Turns out that Faceless wasn't the first time that Jesus Franco made a ripoff of Eyes Without a Face; he had already done it 20 years earlier, in black and white. The Awful Dr. Orloff makes one major change to the template: instead of a female sidekick, the mad Dr. has a giant deformed weirdo named Morpho doing his dirty work. At one point, Morpho kills someone by biting their neck, so I thought maybe he was supposed to be a vampire and that I was watching the wrong movie. But he's not a vampire, just a big psycho who likes to kill in awkward, difficult ways.
This is the 4th or 5th Franco film I've seen. I'm planning on seeing more, because although not exactly... good, some of his films are kinda interesting and entertaining. He developed this weird style where his camera floats around the scene aimlessly and zooms in and out constantly. It's a fascinating mix of spooky and incompetent that I find occasionally compelling, and then there's usually enough blood and boobs to make it watchable. Orloff is one of his earliest, and much more reigned in than some of the later films I've seen. The black and white photography lends an (unearned) air of class to the film, making this the most respectable Franco film I've seen. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
Rating: C+
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