Virgin among the living dead – 1973
aka Christina
Director
Jesus Franco

Writers
Paul D’Ales French dialogue
Jesus Franco

Producers
Marius Lesoeur
Karl Heinz Mannchen
Robert de Nesler

Cast
Christina von Blanc – Christina Benson
Britt Nichols – Carmencé (as Britt Nickols)
Rosa Palomar – Aunt Abigail
Anne Libert – The Queen of the Night
Howard Vernon – Uncle Howard
Paul Muller – Ernesto Pablo Reiner, Christina’s father
Jesus Franco – Basilio (as Jesús Manera)
Nicole Guettard – Female Doctor (as Nicole Franco)
Nadine Pascal
Rose Kiekens
Alice Arno
Luis Barboo
Fernando Bilbao – Male Nurse
Val Davis
France Nicolas

Review by Sven Soetemans

Pure cult…but not accessible to everyone.,
Jesus Franco is one remarkable director. He made tons of films by using tons of different names. Some of them are absolutely brilliant and few of the greatest Italian cult titles out there. Some of them are rather disappointing and only enjoyable if you’re a die hard cult fan. Virgin among the living dead (I use the title I think it’s best known as) belongs to category number 2, I’m afraid. It doesn’t make the least bit impression and unfortunately, it ain’t bad enough to be “good”.

The whole story is about a young and attractive girl. She runs around more naked than girls in a porno movie, so if you like that, you made a wise choice seeing this film. I didn’t mind myself of course, but after a while it really starts to become boring. It’s not of any importance to the story and it certainly ain’t artistic if that’s what they thought. OK, so the girl is invited to a castle after her father died.

In this castle, some family members of the girl live together. These people are the living dead…zombies, but they look like normal people. Christina sees her dead father appear ( with the rope around his neck all the time, that’s rather funny ) and he warns her about them and he tells Christina to get out of there. what else is there to say about Virgin among the Living Dead ? Nothing actually, these kind of films still beat the mainstream and average nowadays horror films but overall they don’t mean much. Well, at least not this one.

I can give a lot of other titles Jess Franco made who DID were fascinating and masterpieces. The awful Dr. Orlof just to name one. I don’t really blame Jess Franco for this. Like I already said, he made enough movies to check out (about 200, almost all of them made with a different name) My advice : if you’re not a true Italian cult fan, skip this one and start your search for Dr. Orloff.

Next !