FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973; a film I haven't watched yet, by the way) thread, I think that Franco fails even here to bring out the full potential of the definitely intriguing plot - despite having the biggest budget of his entire career to work with!Still, what I find most disconcerting about the film is the ongoing parade of embarrassing performances from some interesting (i.e. formerly respectable) actors: Akim Tamiroff, Mercedes McCambridge and, worst of all, Jack Palance. The other notables from the cast - Klaus Kinski, Sylva Koscina and Howard Vernon – acquit themselves far better, also because they were already practiced at this sort of thing. McCambridge's raspy voice is given a thorough work-out here, as though she were already attempting to 'find' the demon voice for THE EXORCIST (1973)! Palance, on the other hand, gives new meaning to the expression 'chewing up the scenery' - the fact that he was drunk all through the shooting of the picture could hardly bode well for some form of coherence in his performance – and, while I couldn't help (or indeed stop) laughing when he was on screen, deep down I felt really sorry for him as he clearly did not belong there!!Despite his brief and silent appearance, Klaus Kinksi makes for an appropriately moody Marquis De Sade, who grows increasingly paranoid as the story he is writing unfolds on the screen; actually this linking sequence is quite atmospheric: one online review even compares it to the Gothic horror films of Mario Bava, and I can certainly see where he is coming from with such an argument. Maria Rohm again proves to be an asset to the film (though she isn't nearly as effective here as she was in EUGENIE…THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION [1969]): a clearly intelligent woman who possesses both great charisma and genuine sex appeal. Perhaps the film's best sequence is her heartless drowning of the Rosemary Dexter character, formerly her mentor and lover (needless to say, the fact that both women go through the scene stark naked made it all the more memorable!).As for Romina Power, this may come as a surprise to you but I didn't think she was as bad as most online reviews would have it. Of course, apart from her constant innocent demeanor, she never really captures Justine's essential personality (especially her gradual acceptance of masochism). However, you may remember that in my review of EUGENIE, I had similar reservations about Marie Liljedahl - though, to be fair to her, she certainly came off as less 'wooden'; then again, most of the performances in JUSTINE are terrible anyway, so it really doesn't matter! Perhaps, for someone like Francesco and me, we are more responsive to her 'acting' because we are used to watching her on Italian TV – whereas the rest of you will probably have to make do with this single, admittedly unimpressive performance! Still, echoing another review I read of the film, I'm not sure that Rosemary Dexter (apparently Franco's personal choice) could have done much better with the title role, though one cannot really judge her talent from the thankless role she was relegated to playing!(Useless bit of trivia: Romina Power regularly comes to Malta on holiday – perhaps the world's largest collection of her father Tyrone's ephemera resides in our country, believe it or not! - and it is said that she often takes a villa at Naxxar to live in; Naxxar, of course, is the village in Malta where I live!)For me, the best thing about the entire film is Bruno Nicolai's masterful score, which is perhaps wasted here! At the very least, however, one could say that JUSTINE is good to look at and that it is packed with incident, so it does not really feel slow (like EUGENIE, for instance) throughout its lengthy duration…if only what was on screen were more genuinely compelling!As of now, I stand about 50/50 on Franco (from the very few titles that I have sampled) and, in all honesty, I'm beginning to despair of ever finding another film to equal EUGENIE or THE DIABOLICAL DOCTOR Z (1965). Still, I have high hopes for SUCCUBUS (1967) – which will be my next venture into Franco's endless canon – as well as VENUS IN FURS (1968) and LORNA THE EXORCIST (1974), though I'll only be able to watch the last two if the local censors deign to release them from their clutches!

Phyllis Lovell I like sensual, erotic, titillating films. And while many of the actions and thoughts of the Marquis de Sade cannot be condoned, I find him a very interesting man. So needless to say I was excited about watching this DVD. However, it was so bad I couldn't finish watching. The acting, screenplay, costumes, set design, & cinematography were all terrible. Even the very few sex scenes were uninspiring and not sensual or erotic at all. Half the time I couldn't tell what was going on because of the poor attempt at "artsy" camera work. I don't know how closely this followed the book, but it sure wasn't as sultry or nasty or bad as I would expect from a de Sade story. Because of the subject matter I should have liked this film. I didn't. I loathed it.