Jess Franco may be one of the most prolific exploitation directors, but let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that makes him a great filmmaker. He had some good films, like Vampyros Lesbos, Exorcism, and She Killed in Ecstasy, but he also made a bunch of shit. We’ll file Venus in Furs under the latter.
The IMDB synopsis: “A musician finds the corpse of a beautiful woman on the beach. The woman returns from the dead to take revenge on the group of wealthy sadists responsible for her death.”
Don’t be fooled by this synopsis. There is very little vengeance here, and even less “wealthy sadists.” In fact, there isn’t much in the way of plot. And, I swear, they use the same shots over and over for different scenes, as if the audience wouldn’t notice such a thing. And the “musician”… he’s a fucking trumpet player who clearly isn’t playing the music that goes with the scene. It’s absurd. All of it.
Most exploitation films at least supply us with a large volume of attractive women to distract us from the bad acting and camera work, but Venus in Furs fails in that regard too. With the exception of Maria Rohm who plays Wanda, the ladies are disappointing. I’ll take The Big Bird Cage any day over this.
But if you’re interested, it’s on Tubi.