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Jesús Jess' Franco was the world's most prolific purveyor of weird, distressing, and sleaze-infused cinema. Following his recent passing, Bizarre looks back at the mysterious life of Spain's ultimate movie maverick...
It takes a lot to get people off their fat arses these days. The internet has transformed us into a nation of procreating zombies where, bar wiping your butt, everything is achievable at the tap of a touch-screen. From a modern perspective, that makes the wildly proactive achievements of Jess Franco seem even more extraordinary. With around 200 films to his credit, including Spain's first ever horror and grot flicks, it's fair to say the world doesn't make artists like it used to.
Once recognised by Guinness World Records as the most prolific film-maker ever to wield a camera, Franco could also be listed as the most outrageous. The Catholic Church once described him as the most dangerous film-maker alive. He's been dubbed Euro cinema's answer to Ed Wood, and spun surreal horrors, lesbian prison romps and grubby pornos from hastily-written scripts and piddly budgets. Often calling on a core of loyal actors, including his wife, Lina Romay, Franco is as much reviled as he is revered.
Yet for loyal Francophiles, the director's divisiveness is another reason to love him, and even his bad films are fun - just check out the hilarious dubbing and exaggerated comedy of 1996's Vampire Killer Barbys. But with so many films to watch, where does one begin?
"Back in 1990 I wrote an essay for the first issue of Video Watchdog, in which I said, 'You can't see one Franco film until you've seen them all,"' says Tim Lucas, who founded the iconic reviews mag and co-authored Obsession: The Films Of Jess Franco. "Franco himself singled out this comment for praise, and now that I've seen 140 of his 200 + movies, I have a better grasp of what I meant. His works are one big, ever-morphing serial that feature different permutations of the same group of characters and story lines. What Franco achieved is unlike anything else in horror and fantastic cinema. "
BIRTH OF A MAVERICK
Born Jesús Franco Manera in Malaga, Spain, on 12 May 1930, Franco learned film-making in Paris, France, in...