Jess Franco Double Bill - Vol. 2 - Devil's Island Lovers / Night Of The Assassin (DVD)

...two exploitation films directed by Jess Franco and released under Tartan's Grindhouse label. As such they're not masterpieces, or suitable for all tastes, but they do attract a fairly strong cult following and are definitely worth a watch if you're interested in seeing films that are a bit off the beaten path. This is apparently the second Jess Franco double bill released by Tartan although it's the only one I've seen (and was my introduction to ...
...can gather most fans of Jess Franco will just be glad to have these films on DVD and the quality is about as good as the films are ever going to get.

The DVDs have next to nothing in the way of extras. Devil's Island Lovers contains approximately 30 minutes of additional and alternate scenes which made up the more sexually and violently explicit French version of the film. These scenes are of poor sound and video quality and look like ... more

Introduction

I'll start this review with a quick warning for the benefit of anyone who might not know what to expect. Devil's Island Lovers and Night of the Assassins are two exploitation films directed by Jess Franco and released under Tartan's Grindhouse label. As such they're not masterpieces, or suitable for all tastes, but they do attract a fairly strong cult following and are definitely worth a watch if you're interested in seeing films that are a bit off the beaten path. This is apparently the second Jess Franco double bill released by Tartan although it's the only one I've seen (and was my introduction to his films).

The Films

The first film, Devil's Island Lovers, is a fairly standard "Women in Prison" sexploitation film. After being set up by their respective admirers two young lovers (Beatriz and Raymond) are sent to an island prison, each thinking that the other is dead. The women's prison is ruled over by a stereotypically sadistic lesbian director who runs a strict regime, with punishment handed out for rule breaking and male guards who enjoy exerting their power. In the men's prison Raymond immediately gets on the wrong side of the senior warden and finds life hard, breaking rocks and witnessing the guards' brutality first hand. Beatriz makes friends with her bisexual cellmate Rosa, who's able to use her position as informant and plaything of the guards and directors of both sides of the prison to help the couple mount an escape attempt.

That's the film in a nutshell and unsurprisingly for a sexploitation film, there's not much more to it than that. However there are a few touches which suggest that the director was at least aiming higher than many other films of this type. Firstly the story adopts a flashback structure that adds a bit of back-story and context to the prison scenes. There's also strong anti-fascist and other political overtones which I didn't expect, these themes are also reinforced by a surprisingly downbeat ending. Many of the technical aspects of the film such as the cinematography are better than average. The film is also remarkably restrained, most of the sex and violence is suggested rather than shown or happens off screen. This was the biggest surprise of all and leads to obvious questions about who the target audience would be: it's clearly no masterpiece and so won't appeal to most viewers but fans of exploitation films will surely be disappointed by the lack of sex and violence. This lack of sex seems to be due to the presentation being of the Spanish version which is tamer than the more explicit French version. For those who are interested however the DVD includes the extra scenes present in the French version which includes plenty of nudity and softcore sex and more violence and brutality than the Spanish version. It's interesting to compare the two version, overall I think the more explicit scenes probably weaken the main story but will definitely be more appealing to fans of the exploitation genre (as well as being more in keeping with the conventions of the genre).

The second film, Night of the Assassins, is more of a period whodunnit and hardly qualifies as exploitation at all. In this film the murder of an English lord causes his family and other hanger's on to gather for the reading of the will. Tensions mount when multiple wills come to light naming different heirs and it appears that the lord's murderer is pursuing a different goal and is far from finished with the family. Meanwhile a local police officer, with help from a Scotland Yard detective, tries to unravel the mystery.

Reading my summary back the film actually sounds quite good, and the idea probably is, but the film is predictable, slow (despite its short length), and lacks suspense. The writing is also pretty clunky with important plot details being revealed rather poorly which makes the film a little more confusing than it needs to be in places. Despite this the film does capture the mood quite well with some nicely eerie night scenes. The film's opening murder, carried out during a lightning storm, is particularly effective. The film is certainly more restrained than Devil's Island Lovers although this doesn't make it any better, if anything its the weaker of the two in my opinion. Given the director's reputation this story should have probably been a good deal more violent and sex-filled than it was and while Devil's Island Lovers felt slightly strengthened by the restraint of the Spanish version, the same restraint here leaves the film feeling pretty underwhelming. This is probably because in the case of Devil's Island Lovers the film's story was pure exploitation even if the execution was tame, while this film isn't significantly different from the numerous bog standard mainstream and independent films along the same lines. Perhaps there's an alternative cut somewhere similar to Devil's Island Lovers, but if there is it hasn't been included on the DVD this time so we're sadly robbed of the opportunity to see it and judge for ourselves.

The DVDs

Each film is presented on its own DVD. The sound and picture quality are pretty good with the films being presented in their original aspect ratio and with mono sound. I'm no expert when it comes to sound and picture quality but black levels and flesh tones looked good and the sound was clear and understandable throughout. Of the two Night of the Assassins was slightly lower quality but from what I can gather most fans of Jess Franco will just be glad to have these films on DVD and the quality is about as good as the films are ever going to get.

The DVDs have next to nothing in the way of extras. Devil's Island Lovers contains approximately 30 minutes of additional and alternate scenes which made up the more sexually and violently explicit French version of the film. These scenes are of poor sound and video quality and look like they were sourced from video but are interesting to watch. Despite some scenes in Night of the Assassins showing evidence that there might be a more explicit version available, its DVD contains only an alternative title sequence which isn't particularly interesting.

The films are both in Spanish with optional English and English Hard of Hearing subtitles available. The case also includes two small double-sided reproductions of some of the original promotional artwork for the films.

Conclusion

Overall if you're a fan of the exploitation genre you should find these films interesting although if you like your films on the more extreme side you might find these pretty tame. On the other hand if you're looking for something a bit different or want to get your feet wet in the exploitation genre this is probably as good a place as any to start. 

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