The Awful Dr Orlof

The Awful Dr Orlof

Jess Franco's vintage gothic horror 'The Awful Dr Orlof' is a real oddball curiosity that should entertain most genre fans. The story involves the good doctor and his blind fumbling henchman Morpho as they seek out showgirls to use for skin transplants for Orloff's lightly scarred sister Melissa. Realising that he's having absolutely no luck whatsoever with dead showgirls flesh, Orlof reckons things might just improve if he uses the flesh of live girls instead...or will it ?

Meanwhile, the ever pleasant gentleman Inspector Tanner smiles his way through his investigation of the disapearances with the assistance of his ballerina fiance and a local drunk fisherman (who has more savvy than the entire police department put together !!)

'Awful' so easily could have been leaning towards it's somewhat dubious title but thankfully it's not. What we have here is actually an entertaining slice of old school gothic horror, complete with creepy spooky house keyboard music (pre-Scooby Doo) and all the little absurditys that make watching these old films so much fun.

The potential for Morpho's character is endless for future Orloff productions, I so much wanted to see him fall face forward while carrying a dead beauty (or at least bang her head off the side of a door). And I'm sure low budget Francophiles will have hours of fun cutting ping pong balls in half to recreate the Marty Feldman-esque look that the great Morpho character has.

Another point of unintentional hilarity is the bizarre breast scenes in the film which not only have no point whatsoever (apart from old school titalation - and why not!) but have no continuity link at all. My own favorite being when the hapless Morpho grabs at the exposed ballerina's breasts and has a right good grope at them for a blind guy (and still manages to fix her dress back together nicely before carrying her to the next scene!) Ah - love it !!

The disc itself really is very very sparse, you get the film, you get the choice of French or English dialogue and that's your lot (although there is as ever some excellent and informative liner notes by the very knowledgable Tim Lucas).

The print on view is quite nice though some some scenes show fading in large expanses of black which ain't too good (especially when you look at quality black & white remasterings like Elite's Night of the Living Dead disc). But hey, this really is a minor grumble as this no doubt is the best print your likely to see of this obscure little horror flick.

Please do ignore all the poe faced analysis of films like this by over zealous genre fans, just kick back and enjoy some midnight movie fun - you shouldn't be too disapointed.


 
Directed by Jess Franco
Released by Image Entertainment
Running time - approx 83 mins
Not Rated
Ratio - Widescreen 1.66:1 (Black & White)
Audio - English & French Mono
Extras - none
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