1973 Brux International Pictures
Christina (Christina von Blanc) travels to a mysterious castle that belongs to her family in order to be present for the reading of her recently 
dead father’s will. Will she escape the family curse or be drowned in its swampy depths?
This movie is the srrealistic bastard love child of film makers Jess Franco and Jean Rollin and it should have been drowned at birth! It tries way to hard to explain situations and events that are unexplainable in the first place. Even if I were to sit here all day trying to figure out exactly what I just watched it would still make no sense to me because the screenplay is an incoherent mess. Not to mention the fact that the direction itself is annoying as hell. As you can tell I do not like this pretentious attempt at of a horror film.
A Virgin Among The Living Dead’s screeplay is written by Jess Franco and I guess that he didn’t get the memo which states ’show, don’t tell’ when it comes to how this film is written. He writes scenes that pretty much don’t make sense, then he has the chacters say crap that makes it even more confusing. For instance, twhen Christina is travelling to the castle she says in her head that the plants she passes by are full of life but lack color, and that she sees vultures all over the place. I guess what she means to say is that she’s depressed about her father dying and everything around her seems off? Why not say that then instead of a bunch of surrealistic crap? Plus, there is the problem of the plot; there isn’t one. So, the ‘castle’ that she is visiting is supposed to be filled with evil. What the hell is the evil exactly and why are her family a bunch of damn freaks who go around chopping off human limbs and the like? That is never explained at all. The only thing we ever find out is that the family is cursed, but as to the why and how who the hell knows! Franco spends to much time trying to explain things in a lengthy manner that could have been
written more directly, and not enough time on the events that created the situations to begin with.
This is co-directed by Franco, Rollin and some uncredited guy named Pierre Querut. Rollin supposedly directed Christina’s dream sequences, but hell if I can tell where those appear in the film since there is no distinction between them and what is supposed to be happening in ‘real’ life. Instead of using some sort of device onscreen to tell us it’s a dream we are going to be involved in it just goes on like nothing strange is happening. There is no separation to the two different states so it leaves me confused. Is Christina watching her relative Carmence (Britt Nicols) licking the blood off of some blind chick or is she just dreaming it? Is Christina listening to the advice that her dead father, Ernesto (Paul Muller), is giving her or is it just a nightmare? I want to know this instead of being drawn into some supposedly surrealistic crap vision that the directors have. One thing that Bloofer Lady dislikes immensly are extreme closeups made for no reason, and they abound in this film. Franco uses them like mad crazy in this and it serves no purpose other than to have to stare at huge pores on the faces of the actors. Also, I get the feeling that Franco is a little pervy because the way he shoots Christina while she is naked is obviously meant to be saying ‘Oh look here are 
some boobies and cooter!’. He has no real directorial style at all and that brings down the film even further.
Okay, I’m sure by the glowing review that you have read so far you know what I’m going to say next; the acting is awful in this. There I said it. Christina von Blanc has the most screen time playing Christina but I get the feeling watching it that she mostly put in this film as eye candy since she really doesn’t express herself in this too well. Considering how bad the screenplay is and the directors involved in this it may not be entirely her fault so I can find it in my heart to forgive the poor thing. The most disturbing character in this whole film, Basilio, is played by Jess Franco himself. Yes, that’s right Franco thinks he’s Hitchcock and that he has a right to be in his own films. He’s supposed to be playing a mute servant of the family but his attempts at trying not to talk are so hilariously bad it’s hysterical. He just kind of stares at everybody attempting to act kind of dumb I guess? I don’t even think he khow he is supposed to act and he wrote the damn role! Everybody else plays characters that are never fleshed out by Franco in his screenplay so it really is best not to even describe them because you will be just as confounded as I am.
A Virgin Among The Living Dead makes little sense and is badly filmed so I can’t recommend it one bit. The only way it could be at all unwatchable is if you are slipped a mickey in your can of beer before it starts.
You can buy A Virgin Among The Living Dead here: Horror Movie Empire
Bloofer Lady
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