SATURDAY, JULY 12 – NOON
Co-presented by Severin Films and Oscarbate Film Collective
Over the course of his sixty-year career, Spanish writer/director/actor/trumpeter Jesús Franco made nearly 200 unique feature films. Working across just about every genre conceivable—from slashers to spy films; gothic horror to hardcore porn, and beyond—Franco channeled his lifelong obsessions with pulp storytelling, jazz, and sex into a filmography that’s as dense as it is singularly idiosyncratic. This July, Oscarbate Film Collective returns to Spectacle for a sequel to last year’s Franco mystery marathon with four more films drawn from the various depths and crevices of his sizable filmography. Whether you’ve seen one or a hundred of his films, why not take a chance to fall under his spell?
Severin Films Pop-Up Shop before and after the marathon!
Day passes are available online for $20. Single film tickets will be available at the door for $5 on a first-come, first-serve basis.
EUGENIE DE SADE
Dir. Jesús Franco, 1970
Liechtenstein. 91 mins.
In English.
Jess Franco’s second (loose) adaptation of the Marquis de Sade’s story Eugénie de Franval is every bit as magnificent as his earlier Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion (1970). With a captivating central performance by Soledad Miranda (Vampyros Lesbos), Eugenie de Sade is one of Franco’s best—yet surprisingly more underseen—films.
NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND DESIRES
Dir. Jesús Franco, 1983
Spain. 93 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Jess Franco’s longtime muse and partner Lina Romay stars in one of his many, many films about mind control and murder that’s a potent example of the sort of hypnotic dream logic that only he could conjure.
BLACK BOOTS, LEATHER WHIP
dir. Jesús Franco, 1982
Spain. 89 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
One of Jess Franco’s many—and best—films centered around the hardboiled detective Al Pereira, Black Boots, Leather Whip contains some of the most beautiful images he ever committed to celluloid.
LAS CHUPONAS
Dir. Jesús Franco, 1985
Spain. 69 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
A true rarity in Jess Franco’s seemingly never-ending filmography: a never-screened, not commercially available hardcore feature that has been shrouded in mystery for decades. Franco scholar (and Murderous Passions and Flowers of Perversion author) Stephen Thrower calls it one of his very best adult films — high praise.