The Awful Dr. Orlof

The Awful Dr. Orlof is a film you can safely show to any fan of classic horror, even if they dislike the later films of Jess Franco. It’s slick, creepy, and it’s often quite beautiful to look at.

One of the first true Spanish horror films and an exploitation classic. Utilizing the familiar themes of old Universal horror films, throwing in a little of Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage, 1959), and mixing it with some subversive perversity, Jess Franco finds the right combination to prove that there was a worldwide market for Spanish exploitation. … What makes Dr. Orlof different from the other Eurocult classics at the time (the French Eyes Without a Face, 1959, or the Italian Black Sunday, 1960) is the gutter perversity that Franco almost succeeds in bringing to the surface. The prostitutes, though pretty, are slightly more worn than in other films of the time, and Franco’s surprising use of some very tasteful nudity (in a distasteful scene) also contributes to that wonderful dirty feeling you sometimes get watching Eurocult. Taken as a whole, Dr. Orlof is a great glimpse into early Spanish filmmaking in a realm where they hadn’t gone before.