She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)

just watch it!

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The young and idealistic Dr Johnson (Fred Williams) proudly presents his work with human embryos, but has his expectations crushed by 4 experts (Howard Vernon, Paul Muller, Ewa Strömberg and Jess Franco himself) who ridicule the work of his lifetime and destroy his experiments. Dr Johnson commits suicide, and his widow (Soledad Miranda) decides she will kill the 4 enemies of her husband - in interesting ways. Meanwhile she keeps the body of the doctor and continues to talk to him as if he were still alive...A thriller with a remarkable straightforward story for a Jess Franco movie. Soledad Miranda is scorching the screen, the director gives her plenty of opportunity to stare with her dark eyes at her future victims. Not even a silly blond wig can damage her maniacal presence. The jazzy lounge music contributes a lot to the freaky atmosphere, but also the locations near Alicante/Spain are beautifully chosen. The only weak point to me is the role of the police inspector (Horst Tappert), because he seems to do a really lazy and sloppy investigation, considering there are several murder cases. Oh, and maybe it's the only time in cinema history that a car falls down a cliff and just breaks apart, it doesn't explode like it's full of dynamite - movie cliché avoided. Most likely it were only the costs which mattered, though.

Normally, when scanning my newspaper weekly TV guide, in order to decide on which movies to watch, I am attracted to titles which may indicate the genres which interest me. Dramas, thrillers and biographies are at the top of my list of favoured genres."She Killed in Ecstasy" looked promising when the following rating advice accompanied a brief description of the plot:"Adult themes; Nudity; Sexual references; violence."Knowing only that the plot centred on the revenge killings of those who rejected a woman's much loved husband's medical experiments, I was somewhat startled by the psychedelic music and pop art graphics with which the film opened. Not that long into the story it was evident that the inanity of the dialogue, the director's excruciating use of the zoom lens and the completely inappropriate sound track might be less irritating, being alleviated somewhat by the introduction of 'soft porn' when the nubile Soledad Miranda began to burrow her face into the groin area of her now prostrate and demented husband, played by Fred Williams. But even this titillation was short lived as the promise of a 'classic erotic horror movie' all but evaporated under the weight of unflinching mediocrity of characterisation, ludicrous dialogue, absence of logic and kitschy direction of one, Jesus Franco. The accompanying reviews on this site have proved far more entertaining than the film. Oh, and how people do take things so seriously! I care not a fig how many films Mr.Franco has accumulated in his CV over the years or whether other of his projects have been dubbed cult classics. This movie, apart from its kitsch qualities (lowbrow taste, lacking in style, so false as to engender comical reactions, etc) is so slow, so boring, so childishly predictable, so lacking in atmosphere or characterisation has achieved the effect of my resolution to avoid any other of Mr.Franco's contributions to film. Watch this and cringe!

Nobody can deny that Jess Franco made a lot of rubbish in his career...but then he goes and directs a film like this, and it becomes easy to forgive him for past and future sins. She Killed in Ecstasy is thinly plotted and rather predictable, but it's also sexy and violent, and overall; an excellent slice of sleaze from a director who knows a lot about this sort of film. Franco attempts to inject a bit of substance into the film by way of a plot that involves the humanity of scientific discovery as well as emotional torment, which is also the reason behind all the killing. Franco seems to care more about sex than violence, and this shines through as all the kill scenes involve sex, but not all of them feature a lot of blood. The plot focuses on Mrs. Johnson; the wife of a scientist researching human embryos. After his work comes under scrutiny from a medical comity and he is labelled all manner of things, from 'criminal' to 'animal', he decides to take his own life. She doesn't like this very much, and so decides to take revenge on all involved by seducing and killing them all.The film features a host of sleaze regulars, including Vampyros Lesbos star Susann Korda. Korda provides a good lead for the film as she certainly looks the part and you can believe that many men would easily be seduced by her. She receives good feedback from the likes of Fred Williams and Howard Vernon, and despite the fact that this film is a cheap slice of trash; the acting isn't bad on the whole. Franco gives his plot more credibility with scenes such as the one that sees Mrs Johnson mull over the corpse of her dead husband. Given the type of film, there's a surprising amount of emotion going on. Franco has often said that he hates his body of work, and this film appears to be an attempt at making something with some meaning. The sex scenes are generally well worked, and the lesbian sequence in particular is really well done. Susann Korda also gets to don a number of sexy outfits, which is nice. The plot flows well, and since the film doesn't last long - there isn't a lot of time for it to get boring. Overall, She Killed in Ecstasy is hardly a great film; but it's better than you might expect and I can't say I didn't enjoy watching it.

Frano is on again/off again more than probably any director in history. His days with Soledad Miranda were arguably his best, as can be seen in this tasty tale of revenge.Miranda plays a recently widowed woman who seeks out revenge upon the people she blames for her husband's suicide. She first seduces them and then kills them. The preying mantis metaphor is slapped on a little thick, as the later victims know what's going to happen to them, yet do nothing to stop it.The film is played out in a dreamy kind of pacing. Little sound and dialogue, distanced shots, slow camera movements; it's like a lethargic daze echoing the detachment of the lead character. Franco takes his time unfolding the seduction and revenge, and he displays more flair for cinema than many would believe him capable of. The film is far from flawless though; the story is never complex, acting is either too subtle or over stated and the dialogue is pretty simple. Also, the character motivations lack strength all around, which robs the film of most all emotion.Of the MANY Franco films to choose form, I would suggest this one for a view, especially to those unfamiliar with the director.7/10