EDITOR’S NOTE: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. This article originally ran on September 24, 2021.

Oh, call it what you will, you ol’ ’80s “Midnight Movie” and VHS-renting road dogs: Mondo Cannibale, Cannibal World, Cannibals, White Cannibal Queen, A Woman for the Cannibals, or Barbarian Goddess. All we known is that, once again, Jess Franco, casts himself as the patron saint of the video nasty, as he sticks his hands into the boiling native vats and fucks up a genre. While shooting, this soon-to-be U.K.-banned ditty was titled Rio Salvaje, aka Wild River, probably as an ersatz sequel to Umberto Lenzi’s 1972 progenitor, Man from Deep River. As if we’d be duped by a Franco joint.

White Cannibal Queen

On the plus side: Franco gives us the always welcomed Al Cliver (The Beyond) and Sabrina Siani (Conquest and The Throne of Fire). According to Franco, he did this movie and fellow cannibal romp Devil Hunter (1980) for the money and had no idea why anyone would enjoy these films. (Is it just me, or does Franco have a lot of those type of films in his career? He said the same thing about his NaziZom rip, Zombie Lake.) Franco also went on record that Sabrina Siani was the worst actress he ever worked with and that her only good quality was her “delectable derrière.”

Whatever, Jess. Pedophilic Pig.

However, to Franco’s credit, he does change it up a bit: Instead of looking for the usual lost tribes or oil, or whatever vegetable or mineral MacGuffin we need to steal from a peaceful native tribe to make a better life for the white man, our civilized man — with one arm, who lost it during the first expedition — returns to the jungle where he lost his family to rescue his now teenage daughter — who’s become the blonde white cannibal queen of the tribe.

Cannibal Terror

Now, don’t let Jess Franco bamboozle you with Cannibal Terror, aka Terreur Cannibale (1981). While Franco penned the script, it’s actually a way-too-late French entry into the genre directed by Alaine Deruelle, and not a repack of White Cannibal Queen, aka Mondo Cannibale. But it does raid that Franco film for stock footage. As result, we see Sabrina Siani, the White Cannibal Queen, while not starring in the film, appearing in a bar scene (oops); several shots of the dancing cannibals from Franco’s film are redux, here; a background actor (said to have a distinctive, Mick Jagger-type face) appears in three roles, here: as two cannibals, a border guard, and a third cannibal eating Al Cliver’s wife; the guitar player at the bar, here, found Al Cliver after he had his arm cut off in White Cannibal Queen (oops).

White Cannibal Queen and Cannibal Terror also share actors Olivier Mathot and Antonio Mayans, both whom have starring roles, as well as porn actress Pamela Stanford, who has a major role in Cannibal Terror, but a support role in White Cannibal Queen by way of stock pillaging. The leading woman change up is Silvia Solar from Umberto Lenzi’s Eyeball (1975).

As far as the “plot” goes in the French remake/ripoff: Two criminals take their kidnapping victim to their partner’s jungle hideaway. The local cannibal tribe hunts them down one by one.

Devil Hunter

And don’t let Jess Franco hornswoggle you with Devil Hunter (1980), aka, Sexo Canibal, The Man Hunter, and Mandingo Manhunter, for he is director Clifford Brown and writer Julius Valery, incognito; his second wife, Lina Romay, co-directed, while his first wife, Nicole Guettard, edited.

And since Devil Hunter was shot back-to-back with White Cannibal Queen, Al Cliver returns in the leading hero role. And Antonio Mayans, from it’s-not-Franco’s-film-but-it-is Cannibal Terror, returns as Cliver’s co-star. The change up, here, is that Ursula Buchfellner, a German model who became Playboymagazine’s “Playmate of the Month” in October 1979, stars as our resident damsel-in-distress. Did you see the Euro-adult comedies Popcorn and Icecream (1979), Cola, Candy, Chololate (1979), and Hot Dogs in Ibiza (1979), and Jess Franco’s women-in-prison romp Hellhole Women, aka Sadomania (1981)? Well, now you know four more Ursula Buchfellner’s films than most (normal) people. Do you feel blessed by B&S?

As far as the “plot” goes, well, it’s pretty much a retread of Cannibal Terror: After the kidnapping by white bandits of a top model/actress (Buchfellner) on a jungle shoot/location scouting trip, an ex-Vietnam vet (Cliver) and his mercenary pal (Mayans) head into the deep jungle of the island nation to rescue her, not only from the kidnappers, but from cannibals who worship a “Devil God.” And (snickering) the “God” is a tall African dude with ping-pong eyes falling out of his head.

