The Horror Channel is dedicating the whole of June to exploitation director Jesús Franco, showing four of his cult films as part of their Eurotika season.
Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA and Eyeball magazine will introduce the films, beginning tonight with The Bloody Judge, Franco’s deviant version of the Judge George Jeffreys' story. Christopher Lee takes the title role as the infamous 17th-century witchfinder whose unholy obsession with Maria Rohm's buxom wench fuels a jaw-dropping spree of torture, brutality and flesh-ripping perversion.
Next up (10 June) is Venus in Furs, a trippy love story starring James Darren as a trumpet player who becomes obsessed with a woman he may have seen at a kinky party. But is she real or just an illusion? Klaus Kinski and Dennis Price cameo, while Manfred Mann provides the terrific jazzy sound score.
The campy 99 Women, screened Friday 17 June, is an absolute must for devotees of women-in-prison films thanks to Mercedes McCambridge’s hilarious performance as a sadistic warden. Maria Schell, Herbert Lom and Luciana Paluzzi also star.
The season finishes (24 June) with one of Franco’s most controversial films Eugenie: The Story of Her Journey into Perversion. Based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade, this is a trip into sexual discovery where the innocent Eugenie (Marie Liljedahl) undergoes her extreme initiation at the hands of Christopher Lee's wicked Dolmance.
The Horror Channel is on Sky 319, Virgin 149, Freesat 138
