L'éventreur de Notre-Dame
A defrocked priest (released from the Church for his “extreme
methods”) feels it is his mission to cleanse the blackened souls of the sinful,
deciding to punish a slut who claims to have participated in a Black Mass,
stabbing her multiple times, smearing her blood throughout her body, soon
chaining and binding this girl upside down on a Satanic cross naked. Yes, this
guy is nutty as an acorn tree, and no young uninhibited sexually liberated gal is
safe as long as this guy’s peeping on them from a hotel window under an assumed
name.
You are an instrument of the Devil. You’re in danger of
hell. I will save you. I will exorcise you. But you must pay for your sins. You
will die in a state of grace. I will save your soul. Repent my child. Repent.
Okay, so our former priest wacko lives within a city that is
pretty much a den of hedonism where characters of the wealthiest citizens
gather at black masses, participate in nightly sexual escapades and group
orgies, and meet in apartments and hotel rooms to shag. If there ever was a
locale for a psychopath religious fanatic to hunt and prey it is in this city.
Seeing an old naked man receiving his pleasure and punishment from a dominatrix
isn’t exactly my thing, but it is right here for your entertainment if this
tickles your fancy. After Franco stabs his victims, “expediating them of their
sins”, he says a special prayer for them, absolving them. Yea, this is warped.
In the quest for excitement, those who enjoy an “alternate lifestyle” are
looked upon with scorn by many of the police investigating the murders and
certainly by the killer.
Is this sacrilegious smut? You betcha. We know Jess embraces
the very lifestyle his priest condemns (yet yearningly lusts for which perhaps
motivates his need to kill), so this film is probably, I'm certain, a means to take nice jabs at the Church (of course, with a serious face, and his major role as the killer is even a greater example of how he wants to be front and center in really letting the Church have it..). Maybe, he even wants to take a stab at Exorcism-themed films and how religion plays a role in curing evil. But, interesting enough, his former priest kills a cop with what looks like a bone or blunt force instrument of some kind, masquerades as a writer of the torturing methods of the past by the Church to "cure the evils of the flesh" for a popular smut mag with an audience who continues to support his company, and seems obsessively drawn to Lina Romay's Anne. Good grief, the nakedness in this movie. Whole
dialogue scenes go on and on as characters remain fully unclothed. I’ve seen
enough bushy vagina shots to last a lifetime. We spend a great deal of time not just with Franco's Vogal, but the characters he chooses for execution (the investigative team and a couple who are close to Anne will get a bit of focus as well) also.
There’s a rather startling scene to me, well not because of
its audacity since Jess is willing to go to such dark places, has Jess dressed
in the attire of the Catholic Priest, caressing Lina Romay’s dangling
rope-and-chain bound nude body, biting her all over, pulling his trusty knife.
Before this he had drugged her, drug her limp naked carcass up a flight of
stairs, placed her on a bed, and when she—quite woozy—awoke to find him over
her, he slaps her face a bit. Lina went the extra mile for her man. Seeing a
determined psycho Franco, English dubbed dialogue shouting, “I’m the Sword of
the Lord! Sword of the Lord!” while the police surround him, holding Lina
hostage, it is really surreal. This is atypical Franco, but just not my cuppa
tea. This period of Franco’s career just doesn’t do much for me. The Lina Romay
period, where Franco was at his most depraved and unrestrained, has never
really knocked my socks off. I feel that his return to form, for me
personally (as far as his selection of locale and sense of inspired
vigor/style) would be in 1980 with Macumba sexual. The opening of this film really kind of indicates what kind of sordid bit of business Exorcism will be as the aristocracy of the city, sitting very quietly and (well, they did seem bored to me, but..) seemingly (I guess) transfixed with a torturer cutting the throat of a bird, pouring its blood in a glass, and dousing Romay (bound to a Black Mass cross) with it. Later, during a vicious attack, Vogal makes a lengthy incision, eventually disemboweling a victim who led a Black Mass ritual, removing a large organ from the wound. If this suits your tastes, Exorcism just might do the trick. To be honest, I found this immediately tiresome, so the remaining experience was really rather draining.
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