Michael_Elliott
Sinister Dr. Orloff, The (1984) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Once again director Jess Franco remakes his very own The Awful Dr. Orloff but this time there's the added glory of naked women and sleaze. In this version, Dr. Orloff's (Howard Vernon) son is going out seducing women so that he can kidnap them and use them as experiments to bring his dead mother back to life. I'm not a fan of the original film but I did enjoy Franco's previous effort, Revenge in the House of Usher (1982) as well as the future one, Faceless (1988). This version here runs pretty good, although nothing too fresh ever happens. Throughout the 82-minute running time we see Orloff's son kidnap women and then try the experiment on them. This is pretty much all that happens but Franco creates some nice atmosphere and there's a great music score to keep the film moving. Vernon appears to be having a blast in his few scenes as does Franco himself who shows up in his (for the time) popular "gay" character. Politically incorrect for sure but it makes me laugh. Viewed in Spanish without subs.
Pierre-Alexandre Buisson
Antonio Mayans is Dr. Orlof, a spanish doctor who's obsessed by his father's past and a woman-hater as a bonus. He stalks and kills prostitutes in order to reanimate his dead mother. His father, played by an aging Howard Vernon, does not agree with these "ethics" and warns him to stop killing. This may be considered as a funny thing since Vernon was the first Dr. Orlof, who did the same thing in the '62 Franco classic GRITOS EN LA NOCHE, except that he was peeling off his young victim's faces to heal his daughter.Yes, Jesus Franco seems obsessed by this theme he first saw in LES YEUX SANS VISAGE by George Franju. He did countless versions of this movie over the years, including his recent (2001) remake of GRITOS with Paul Naschy in the lead role ! He also did a version, in '88, called FACELESS, with a big budget and a fabulous cast (Florence Guérin, Brigitte Lahaie, Telly Savalas, and Vernon once more...).This spanish production is one of the best he shot in the eighties, with an oppressed narration by Mayans, and a very interesting pathological link between the father and the son. The camera work is absolutely fantastic, as always when Franco does not shoot in a hurry, and the haunting keyboard music was composed and played by Il Maestro himself. A personal and highly enjoyable work that'll mostly please to die hard Francophiles.
AD
