DEADLY SANCTUARY
Deadly dull is more like it

  Oh no, Jess Franco!  "At once the most prolific and most incompetent horror director of all time", I've heard him called.  The first part sounds true; he directed 13 movies in 1983. As for the second, I'd only seen one film of his before, the very, VERY boring Jack The Ripper. This movie lends further credibility to the above statement. (did he really do a guest appearance on Married...With Children?)

Pay no attention to the cover art, which promises mucho Marquis De Sade action.  (besides, the last Marquis De Sade movie I saw was the unbelievably bad Night Terrors; mind you, one episode of Jack Of All Trades featuring him was good for some chuckles)  This is by no stretch of the imagination a horror movie.

Klaus Kinski plays De Sade, but what does it matter, since all he does is write in his book and say some things in voiceover?  Franco just shows him sitting in jail at points throughout the movie, writing out the events of the movie.  An unlucky lass comes into a small inheritance, loses it to a clergyman, works off room and board at a cranky guy's house, while two lesbians knock off a horny couple, and I had to go to bed, I was tired.  So I watched the rest the next day.  It was not rewarding.

The camera stumbles in and out of focus like a drunkard, there are more continuity errors than I could count on my hands, top-billed Jack Palance shows up for only about twenty minutes and he's a flaming weirdo when he does, his worst performance ever.  The dialogue is totally inane, like how one man, kissing a woman he just poisoned, tells her "I find it stimulating to make love to someone who very soon will be dead!"  Seems to me that this would pretty much ruin your chances of making love to her before she kicks.  (I was right)

If the camera were in focus more often, it'd be easier to appreciate the wealth of nudity, good looking women, and period detail; no idea how accurate it is, but it's nice to look at.  Or would be, if I didn't have to keep waiting around for Franco to focus the camera with even-a-stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day regularity.

Yep.  What this movie is, is worthless.  No merit, none!  Onto the pile with you, Deadly Sanctuary!  Worse than Jack The Ripper AND Night Terrors...how, HOW?!?!?

I need a good cry now.

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