And get this: Jess Franco claims the makers of Predator stole their idea from this movie.

Whatever, Mr. Franco. Ye who commits celluloid theft, himself.

Needless to say: All of the stock footage padding from White Cannibal Queen and Cannibal Terror, along with the expected Franco-sleaze, and awful dubbing, is back — to lesser . . . and lesser effect. Wow, Jess, thanks for making White Cannibal Queen look even better than it’s allowed to be. But it does “splatter” nicely to make the U.K.’s “Video Nasties” list, which is the whole reason we’re reviewing this film this week for our “Video Nasties Week.”

So, there you go. Now you’re an educated Euro-cannibal flick consumer in-the-know that Cannibal Terror and Devil Hunter aren’t alternate titles to White Cannibal Queen, but three distinct — as distinct as a Franco joint can be — separate films . . . that are different, but the same. Sorta. Kinda. Oh, Franco!

But you know Franco: He’s a magnificent, maniacal bastard and we love him for it. What would our youth have been without Franco flicks and Venom tunes?

We did a whole week of cannibal films with our “Mangiati Vivi Week” tribute back in February 2018. You can also learn more about the genre with our review of the documentary Me Me Lai Bites Back (2021). And there’s more “nasties” to be found with our “Section 1,” “Section 2,” and “Section 3” explorations.

You can purchase White Cannibal Queen from Blue Underground or watch it as a free-with-ads-stream on Tubi.

You can purchase Cannibal Terror from 88 Films or watch it as a VOD on Amazon Prime.

You can purchase Devil Hunter from Severin Films or watch it as as free-with-ads-stream on Daily Motion.

Lina Romay is Lulu and the title refers to a part of her anatomy, so this translates as Lulu’s Talking Ass and if that makes you laugh, then you’re ready for what Jess Franco made. After all, her butt talks and explains how it’s upset that other parts of her body get more attention.

I mean, this movie has a smash cut to said talking ass smoking a cigarette and I just started laughing like a maniac. At this point, one assumes, Franco couldn’t even remember the censorship of General Francisco Franco’s Nationalist leadership.

In 2008, Franco was awarded an honorary Goya Award, which is the Spanish version of the Academy Awards. I tell you this to prepare you for the scene where Lina makes love to an Oscar.

So you know, when you’ve seen it all, you should probably see this.

Juan (Juan Solar) is a John Cage-style composer and he’s married to Ana (Lina Romay) and their honeymoon gets weird when some spies think they’ve stolen a microfilm, but it was left by hitchhikers Carla and Albert (Alicia Príncipe and Emilio Linder).

Eva Leon plays Irina Von Karlstein, so maybe Jess Franco is reminding us of his bare breasted countess past. There’s also a Radeck, played by Antonio Mayans, so this movie makes me think that I’m starting to see the Jess Franco Cinematic Universe within every movie he made now, which bought delights and kind of scares me, because I’m close to watchin ninety of these movies in four weeks and my brain is soft.

All of these spies, as well as Marga (Analía Ivars), are trying to steal Mariposa 2, a butterfly whose wings carry dust that causes deadly diarrhea. It’s a coincidence that Juan’s newest song is called “Mariposa 2” or maybe Juan is a spy.

There’s so much talking in this movie and probably some humor that you need to know Spanish culture on a much deeper level to get or you can just watch Lina Romay run around, which I do on a daily basis.

Jess Franco made another Edgar Wallace movie, Sangre en mis zapatos, which was based on Sanders of the River. This is based on the story Keeper of the Stone, which is from the same book.

Prof. Walter Forrester (Ángel Menéndez) is a British scientist working in the Akasava jungle in South America who has disappeared and may have stolen a mysterious stone. His nephew Rex Forrester (Fred Williams) is looking for his uncle. But the real reason to watch this is British agent Jane Morgan (Soledad Miranda), who has a secret identity as the stripper wife of the British consul Irving Lambert (Alberto Dalbés), which seems pretty wild when you wrap your mind around it.

The sinister Dr. Andrew Thorrsen (Horst Tappert) and his perhaps even more nefarious wife (Ewa Strömberg) also get involved, Franco plays an evil agent and Howard Vernon gets blown up real good when he tries to steal the stone, which can turn people into zombies and metal to gold because, well, who knows. It’s all a device to get us to see just how wonderful Soledad could be as a spy.

Sadly, she’d die in an auto accident at the too soon age of 27 soon after this movie wrapped. I wasn’t even born yet and it still breaks my heart.

