June 10: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Jess Franco!

I am down to 187 of 206 Jess Franco movies, using this list on Letterboxd. What’s left?

• Claire
• Las Tribulaciones de un Buda Bizco
• Las Chuponas
• Lola 2000
• The Tree from Spain
• Las playas vacias
• Oro espanol
• Estampas guipuzcoanas número 2: Pío Baroja
• El destierro del Cid
• A Man, Eight Girls
• El misterio del castillo rojo
• El huésped de la niebla
• Voces de muerte
• Sida, la peste del siglo XX
• In Pursuit of Barbara
• El abuelo, la condesa y Escarlata la traviesa
• Montes de Venus
• Lascivia

Several of these movies may have never been made. Many could be lost.

That said, Jess Franco sure liked making the same movie over and over again with some variations.

La chica de los labios rojos is in the same world as Kiss Me Monster, Red Lips, Two Undercover Angels, Red Lips, Two Spies In Flowered Panties and Red Silk. There’s either one or two spy girls in these movies, as well as diamond theft. Jess was big on diamonds being stolen. I love him for this.

Terry Morgan (Lina Romay, who else?) is our heroine, Al Pereira (Antonio Mayans) shows up, Jess has a cameo as Professor Karame and yes, there is a Jess Franco cinematic universe. Somehow, only 29 people have seen this on Letterboxd and 56 on IMDB. Can you imagine this? Is it because I had to go to DVD Lady to get this? That’s where my mania is, paying people $12 for low-quality files of Jess and Bruno Mattei movies so I can cross them off my list.

rllr on Mubi said: “Another “Red Lips” sequel, but this time the characters explain the film through non-stop dialogue. Boring exposition from start to finish. Like some other ’80s films from Franco, I can’t really see ANYTHING remotely interesting to ANYONE, but probably some freak “had a good time with it”.”

Yes, I am triggered.

I watch these movies, however, I can get them and at whatever quality they exist in. You can’t get these in pristine 4K — give Severin time — and so you just have to be happy with things you can barely see, but then Lina Romay’s eyes and smile call out to you through the multi-dub haze and tell you it’s all going to be OK. Sure, your 401K is ruined, you’ll work hard until the day you die and not many people will miss what you’ve left behind — thousands of diatribes about movies under a hundred people even care about — but damn it, she and Jess Franco found one another and built a love story around how much he enjoyed zooming his camera into her lady parts and he won a lifetime achievement ward in Spain, which thrills me every time I think about it. Oh you magical ghost of Lina, captured like amber, smiling back at me, saying that for now, it will all be alright. For now, I will watch you hop into beds with strange men and steal diamonds and leave behind notes in lipstick on their mirrors.