Nackte Haut und schwarzes Leder

**A quick note but I watched all three of these at different points over the years so the reviews are a little out of place with one another. I'm posting them in order of the Synapse version, the XXX version and then the 1979 re-edit.

Exorcism (1974)

*** (out of 4)

This was one of the first Franco titles that I actually watched and I hated it with a passion. Over the next year I started to check out a few other Franco films and I guess you could say I finally "got" what he was all about so I went back to watch this one again and ended up really enjoying it. I think the film gets better with each new viewing, although I think the film plays best as pure camp. In the film Franco plays a deranged writer who witnesses a fake devil worshiping and is certain that he must kill the people to save their souls. This film has a lot of trademark Franco items from countless sex, nudity and violence all the way to the erotic nature of the story. This is a very strange little film that manages to be quite surreal in its black mass scenes and the movie just contains a weird vibe throughout. The film also have some hilarious moments, which I'm sure was unintentional. I also get a huge laugh at of Franco's acting during the orgy scene. When Franco hides his face in shame, it's just downright hilarious. Another funny moment happens when Romay is leaving a restaurant and she opens the door the wrong way and ends up running into it. This certainly isn't Franco's best film but it is one of his most enjoyable.

Sexorcismes (1974)

** (out of 4)

Once upon a time (1974 to be exact) in a country far, far away (Spain to be exact) there lived a director named Jess Franco who made a movie called Exorcism. The film dealt with a looney writer (played by Franco) who stumbled upon a sex show with witches and demons. To make them pure, the writer goes on a killing spree. Then, in 1979 Franco decided to remake the film but didn't have enough cash for a full movie so he edited out forty or so minutes of Exorcism and mixed it with about forty-minutes worth of "new" footage. This disasterpiece was called The Sadist of Notre Dame. However, back to 1974's film Exorcism. The French producer's weren't happy that Franco didn't make the film extreme enough so they offered him a tad bit more money to go back and shoot hardcore scenes so that the film could be released into French porn theaters. That end result was released as Sexorcismes and that's the version I watched here.

The Sadist of Notre Dame was a horrible film in my opinion and one (of several) that I gave a BOMB rating to. Exorcism on the other hand is a film I always enjoyed for its surreal and bizarre sexual nature. That film was a straight horror flick with your typical amount of Euro nudity but there wasn't anything hardcore. Several of Franco's films during this period were shot "soft" and "hard" but usually the hardcore versions were nothing more than cheap inserts that really hurt the original film. I had been interested in this French version of Exorcism for quite sometime and it finally arrived and as I suspected the hardcore scenes add nothing to the film but they do take away quite a bit.

The most shocking thing about these new shots is that doubles weren't used, which was normally the case. Most of the original cast are involved in these new scenes and that includes Franco himself! I remember the first time I saw Romay in hardcore scenes I was rather shocked because I always considered her an "actress". Seeing Franco in these scenes just made me laugh my ass off because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Having seen Franco in countless interviews and other films, to see this here was simply shocking. Either way, none of this stuff is shot too well and it's clear they were filmed differently than the rest of the film. It's also worth noting that the producer's didn't bother to change the soundtrack, which leads to some pretty silly moments. In the "horror" version there are several scenes were women are stabbed and we hear their screams. This soundtrack of screams is also used in this hardcore version, which makes for a few funny moments since these screams don't match up with what's going on in the film.

Sadist of Notre Dame, The (1979)

BOMB (out of 4)

Jess Franco at his laziest. The film might be worth one more star but I'm not going to give it to this. An ex-priest (Franco) escapes from a nut house and starts killing people in God's name. This film is a re-edited version of Franco's 1974 film Exorcism with newly shot scenes added. I enjoy the "original" film but this one here is just downright confusing and poorly made. The new scenes add nothing and the editing to them is the worst I've ever seen. The pacing is horrid and the re-editing even ruins scenes from the original film.

In Paris, the former priest Mathis Vogel (Jesus Franco) writes pornography for a magazine. When the deranged priest watches an erotic show based on a Black Mass, he believes that the cast and audience are possessed and he goes on a murder spree to exorcise the demons of his victims.

"L'Éventreur de Notre-Dame" is another Eurotrash by Jess Franco, who is also the lead actor. His trademark is present in every scene, with sexploitation, violence, nudity, bad acting and gore, but for fans of this genre it is funny to watch this trash. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Exorcista Diabólico" ("The Devilish Exorcist")

My copy is titled Exorcism and is absolutely great. There's naked girls chained upside down getting whipped and covered in sacrificial blood and some demented ex-priest stabbing people with at least one scene of guts or a heart or something removed from what was probably a dead pig.

I think maybe this movie should be viewed as a comedy, its certainly believable that it was intended as such.

EXORCISME (1974) ** Jesus Franco, Lina Romay. Jesus Franco directs and stars in this story about a crazed ex-priest who witnesses a series of staged "Black Masses." Convinced the participants are possessed by Satan, he kills them in order to "exorcise" their demons. Although this storyline has a lot of promise, numbingly repetitive dialogue and Franco's amateurish acting keep the film from reaching its true potential. It's also padded with numerous sex scenes--featuring suggested autoerotism, bondage, sexualized torture, lesbianism and an orgy, among other things--none of which serve to advance the plot. The result is a film that tries to be both porno and horror film, but doesn't really succeed at either.

'Exorcism' is not Jess Franco's best film, but it's certainly not the worst either - which doesn't say much for much of the rest of his oeuvre! From the title, I was expecting this to be a rip-off of The Exorcist, but it's more like Ken Russell's classic nunsploitation flick 'The Devils'. As usual with films like this, there is little plot and the thin plot we do get is rather difficult to follow as most of the film is taken up by sex and torture sequences. Basically, the plot focuses on a priest who takes it upon himself to exorcise demons from a group of people he believes to be possessed. The film starts with a torture sequence involving a couple of naked women, which is well filmed and lead me to believe that this might be a halfway decent flick. However, most of the film is really quite boring; there are plenty of scenes that see naked women strung up, getting tortured but the lack of any real point does get in the way. The film stars the beautiful Lina Romay which is always sure to increase the watchability of any film; and we've also got a surprisingly decent performance from the man himself Jess Franco (under yet another moniker). All that aside, Exorcism isn't a good film, and therefore I don't recommend seeing it!