As the 1980s sparkled on, Director Jess Franco pursued ever more personal and lower financed projects. 'Faceless' proved to be the exception. A collaboration with French video magnate René Château ensured this was a multi-million pound venture and Franco's biggest ever budget.
Always willing to surprise, his venture opened with the strains of a George Michael-style vocal song (performed by Vincenzo Thoma) that is repeated sporadically throughout – you may well know each verse word-for-word before the end credits roll. The subsequent sight of Jean Rollin leading lady Brigitte Lahaie (playing Nurse Nathalie) sitting in a car watching Barbara (former Hammer star Caroline Munro) snorting cocaine is delightfully surreal – two genre icons from widely differing backgrounds together! Perhaps surprisingly for a Spanish/French collaboration, the dialogue is spoken in English.
The impressive cast is bolstered further by Anton Diffring, and a cameo from Howard Vernon as Dr. Orloff. Terry Savalas, in his last performance, stars as Terry Hallan, Barbara's concerned father – she has gone missing and is a prisoner of Berger's clinic.
'Faceless' could be seen as a partial remake of Franco's first hit, 'The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962)', which could be seen as a partial remake of French classic 'Eyes Without a Face (1960)'. There are some good effects – the slightly fey Docteur Flamand's (Helmut Berger) unfortunate daughter Ingrid (Christine Jean) looks convincingly scarred after an acid attack, and a later injection into an eyeball is achieved very realistically. There is a retarded servant, the eyebrow-less Gordon (Gérard Zalcberg) who also gets to commit a number of gory attacks.
The story meanders somewhat from its fairly straightforward premise, but is a lot more enjoyable than it might have been, especially given the creative stagnancy in the horror genre in the late 80s. There is no real pathos for the scarred Ingrid as she is played without any suggestion of sympathy, and the open ending (changed from an upbeat finale by Franco) has irritated some – but I really enjoyed this film.
Always willing to surprise, his venture opened with the strains of a George Michael-style vocal song (performed by Vincenzo Thoma) that is repeated sporadically throughout – you may well know each verse word-for-word before the end credits roll. The subsequent sight of Jean Rollin leading lady Brigitte Lahaie (playing Nurse Nathalie) sitting in a car watching Barbara (former Hammer star Caroline Munro) snorting cocaine is delightfully surreal – two genre icons from widely differing backgrounds together! Perhaps surprisingly for a Spanish/French collaboration, the dialogue is spoken in English.
The impressive cast is bolstered further by Anton Diffring, and a cameo from Howard Vernon as Dr. Orloff. Terry Savalas, in his last performance, stars as Terry Hallan, Barbara's concerned father – she has gone missing and is a prisoner of Berger's clinic.
'Faceless' could be seen as a partial remake of Franco's first hit, 'The Awful Dr. Orloff (1962)', which could be seen as a partial remake of French classic 'Eyes Without a Face (1960)'. There are some good effects – the slightly fey Docteur Flamand's (Helmut Berger) unfortunate daughter Ingrid (Christine Jean) looks convincingly scarred after an acid attack, and a later injection into an eyeball is achieved very realistically. There is a retarded servant, the eyebrow-less Gordon (Gérard Zalcberg) who also gets to commit a number of gory attacks.
The story meanders somewhat from its fairly straightforward premise, but is a lot more enjoyable than it might have been, especially given the creative stagnancy in the horror genre in the late 80s. There is no real pathos for the scarred Ingrid as she is played without any suggestion of sympathy, and the open ending (changed from an upbeat finale by Franco) has irritated some – but I really enjoyed this film.