She Killed in Ecstasy

Sie Tötete in Ekstase
Crimes dans l'exsase

A Telecine (Berlin) - Fenix Film (Madrid) Co-Production

Producer Artur Brauner
Screenplay Frank Hollmann [Jess Franco]
Photography Manuel Merino
Music Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab

Cast
Susann Korda [Soledad Miranda], Fred Williams, Paul Müller, Howard Vernon, Ewa Stroemberg, Horst Tappert.

Shot pretty much back to back in 1970 with the excellent Vampyros Lesbos and utilising almost exactly the same principal cast, She Killed in Ecstasy is marked particularly by another subtly arresting performance from Franco's 'femme du jour' Miranda (billed as Susann Korda). As a "companion" piece to Vampyros Lesbos it differs most strikingly in its realistic atmosphere and, as with that film, can also be seen, cinematically, as a transitional piece between the stylised visions of Succubus (1969) and Female Vampire (1972).

A simple story sees Dr Johnson (Williams) and his wife (Miranda) in a blissful marital relationship. In his spare time the good doctor devotes his research to the splicing of human and animal hormones in an attempt to fight terminal illnesses such as Cancer. Upon confronting a medical council (Vernon, Müller, Stromberg and Franco) for funding he discovers that all four solidly frown upon his extra curricular research.

Accusing him of gross immorality and incompetence they even go so far as terrorising his wife and destroying his research papers and materials. Mentally and emotionally destroyed by this loss, Johnson enters a state of virtual catatonia, haunted by the cries and insults of the council, until he can take it no more. In a moment of utter desperation he slits his wrists. His wife vows to avenge her husband's death and sets about using her sexuality to lure all four to their deaths.

Yet more medical madness from Franco, She Killed in Ecstasy is a virtual re-run, plot-wise, to that of the 1962 monochrome mayhem in The Diabolical Dr. Z / Miss Muerte (which also starred Vernon as one victim of a female avenging angel). The film runs with an almost blinding pace, Franco seems to have been working at full tilt here and Hübler and Schwab's deliriously kitsch and cheesy acid jazz score does nothing to slow it down. Nevertheless, time is given to a touching and mournfully brief relationship between Williams and Miranda (we are told they have only been together for two years upon his death), whose all empowering love leads a sane and level headed woman to extreme violence. A soulful voice over by Miranda adds muchemotion to her loss, as we see her keeping her husband's body in her room, we realise that her sanity is clearly slipping further and further away until the shocking final denouement.

The film offers some shocking moments in an otherwise fairly pedestrian outing for Franco (directing under the pseudonym Frank Hollman) such as Ewa Stromberg's death throes as seen through a translucent air pillow used by Miranda to kill her. Also, the manner in which Franco intercuts shots of the late Dr. Johnson into the sequences where his wife makes love to her victims before their deaths suggests necrophilia, if only mental.

Review by Dave Wood