Dr. Johnson is determined to save countless lives from diseases, including cancer, by experimenting his research on human embryos with great results. However, the more conversative medical board deems his actions too inhumane and unethical for science, rejecting his research, expelling him from the medical board, and revoking his license to practice medicine. Unable to cope with the loss, Dr. Johnson slowly slips into insanity with his former colleagues’ condemnations rolling through his thoughts to the point where he ultimately takes his own life with one slice of the wrist. His beloving and dedicated wife reels over his death and swears to avenge him by luring each of the four into a seductive death trap. Mrs. Johnson entices the respectable professionals one-by-one with her desirable femininity into sordid circumstances that leaves them vulnerable for vengeance but at what cost to her own sanity and the police hot on her trail.
Jesús Franco, aka Jess Franco, writes and directs, under the pseudonym of the Americanized Frank Hollman, a tit-for-tat revenger of European sleaze under the contextual themes of controversial medical research, revenge, and hypocritical moralities with a femme fatale kicker. The film is called “She Killed in Ecstasy” and was released the same year as Franco’s auteur homoerotic “Vampyros Lesbo” of 1971 and as a pair, the two films see a 4K caliber upgrade from the established genre boutique label Severin with UHD Blu-rays that star sultry actress Soledad Miranda. Filmed in Spain, more specifically in the Valenciana providence, and like his “Vampyros Lesbos,” “She Killed in Ecstasy” is also a German production produced under Artur Brauner (“The Devil Came from Akasava”) and Arturo Marcos (“Count Dracula”), both of whom worked with Franco on “Vampyros Lesbos,” with Karl Heinz Mannchen returning as well to serve as executive producer under the production banner of Tele-Cine Film und Fernesehproduktion in collaboration with Fénix Cooperativa Cinematográfica.
If you thought Spanish actress sizzled as a sapphic bloodsucker in “Vampyros Lesbos,” seeing her manipulate those who’ve done her and her husband (“Fred Williams, “The Red Nights of the Gestapo”) wrong with weaponized sex is the naked, full-bodied zenith of her career as the vehemently vindictive Mrs. Johnson. “She Killed in Ecstasy” offers Miranda more range of arc that takes her happiness, squashes it, and forces her to sex her way through destroying the lives of those who’ve destroyed her own relationship but with each kill slowly piecing away her soul and sanity. It takes a woman’s touch to evoke the sordid true selves of the husband-damning medical board who are riddled with their own vices that stray not too far from Mr. Johnson’s unethical research. Masochism, lesbianism, perversion – these are the sexualized traits of the medical board who fall into Mrs. Johnson’s snare to be snuffed out in the summit throes of sexual foreplay, distracted by her iconic figure, lush bush, and deep brown hair and eyes. Primarily Swiss and Swedish actors makeup the medical board with Paul Muller (“Lady Frankenstein,” “Eugenie de Sade”) as the Dr. Franklin Houston, Howard Vernon (“Angel of Death,” “Zombie Lake”) as Prof. Johnathan Walker, and Ewa Strömberg (“The College Girl Murders”) returning to costar alongside Miranda from “Vampyros Lesbos” as the only woman in the group as Dr. Crawford while Jess Franco himself takes the last spot as Dr. Donen, integrating himself into the madness. The last principal cast member is “The Horror of Blackwood Castle’s” Horst Tappert and the German actor plays the generic role of a police Inspector monitoring and tracking a killer unleashing knife-edge fury on specific medical professionals. The Inspector is essentially a throwaway role with no real contribution to the narrative other than to be an aimless cat chasing it’s own tail with no real sleuth work; instead, the Inspector has the persona attributes and gaited grace of a cool, calm, and collected know-it-all except the killer’s identity and motive.
Now, the premise itself is promising, like most revenge thriller that exploits sexual provocatively for a death strike, but Franco’s narrative is hindered on being formulaic without any kind of deviation from one kill to the next as Mrs. Johnson spins the same trap of being the promiscuous spider enticing the fly to its bed of web. Mrs. Johnson does disguise herself differently for every scenario and opportunity to lure, attract, and feast upon her targeted prey, using mostly a melee knife from her garter to slit their throats and castrate them as if to say, you killed my husband, now I take your manhood! Pure spite drives her until the unhinge of insanity takes the helm with each kill taking a little bit of her soul with each murder. “She Killed in Ecstasy” fits into Franco’s framing and depth of shots by shooting with wide landscapes and incorporating actors as longshots to engulf them in the environment without it feeling isolating or an immense sense of doom. Franco can also get intimate with closeups as the actors get intimate themselves, it’s as if Mrs. Johnsons is reeling in the unsuspecting lustful and condemning medical board from the wide, long shots through class panes and door frames to between the sheets that is tightly shot on faces, body parts, and the eventual fatal act.
The second act on a two part Jess Franco and Soledad Miranda film 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Severin Films, “She Killed in Ecstasy” comes dual formatted with a HVEC encoded BD100 and a AVC ended BD50 and with their respective resolutions of 2160p ultra high-definition and 1080p high-definition. The work Severin has done is impeccable with a well diffused, well saturated image containing natural and balanced film stock grain and has immersive details. There’s not a ton of notable differences between the two formats with more of the darker shades or tenebrous areas on the UHD having a richer control in the decoding that has spot yet minor banding on the standard Blu-ray. Skin tones and textures never break from normal tones and into splotchy territory; it’s quite an achievement to make the newly scanned 4K image from the original camera negative appear like a fresh film right off the digital scan. The audio is not as complex with just a simple German language mono track with optional English subtitles that’s about as good as it would be sound on any system setup with coequal layers between dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack. With an international cast, not all the cast speak German with the film’s dialogue, and ambient, layer produced through ADR with German voice actors. The produced result is overall clean with minor interference static from the used equipment but does not impede verbal progression and dynamics between characters. English subtitles appeared accurate and well-placed. The UHD disc has little-to-no special features in what is essentially a feature-only disc that has an accompany German trailer for the film. The Blu-ray has all the extra glory with a Jess Franco novel author Stephen Thrower interview Ecstasy in Rage,” a location visit In the Land of Franco Part 13, an archived interview with Jess Franco before his death Jess Killed in Ecstasy, an archive interview with actress Soledad Miranda Sublime Soledad, and an archive interview with actor Paul Muller. The German trailer is also on the Blu-ray disc. Much like ‘Vampyros Lesbos,” “She Killed in Ecstasy “ has a O-ring slipcover with commissioned graphic art that resembles the original poster art and the Shriek Show DVD cover with Soledad Miranda in one of her rememberable scenes of her character’s sanity crumbling in a upright fetal on a couch moment. The backside of the slipcover offers up some of her character’s rage which is intense amongst the eyes and fascial expressions. The black UHD Amaray case comes with a single sided sleeve with original film artwork and no tangible materials inserted inside. The region free release for both formats provides all Franco and genre fans with a not rated film clocking in at 80 minutes.
Last Rites: A must-see Jess Franco film for exploitational revenge and a must have physical release for Jess Franco fans, “She Kills in Ecstasy” is an alluring revenge-thriller that exposes thin morality hypocrisy as well as a deepening madness over grief and death.
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