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Irina (Lina Romay) and Fabián (Daniel Katz) are a top psychic
nightclub act, one of the kind where he fishes random objects out of the
audiencemember's pockets, and she, blindfolded, has to tell the audience
what he's holding. What makes their performance better than most others is
the fact that she plays the psychic quite so believable, and adds some
drama to her performance - and judging from her dreams, she might really
be a psychic ... or at least believe she's one. Eventually, she starts
dreaming that she picks up random men, has sex with them and then stabs
them to death. The dreams feel so real she even believes she's a murderer.
But Fabián calms her down, blames everything on her imagination, and on
himself, claiming he hasn't given her enough attention, sexually, lately
... but every time they almost have sex, he finds an excuse to leave ... Of
course, Fabián is really behind all the murders, he is an actual magician
who has cast some kind of hypnotic spell on her, to kill in his name and
the name of Princess Lorna (Carmen Carrión). When Irina grows suspicious,
Fabián tells her she's only confused and sends her to a psychiatrist
(Jess Franco) who will surely confirm her confusion. It's only in the
finale that Irina finds out the truth, but hey, she might have been used
as a mere tool, but technically, it was indeed her who killed all those
people ... and now Fabián and Lorna want to kill her and claim it was
self defense - when the police, led by Irina's psychiatrist, interferes to
arrest Fabián and Lorna. You see, the psychiatrist treated Fabián as
well and knew about his twisted mind ... With a filmography as
rich as Jess Franco's, which spans over 150 movies, it's only natural that
certain motives repeat themselves, and Franco was known for doing updates
or remakes of or at least variations on his earlier films - and he has
filmed a story similar to Mil Sexos Tiene la Noche at least twice
before, as Nightmares Come
at Night and Voodoo Passion,
both films with their definite flaws. And Mil Sexos Tiene la Noche,
which once again marries favourite Franco mainstays eroticism and
surrealism, horror and pulp, isn't perfect either. On one hand, Franco
once again proves his talent in capturing architecture in its most
atmospheric way, proves to have a definite eye for fashion and set design
(both of which is very reminiscent of the 1970's in this one), and proves
that even though his zooms and pans might be bumpy at times, he puts care
in the composition of his images. Plus, he certainly knows how to score a
film. That aside though, the film has a few too many flaws to be even
borderline perfect: First and foremost, it moves way too slowly, while at
the same time giving away most of its story way too soon. And when it
comes to nudity and sex, it simply doesn't go far enough (by mid-1980's
standards) - sure there's nudity aplenty, but Franco isn't even half as
voyeuristic or as enjoyably perverted as in his earlier movies. And
finally, the film lacks actual highlights, memorable setpieces and the
like. Still, Mil Sexos Tiene la Noche doesn't look too bad in
Franco's uneven output, especially since the director shows ambition and
talent here, it's simply neither among his best films, nor among his much
trashier gems which so many of us (me included) have learned to enjoy.
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