Countess Irina Karlstein (Lina Romay, taking over the role of Franco’s muse and sex object after the death of Soledad Miranda; as she was more sexually adventurous than that doomed starlet and with the fall of the other Franco, General Francisco, who led Spain, Jess’s movie’s from here on out get progressively more filled with kink, as if they weren’t overloaded with it before) is a silent woman whose sexual needs are much like the desire that vampires have for blood. If she can’t make love, she’ll die, but luckily she’s gorgeous and if that doesn’t work, she can also hypnotize people, then gain their lifeforce via oral copulation.

And then she displays the best fuck and run skill of all. She turns into a bat and flies away.

How will the forces of morality deal with her and the numerous smiling corpses that have been showing up? By having a scientist named Dr. Roberts (Franco himself) take on the case and consult with, of course, Dr. Orloff (Jean-Pierre Bouyxou), bringing this movie into the Franco Cinematic Universe, albeit one in which a psychic artist and writer named Baron Rathony thinks that they can be forever happy with a female vamp who has no concern about her victims.

Franco made three different versions of this movie: La comtesse noire (The Black Countess), a straight vampire movie; the more erotic La Comtesse aux seins nus (The Bare Breasted Countess) and the hardcore Les avaleuses (The Swallowers). But no matter what, Franco saw this as erotica and not smut, comparing his work to that of In the Realm of the Senses.

At one point, Dr. Orloff wonders, “Whether the pleasure isn’t worth life itself,” and man, I think it totally is, even if you have to fall for a woman bathing in blood to get there. Most amazingly,  Romay’s husband at the time, Ramon Ardid, co-edited this with Franco, who was most assuredly making love to his wife with a camera the entire time.

Also known as so many names — and running times and cuts — like Yacula, Jacula, Bare-Breasted Vampire, The Bare Breasted Countess, Naked Vampire and Erotikill, this is prime Franco, filled with fog and dreams and long gazes across the body of a woman who would obsess him for decades, who he probably felt the same vampiric thirst for the entire time they were filming.

In the article “Goodbye, Bare Breasted Countess” on Birth. Movies. Death., Lars Nilsen spoke of the love that Franco and Romay had, one that they said started with the making of this movie.

“At the screening of The Bare Breasted Countess Jess and Lina revealed that it was the film shoot where they fell in love. Lina also told the audience that when she made love with someone else in one of Jess’ films she didn’t mind because in her mind she was with Jess. The audience sighed. She also said “35 years ago Jess took me to the moon and I’m still there.” More well-deserved sighs (and tears).”

The article ends with this, which breaks my heart, reaffirms that love exists and makes my face wet and hot with tears.

“Lina wheeled Jess into the theater and they stood just inside the door of the theater watching the end of the movie. The whole audience could see them there as they looked up at the naked 19 year old Lina, a stunning vision of loveliness, playing the Countess Karlstein, rolling around in her death/orgasm agonies in a bathtub full of blood while her pursuer, played by Jess himself, looks on, falling in love her. It would be an emotional moment for the audience regardless, as they knew that Jess and Lina were falling in love at the time, but the sight of the two silhouetted in the light from the hallway as their love played out on screen was pure movie magic. It was the most appropriate manifestation of this movie love that was old and new all at once.”

So in case you wonder, why did I waste an entire month watching so many Jess Franco movies?

It was never a waste.

You can watch this on KinoCult.

Female Vampireis also on the ARROW PLAYER. Head over to ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

Lilian, a German teenager, (Katia Bienert, who had no idea that scenes she shot for another movie would wind up in Spain’s first legal hardcore movie) has been stolen by Irina and Jorge (Lina Romay as Candy Coster and Emilio Linder) who have turned her into their slave. Meanwhile, Mario Pereira — yes, probably Al’s relative, as the role is played by Antonio Mayans — and Jess Franco listen to our heroine’s words of her past.

Franco made this under his Clifford Brown name and you know, if it didn’t have the adult scenes — the really adult scenes — this would be one of his movies that I believe that more people would talk about. But this is Franco, who was able to get success at the time out of the short game of showing sex on the screen versus the long con of making art, but he probably was thinking of the other seven or eight or nine movies he was making at the same time.

Also for continuity obsessed people like me, Candy Coster has a red wig in this. We have to keep track of these things.

Derek Braasch, Matt Cannon and Marcelo Fabani are the directors and writers of this horror anthology which has several well-known horror actors such as Debbie Rochon, Ari Lehman and Shawn C. Phillips.

