Seeing a best films of 1994 taking place on ICM,the first thing I did was take off the shelf the fantastic Flowers of Perversion: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco: 2 by Stephen Thrower and Julian Grainger,and found the auteur had only one title released from '94. This led to me getting set to go downtown with Uncle Jess.
Note:Some spoilers in review.
View on the film:
Getting filmed in 1990 but stuck in legal issues until 1994 due to a long court case after a falling out with long-time producer Marius Lesoeur, (who claimed he owned rights to the script) which ended in Marius losing the case and the film going to studio E.L.M.T, which went bust shortly afterwards. Freed from all the problems from being seen, the eventually release revealed this to be a restrained, polished tune played by co-writer/(with Michael Katims) directing auteur uncle Jess Franco.
Playing his trademark button-bashing trombone zoom-ins against a sun-lit city and buzzing Jazz clubs, Jess disappointingly keeps his distinctive quirks limited to a welcomed encounter with New Age Punks as Steve's wife lays dead with mice's walking over her,instead spending the majority of the time trying to fit in with the glossy video Thrillers of the late 80's, which Jess glides over with a flat atmosphere.
Becoming more anti-drugs in this era (a real change from his past decades!) the screenplay by Uncle Jess and debut co-writer Katims clips the thriller of tension with moralising lectures on the bad drug habits of the victim and her former friends, which also tugs Steve's search for his wife/later revenge from moving with the slickness Jess is trying to achieve. Running rings round the rest of the cast,Lina Romay brings much needed sparks to the flick as Melissa, (wrongly credited as Angela on IMDb) thanks to her off-beat New Wave Punk being paired with a rough-edge empathy for the troubles going on in the downtown heat.
