|
The Bloody Judge
[Blue Underground]
1969; color
Directed by Jess Franco
Starring: Christopher Lee, Leo Genn, Maria Schell, Maria Rohm, Margaret Lee, Hugo Haas & Howard Vernon
|
|
On the surface you might think The Bloody Judge would be the perfect vehicle for Jess Franco's unique directorial style; seemingly brimming with witches, torture, eroticism and evil—but even the master of Eurotrash can't quite turn water to wine with this only mildly bloody flick that turns out to be more of a vaguely political / historical drama (with a love story sideplot thrown in for good measure) than anything else. Christopher Lee is almost as bizarre here as he is in The Return Of Captain Invincible, playing Judge George Jeffreys, England's Chief Judge Adjudicator and one mean SOB. He's hellbent on ridding England of treasonous traitors and - most of all - witches, which means he hands out death sentences with all the vigor he can muster. And these aren't just regular ol' hangings. He orders prisoners hung, then eviscerated, then fed their own entrails, and then drawn and quartered—just to make sure they're really dead, I guess. Lee snarls and barks menacingly, except when he's at home playing the harpsichord and enjoying a glass of vino; and he does it all while wearing a selection of some of the most ridiculous and laughable wigs I've ever seen. (Seriously, in one scene he looks like he's got on the collective 'dos of all five Yardbirds, circa 1966, and in another he's coifed in an outrageously long mop of hair that looks like it was left over from a Whitesnake reunion.) All kidding aside, once an accused witch is caught, sentenced and burned at the stake at the beginning of the movie, it sets into motion a series of events that include torture, lust, political upheaval and lots of inexplicably weird stuff (like an bizarre necro-lesbian scene) that you only see in a Jess Franco movie—yet somehow it's all fairly linear and manages to retain a period piece feel. There's even what night be construed as a "happy ending," which was definitely a surprise considering the director, but a lot of the individual parts in this movie are better than the whole. (Sort of a reverse Gestalt thing, if you will.) Also notable are a couple Franco regulars who put in memorable appearances; Howard Vernon, despite looking like a sinister prototype for Marty Feldman's Igor in Young Frankenstein, is unbelievably creepy and pervy as the executioner (I think there' some sort of unwritten law that says you can't make a Eurotrash flick without him), and Maria Schell, who plays a Yoda-like old blind woman who's either psychic, a witch or both. (And what Franco movie would be complete without his trademarked usage of the zoom lens?) Even though it is a bit uneven, if not confusing, in parts, The Bloody Judge is vintage Franco through and through and one of his best movies.
—the Kommandant
|
|