Eighteen years ago a burglar broke into an author’s house and discovered a computer filled with forbidden stories, which one assumes is the storyline of 2003’s original HorrorTales.666.  the burgler was played by Joel D. Wynkoop in that film and now he repeats the past, breaking into another house and reading more stories, all while someone keeps telling him that he plans on dragging him to hell.

There are five stories:

“Open House”: dDrected by Cannon, this has a home being prepped for the real estate market — I mean, everything is selling these days — on the anniversary of the double himcide that happened in the house. When two of her co-workers try to prank her, things don’t go so well.

“The Last Farewell of Mr. Perez” was written and directed by Marcelo Fabani, who also stars as Perez, a man living his last day.

“Slay Ride” was directed by Derek Braasch, who co-wrote this chapter with Nina Trader. If you like Christmas themed slashers, get ready for what happens when Mrs. Claus gets to spend some time with the South Pole of one of the elves.

“The Present” by Joe Sherlock has even more sex and nudity than the previous segment, if that’s what you’re looking for. Roxxy Mountains, who plays the wife in this chapter, was also in Things 5 and Things 666.

Finally, My Life” by Phil Herman gets meta as he and Dustin Hubbard play themselves as people bother them for a chance to be in this movie.

While this movie has beyond a small budget and even relies on mannequin parts for special effects, you can’t say that everyone didn’t put their heart (and other organs) into it. If you love horror that was made with the budget of most film’s soda line item purchase, you’ll absolutely be obsessed with this.

You can learn more about this movie on its official Facebook page. You can order this from The Sleaze Box.

Princesa Obongo (Ajita Wilson) is the Goddess of Unspeakable Lust, rising from the dunes of sand and remaking and remixing and redoing Vampyros Lesbos by way of Lorna the Exorcist — even ending with Lina screaming — but in a way that makes this its own film worth watching.

Is Obongo even a real person? Or is she just the ultimate fantasy of Lina and her husband (Antonio Mayans), a black goddess here to dominate them both, to raise idols worthy of worship and by worship, I mean in the biblical sense in the way that Jess Franco means biblical sense.

There’s also the issues of identity that we have to contend with, as Lina isn’t even Lina and we must pretend that she’s Candy Coster and of course, we love her little smile and agree to her game. And the powers of Wilson, well, Franco would say that “Ajita had that naivete, like she belonged to a world less perverted than our own.” And while In life, Ajita was a goddess to men and a European sex film star, the truth is that she wasn’t born a woman and even in 2022 we’re having trouble wrapping our head around that and unable to admit that maybe everyone and everything can be beautiful and worthy of lust. There’s been some mystery about this fact, but Lina would say, “She was definitely transsexual.”

There’s also this fish lizard creature with a large penis that keeps showing up. It’s a Jenny Haniver, a carcass of a ray or a skate that has been modified by hand before being turned into a mummified specimen.

Franco remained obsessed by women whose encounters with the occult would unlock their latent sexual powers, which alternatively thrilled and terrified those caught in this pull. By those, I pretty much mean Lina, who endures this journey and the relentless zooming lens of the man who transformed his fascination with her into an eternal love affair.

For an incredible read on this subject, I recommend the article I used for reference, Created By Cinema: The Enigma of Ajita Wilson, which is on Grindhouse Effect.

Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe* in the credits and Edgar Wallace in an interview Franco gave — well, we can say that for any krimi or giallo, hmm? — Night of the Skull has Jess Franco making a mystery movie that doesn’t go fully into his usual perverted take on, well, everything. But there’s still plenty of love in this.

No zooms, no wild moving camera, no plot that seems made up when the camera starts rolling, not even much nudity — but Lina Romay does get whipped and ends up dating someone who may be her brother, so yes, this is a Jess Franco movie.

Lord Marian (Angel Menendez) is reading from the Book of Apocalypse — again, not a real book, which is a Franco trademark as much as stolen diamonds and sex scenes — when he’s attacked by a hooded menace and buried alive in mud, only his hands emerging and reaching for the heavens. Everyone thinks that his secret daughter Rita (Romay), so has been used as a servant and the whipping target of his second wife Cecilia (Maribel Hidalgo, Santo vs. Doctor Death) before the will states that she gets everything.

There’s also another will and another family and everyone starts getting murdered by the masked killer, all in ways that reference the end of all things as well as the four elements. And hey — it’s set in Louisiana, which is crazy because Scotland Yard has jurisdiction there, which makes as much sense as anything Franco usually writes.

*The Cat and the Canary, which isn’t by Poe but is a play by John Willard that became a 1927 silent movie and a 1939 Bob Hope-starring remake.