THE EROTIC
AND PAINFUL OBSESSIONS OF
JESS FRANCO
3 Scores by Gerhard Heinz
Eugenie (Historia de una perversión)
Bloody Moon
Linda
One artist is the obsessed filmmaker Jesús “Jess”
Franco, whose work consists of more than 170 films. Most of these
films fall in the category of “exploitation”. His work
triggers highly controversial debates, mainly because of his addiction
to the topics sex and violence. Nevertheless he received the most
important Spanish film award “Goya” for his lifework
in 2008 (presented
in Feb. 02, 2009).
The other one is the Austrian film music composer Gerhard Heinz,
who is famous for over 100 original film music scores (frequently
erotic) in the Sixties, such as “Schoolgirls” or “The
Naked Countess”, honoured with gold and platinum records in
Southeast Asia.
Both started to work on the same projects in 1980/81 during three
different film productions for the distribution company “Lisa
Film” (Without meeting each other personally).
This is about the two softsex flicks “Linda” and “Eugenie
(Historia de una perversión)” (both with pretty young
actress Katja Bienert) and the slasher movie “Bloody Moon”
(starring Olivia Pascal), which ranks among the most famous samples
of the gory genre. By modern standards hardly imaginable this movie
had its own photo story in Germany’s most popular teen magazine
“Bravo”, but later in the Eighties it became one shining
example in the “video-nasties” discussion.
This (virtual) cooperation, characterized by a lack of time and
money, resulted three soundtracks which represent the zeitgeisty
musical styles (disco!) and the atmosphere at the film sets, namely
“beach, sun and happiness”, as well as the genre-specific
elements sex and horror. For the musical realization Gerhard Heinz
accessed a wide range of genres and instrumentations, from typical
stomping disco songs (each of them could have become a summer hit
in the 80s!) over romantic (sl)easy listening tracks, partly influenced
by Spanish folk music or Samba, to orchestral suspense parts, which
together with the skilled use of synthesizers develop the thrill
to the maximum.
As Gerhard Heinz did a great job it’s been easy to compile
23 unique and distinctive tracks for this CD. They convert the listener’s
imagery into the weird world of Jess Franco, but at the same time
– liberated from its in part unbearable synchronized dialogues
and moans – can stand alone perfectly.
As always this Allscore CD is designed elaborately and contains
notes by Katja Bienert and Gerhard Heinz as well as an interview
with the composer, all in German and English language, also images
of film posters and stills.
All titles are previously unreleased (except one which appeared
on a late 70s disco soundtrack LP).
Real fans will find further tracks of the three films, which haven’t
been compiled for the CD, in several music download shops in the
internet (February 2009).
Press
R. D. Larson's Soundtrax [Feb.
12, 2009]: "a superlative collection of early 1980s exploitation
film music"
Darren Allison, Cinema Retro magazine
[March 2009]: "Euro trash at its very best, I can’t think
of a better way of sucking up a sexy sixty minutes!"
Kris Spencer, Scorebaby [Feb
2009]: "Given the high quality of this compilation, it should be
a given that any fan of European soundtracks needs to have it and
the rest of you should give it a listen as well. "
Tracklisting:
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