One of my favorite Jess Franco movies of the 1980s, "La Mansión De Los Muertos Vivientes" is not for every audience. Actually, if you are not inititiated yet in the filmmaker's very unusual and personal style, the film may result annoying and boring. Nevertheless, after getting Jess' point, we discover a small masterpiece, a fascinating journey into the perverse and cynical mind of the most iconoclast Spanish auteur.
Don't create false expectations based on the title. There is no mansion here, but a seaside hotel, and the "living dead" have nothing to do with the flesh eaters popularized by George Romero. They are more similar to the blind dead of Amando De Ossorio. Weather the title was chosen by Jess himself or imposed by the producers is anyone's guess.
The plot is about four German topless waitresses (played by Lina Romay, Mabel Escano, Mari Carmen Nieto and Elisa Vela) who decide to spend a vacation in a Spanish luxury hotel. Things get weird when they discover the place deserted, except for two bizarre staff members. With no man available to satisfy their sexual needs, the four horny girls enjoy some lesbian fun, but soon one by one is victim of an old curse that haunts the place...
This being a typical Jess Franco film, we can't expect a conventional approach of the cinematic grammar. Absurds situations abound in the script, but the director never seemed concerned with realism, an attitude that find technical correspondence in his obsession for ultra slow pacing and overuse of zoom lens, creating something like an alternative dreamlike dimension. Contrary to how they are depicted in most movies, dreams usually are full of illogic details, and it is precisely that distortion of reality, so typical of dreams, that sets the tone of works like this. We can't watch it under the rules of plausibility, otherwise the desillusion will be inevitable. Instead, we need to face it like a dream of its creator.
At first, one can see as "script flaws' facts like the girls wandering through the halls of the hotel naked, not afraid of being catched, or the fact that Lina's character doesn't find strange that the employee in charge of the excursionist sector is the same guy responsible for the hotel reception. However, during our dreams, we "experiece" absurd facts like if they were totally normal, right? The events narrated here seem the product of someone's dream, but we don't see any character sleeping or awakening to justify that. It is like if the audience or the filmmaker himself were dreaming them. And mesmerized by the extraordinary mise-en-scène, we let ourselves be carried along without resistance.
Jess' lack of interest in conventionalism not even respects the rules of cinematic genres. The movie starts as a sex comedy, but gradually assumes a dark path, breaking or playing with our expectations. The almost total absence of music was a great choice, not only because it increases the uncanny atmosphere, but also because the same Daniel White cues repeated over and over in the projects of the period get on the nerves sometimes.
In terms of sexual content, the film offers a lot of nudity and lesbian sex, shot without reserves by Jess' voyeuristic lens, and the viewers only interested in horror will need some patience or a fast forward button to skip the many erotic interludes.
In the cast, besides the four protagonists, there is a very disturbing role played by the excellent Eva León, as a sex slave chained in one of the hotel rooms. Her mix of genuine affliction and sado-maso pleasure is perfotmed in a so convincing way that makes us feel for her pity and repulsion at the same time. Lina and Mabel, as usual, bring extraordinary performances as well, while Mari Carmen Nieto and Elisa Vela are just acceptable.
Perfectly photographed, "La Mansión De Los Muertos Vivientes" shows all the excellency of Jess Franco in creating eerie atmosphere with no money.
Don't create false expectations based on the title. There is no mansion here, but a seaside hotel, and the "living dead" have nothing to do with the flesh eaters popularized by George Romero. They are more similar to the blind dead of Amando De Ossorio. Weather the title was chosen by Jess himself or imposed by the producers is anyone's guess.
The plot is about four German topless waitresses (played by Lina Romay, Mabel Escano, Mari Carmen Nieto and Elisa Vela) who decide to spend a vacation in a Spanish luxury hotel. Things get weird when they discover the place deserted, except for two bizarre staff members. With no man available to satisfy their sexual needs, the four horny girls enjoy some lesbian fun, but soon one by one is victim of an old curse that haunts the place...
This being a typical Jess Franco film, we can't expect a conventional approach of the cinematic grammar. Absurds situations abound in the script, but the director never seemed concerned with realism, an attitude that find technical correspondence in his obsession for ultra slow pacing and overuse of zoom lens, creating something like an alternative dreamlike dimension. Contrary to how they are depicted in most movies, dreams usually are full of illogic details, and it is precisely that distortion of reality, so typical of dreams, that sets the tone of works like this. We can't watch it under the rules of plausibility, otherwise the desillusion will be inevitable. Instead, we need to face it like a dream of its creator.
At first, one can see as "script flaws' facts like the girls wandering through the halls of the hotel naked, not afraid of being catched, or the fact that Lina's character doesn't find strange that the employee in charge of the excursionist sector is the same guy responsible for the hotel reception. However, during our dreams, we "experiece" absurd facts like if they were totally normal, right? The events narrated here seem the product of someone's dream, but we don't see any character sleeping or awakening to justify that. It is like if the audience or the filmmaker himself were dreaming them. And mesmerized by the extraordinary mise-en-scène, we let ourselves be carried along without resistance.
Jess' lack of interest in conventionalism not even respects the rules of cinematic genres. The movie starts as a sex comedy, but gradually assumes a dark path, breaking or playing with our expectations. The almost total absence of music was a great choice, not only because it increases the uncanny atmosphere, but also because the same Daniel White cues repeated over and over in the projects of the period get on the nerves sometimes.
In terms of sexual content, the film offers a lot of nudity and lesbian sex, shot without reserves by Jess' voyeuristic lens, and the viewers only interested in horror will need some patience or a fast forward button to skip the many erotic interludes.
In the cast, besides the four protagonists, there is a very disturbing role played by the excellent Eva León, as a sex slave chained in one of the hotel rooms. Her mix of genuine affliction and sado-maso pleasure is perfotmed in a so convincing way that makes us feel for her pity and repulsion at the same time. Lina and Mabel, as usual, bring extraordinary performances as well, while Mari Carmen Nieto and Elisa Vela are just acceptable.
Perfectly photographed, "La Mansión De Los Muertos Vivientes" shows all the excellency of Jess Franco in creating eerie atmosphere with no money.