Last year I reviewed Maleficarum which starred Amy Hesketh and this time I am doing her directorial effort of Le marquis De la Croix which stars Jac Avila as the Marquis who, from his prison cell, purchases condemned women to do with as he pleases. The beautiful Mila Joya is Zynga, the Gypsy that is brought to the Marquis.
The Marquis proceeds to chain her up and give her a very painful and long whipping. Mila is excellent as the tortured woman who probably wishes she had not made her choice. She is also stretched on the rack and suffers much more at the hands of the demented Marquis who stops the torture every once in a while to write his feelings down on paper.
Finally he crucifies her and she dies..ahh but the ending is very much like the Twilight Zone and I won't spoil it here, but Amy is oh so beautiful as the tourist who when visiting the museum of the Marquis finds that a little reality goes a long way.
Jac Avila is again excellent as The Marquis. he knows how to put his all into the part and he reminds me of the late great Klaus Kinski. Mila is gorgeous and makes a very sexy and helpless woman who has chosen a bad fate for herself, and then there is Amy Hesketh who as I mentioned, has a surpsrise at the end of the movie. Her innocence as she listens to the tale of the Marquis along with two others really stands out. I really enjoyed how they intercut scenes of the tourists listening to the guide tell the story with actual story itself.
Amy knows how to put together a very well structured movie that will grab and hold your attention. I have said it before, and I will say it again..Amy is the female Jess Franco and her work on this film proves it. She gets good performances from her actors and knows how to bring a good story to the screen.
If you like exploitation much like the Franco films of the 70's, then this is a film I would highly recommend you see. it came out on my favorite day of the year which is Halloween which was perfect timing Amy, thank you. See this movie....it is very well made and Amy shows a lot of promise as her star keeps rising.
Thanks for the new interview with Amy Hesketh and the new Marquis review. It is fascinating watching Hesketh's career move forward. Great work, seems to me. And this is a great blog site, too! Glad I discovered it. Saw a link on facebook.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the kind comment.
ReplyDeleteVery welcome. Your name here...I think the first Hammer film I ever saw was The Creeping Unknown on the late late show, and I see by your profile two of the books you list are H.G. Wells...I started reading him after Pal's Time Machine made me fall in love with Weena...then you like Olivia (do you like her Xanadu?) and Abba...not to mention all the horror stuff...no wonder I liked your blog site!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love Xanadu. I watch it about 5 times a year. H.G. Wells really got my mind racing with War Of The Worlds and I just got done reading The Time Machine for the umpteenth time. I can never get enough of that.
ReplyDeleteThe Creeping Unknown is my all time favorite Hammer film and one of my top 10 horror films of all time.