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Just what I expected

Blistering performances.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This One Shot Production appears to be once again shot on digital video, which robs the sumptuous scenery of depth. And yet it is true to say also that the rawness of video heightens the colours, and the almost dazzling contrast between them. As a result, scenes look stylised, but stylish too.This partial reimagining of 'Vampyros Lesbos (1971)' – one of Director Jess Franco's most highly regarded productions – is my favourite One Shot Production. Technically, it is on a par with 'Blind Target (2000)', but benefits from a far more interesting, although stretched-out, storyline. Uncle Jess's belief on the DVD packaging that 'Snakewoman is among the most sincere and creative films of my career' is … admirably enthusiastic.The 'Snakewoman' is played by Carmen Montes, complete with fangs and a body-straddling snake tattoo. Her nakedness beneath a black cloak recalls 'Female Vampire (1975)', or even Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin's 'Fascination (1979)'; it is a memorable and effective look. There's even a 'Renfield' character in the form of Christie Levin's very effective Alpha, who glides from being a victim to being pretty unnerving in her own right. In fact, the acting is uniformly impressive. A fully clothed Lina Romay makes a couple of fleeting appearances (her character's name appears to be Van Helsing), and looking elegant and dapper, Franco regular Antonio Mayans – or Robert Foster as he's sometimes credited – plays the doctor, or 'Nostradamus!' Of course, you would expect plenty of skin and elongated sex scenes, and you wouldn't be disappointed - often to the sound of jazzy piano music and some fairly copious amounts of bright red blood. Some scenes are seen from the victim's point-of-view, with blood falling from the attacker's lips onto the camera lens. A simple but effective trick, used by Chris Alexander in his 2012 'Blood for Irina' to great, and gross, effect.Not a classic, but many steps up from other One Shot Productions, and one of Franco's more stylish and enjoyable latter-day offerings.

From the Jess Franco movies made past 1990 which I've watched, 'Snakewoman' was the only pleasant surprise among a bunch of disappointments. Although the cheap video quality of the material isn't any better than the rest, the editing and storyline are closer to what he made in his best years around 1970 than any other of his recent works. The surreal atmosphere is there (to a degree at least), and Carmen Montes in the title role has a strong presence. This woman with a snake tattooed all around her body pretends to be the granddaughter of an actress from the silent movie era, but more likely that actress is her, and her gorgeous looks were preserved by undead vampiric life. She dances and seduces with a magic quality so that it feels like watching a ritual rather than a horror story. Now that's as close to 'Vampyros Lesbos' as Franco is ever going to get. I really enjoyed 'Snakewoman' for what it is, can't expect more without any budget to speak of.

Having finally watched one of Jess Franco's notoriously cheap filmed-on-video efforts for the American company One Shot, I can safely say that these are not for me: considering this is supposed to be a return to form and his most notable work in 20 years (if I remember correctly, my Venetian friend and veritable Jess Franco authority Francesco Cesari even went so far as to call it his very best upon first viewing!), I was thoroughly unenthused by what I got! As was the director's fashion, he has revamped (no pun intended) one of his earlier successes, VAMPYROS LESBOS (1970); since that had been among his more stylish outings (with a killer soundtrack to boot), the utterly flat look here is all the more disheartening! Incidentally, this is a sure sign of how Franco's approach has changed (to its ultimate detriment) with the passage of time: the earlier film had complemented the nudity and psychedelia with narrative strands recognizably derived from Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (which he had already officially adapted the previous year!); from the mid-1970s onwards, however, his plots grew increasingly thinner (though, at his best, he could still prove intriguing – as amply demonstrated by the recently-viewed and somewhat similar LORNA…THE EXORCIST {1974}, which is why I decided to follow it with this one) and the films basically became a succession of protracted sex scenes (which SNAKEWOMAN certainly is)! Anyway, what we have here is a female reporter going to a remote house to catalogue the property of a legendary uninhibited entertainer; before she has even arrived, the woman starts to feel her subject's influence (even if the latter is supposed to have died 60 years before!). However, the girl who lives there, adorned by a snake tattoo across her entire body (hence the title: thankfully, she is not made to turn into a reptile but is rather fitted with vampire fangs and cape, and nothing else!), claims to be her – apparently, she went into hiding after WWII and kept her youth by somehow becoming undead! She is flanked by a couple of servants (inevitably named Morpho and Andros but, apart from parading around stark naked, they do very little of any consequence!) and, as was the case with both VAMPYROS and LORNA, we are also introduced to a former lover/victim of hers who has gone bonkers and is being 'treated' in a clinic. In her case, however, it is by an even loonier monk (Franco regular Antonio Mayans) who spends much of his scenes "chanting in Latin" (as per the English subtitles on the print I watched, except that a lot of it is mumbo-jumbo and occasionally slipping into Italian)!; eventually, he is bitten by his patient but, rather than becoming a vampire, he kills himself! As I said, a sizeable chunk of the 98-minute running-time is taken up by lesbian matings – with a man being involved only, in old hardcore footage with a bloody climax (pardon the pun), ostensibly unearthed among the artifacts, its value being hilariously overstated by the heroine's newspaper editor as "of the Host"! While I did not mind watching the Snakewoman herself in action, Carmen Montes (since she is truly one of the most gorgeous Franco leading ladies ever – this is her 4th of 6 appearances for Franco so far – and I even liked her performance in general…though the feral vampire attacks, especially given the spot she literally sinks her teeth into for sustenance, are overdone!), her partners were somewhat less photogenic (and engaging on a personal level). Incidentally, we even have a cameo by Lina Romay aka Mrs. Franco – who, for once, keeps her clothes on (she is getting on in years, after all!) – as a psychiatrist dealing with the heroine's 'conversion' to the ranks of the undead; in the end, the reporter and her 'mentor' are re-united in the latter's house. While there are some attempts at atmosphere via the usual shots of birds (which may or may not be intended as symbolism) but also crude optical effects, and the music score is not too bad, it is sad to see film-making freedom being squandered on such trivial fare (so much so that I was tempted to dub this DRECKULA!); it is also highly ironic, then, that Franco frequently berated associates for compromising his vision but, more often than not, those situations yielded superior (or, at least, more palatable) results in the long run!

Snakewoman (2005) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Wow! A somewhat watchable Jess Franco/One Shot Production film. This is a very loose remake of Franco's very own Vampyros Lesbos with the vampire woman being replaced by the title character. A reporter goes off to research an 87-year-old woman who was believed to be a "snake woman". When the reporter arrives she finds the woman to look much younger and soon the "snake woman" gets the reporter involved in lesbian sex and a whole lot more. This is easily Franco's best film in over a decade and his most erotic since probably the late 70s. Thankfully Franco cut out all the disgusting sexual acts and goes for pure erotic scenes and for the most part he has hit a home run. The actual story also works pretty well and the cast isn't too bad either. Lina Romay has a small role that allows her comic cuteness to come through without any ugly sex scenes. The music score is also nice but at 96-minutes the film runs a bit too long. This certainly isn't the place for Franco newbies to start but it's certainly a good return to form for Franco die-hards. There are a couple hardcore scenes as well, which rises (no pun intended) this above other One Shot films.