Eugenie (Historia de una perversión)

Jess Franco's umpteenth return to Sade – in this case, more specifically his "Philosophy of the Boudoir" – just might be his finest hour as a filmmaker whose '60s and '70s output has been increasingly and rightfully redeemed since its initial scathing reception. On this occasion, he managed to strike a near perfect balance between the sensual and the shocking, helped in no small part to Juan Soler's exquisite camera work. German sex starlet and subsequent TV personality Katja Bienert was barely 18 when she was cast in the perpetually unclad lead as Eugenie, spoiled brat offspring of incestuously inclined diplomat Erwin Tanner, played by Tony Squios. Their unhealthy if unconsummated relationship is eloquently mirrored in that of decadent Alba and Alberto De Rosa (Spanish sleaze veterans Mabel Escano and Antonio Mayans), an aristocratic pair of siblings who have clearly taken their mutual attraction several steps further already. An oppressively claustrophobic mood permeates the movie once Eugenie and dear old dad are lured into the forbidden world of their newfound "friends". A violent yet impeccably stylish climax seems like Franco's attempt to imitate Peckinpah, the result coming off as far less embarrassing than you would imagine. Still, the film's most memorable image remains that of the huge sand sculptures representing the human form in the opening sequence, a monument perhaps to the De Rosa's past victims, eternally frozen in the positions they died in.