Welcome back to My Dark Corner of This Sick World.
‘We don’t like your kind of people.’
Jess Franco’s Faceless is based on/inspired by horror classic Eyes Without a Face,
‘I will restore your beauty to you’
a subject Franco had tackled before in The Awful Dr Orloff.
‘Orloff?’
It’s probably too much to call this a remake but it has numerous nods to the classic,
not least the iconic mask.
'Take them off.'
Though in this version the mask is used when disfigured Ingrid hires a male prostitute,
'I like to see who I'm screwing.'
and that’s kind of indicative of Franco’s approach:
take the classic story and add sex.
‘You got a little bit of a kick out of it too’
'Possibly'
Anyway, with the help of his wife Nathalie, Dr Frank Flamand is trying to restore the face of his sister Ingrid
after an acid attack,
using the faces of beautiful women,
'Have you got it.'
starting with Barbara, played by Caroline Munro.
If you can’t trust your coke dealer who can you trust?
‘She is perfect to remake the face of Ingrid’
She would be, but…
‘Gordon must have raped her’
Why are you jumping to that conclusion?
‘You’ve done it again haven’t you?
Because he’s done it before –
another mad scientist who needs to examine his hiring policy.
But Gordon won’t get away with this.
‘Go to Ingrid’s room and do everything she wants’
Forced to have sex with an ugly girl, that’ll teach him. Meanwhile...
‘The worst things is her skin is damaged’
I wouldn’t have said the worst thing but you are the bad guy, and there’s now no reason to keep her alive. Except.
'Yes.'
Who loves you baby?
‘And now she’s missing. She’s disappeared’
Telly, brilliantly, plays Terry, Barbara’s father who has hired private eye, Morgan to find her.
‘I’m not Bogie’
Looks familiar but you can’t quite place him?
This is Christopher Mitchum, who really looks like his Dad.
He heads off to look for Barbara and soon has news...
'I think I have a lead.'
'Terry... Barbaras...'
How do I put this delicately...
'Barabras... well she's been whoring around in Paris.'
'Good.'
About time she got a career the lazy bitch.
Meanwhile Flamand and Nathalie find a new face for Ingrid,
‘You do have what it takes to seduce me’
which is obviously what you want in your sister’s new face.
They also hire a doctor with experience in face swapping.
‘Before Dachau I spent several months in Auschwitz with Mengele – he did not believe in me’
The more I hear about that man, the less I like him.
Unfortunately, the face transplant doesn't go well.
‘It’s ruined. The operation is ruined’
So it’s back to the club for another woman,
'Oh I'm sorry, so stupid, let me do that.'
Although this one seems to come on to them.
‘Will I be forgiven if I ask you to dance’
Bold to spill champagne on someone then hit on their husband, but she’s picked the right couple.
Again raising the question; why is his main criteria in finding his sister’s new face;
must be game for a threesome?
‘I remember the night the 3 of us spent together’
Well that clears that up.
And the operation goes ahead, directly referencing Eyes Without A Face’s most controversial shot.
Now, after some vague investigation and threatening homosexuals.
‘My shirt!’
Morgan locates the clinic and gets his first actual clue,
'Mr Morgan is visiting my former patients but is leaving now.'
Thank God she posed in that completely natural ‘I’m wearing a watch’ stance.
Searching the basement, Morgan is attacked by Gordon.
Maybe if you aimed for something other than the extinguisher.
He locates Barbara and...
‘Okay, open the door’
You pillock. And this makes for what initially seems a dark ending…
as the bad guys celebrate their success.
'The scars have healed in just 14 days.'
But there’s a message on Terry’s machine.
‘If you don’t hear from us in 24 hours then send in the marines. Oh, and Merry Christmas’
If you don’t hear from us in 24 hours then send in the marines 15 days later?
Now earlier…
‘I’ll be gone for a couple of days, any message, leave it on the answering machine’
I don’t interpret a couple of days as 15, and in the same conversation.
‘You should find her in the next 24 hours’
I think it’s insane he’s going away for a couple of days when he’s expecting his missing daughter to show up,
I will not accept 15.
Whichever way you cut; this makes no sense.
And another issue.
‘There are too many corpses in this clinic’
So many extra characters have been crammed into this, some of whom we haven’t even mentioned,
‘But now I think you masterminded all these crimes’
because they play no role. Barbara is kept alive only so the private eye has a valid goal.
‘Why are you keeping me prisoner here’
The action is very simple but it’s been made complicated,
‘They can’t make heads or tails of it’
while the emotions and motivations behind it have been dumbed down.
'That’s what she gets off on’
These characters have problems – sleazy ones, but problems none the less –
it would have been nice to address them.
'Soon it will be no more than a bad memory.'
Thanks for watching. To see an uncensored version of this, join us on Patreon as an acolyte.
Franco made 2 versions of this story, what are your favourite films that show directors revisiting the same subject matter?
Let us know in the comments below.
