Wicked Memoirs of Eugenie

Eugenie (Historia de una perversión) (1980)

** (out of 4)

Jess Franco goes the de Sade route again with this film, which is a remake of similar films from 1969 and 1970 (among others). In this version, a perverted couple (Robert Foster, Mabel Escano) stalk a young teenage girl named Eugenie (Katja Bienert) and eventually take her to their island where they try to deflower her. Franco has countless credits to his name and many times he remakes his own films. In some cases, as here, he remakes them several times. I was really looking forward to this film because both earlier versions are among the directors best work but the story here doesn't quite flow as well. The first forty-minutes of the film we see the couple stalking the young girl who is usually walking around totally naked. Franco makes a lot of this very erotic but after a while it grows tiresome and by the time they hit the island, you know where the story is going and the psychedelic sexual scenes come off rather lame whereas in the earlier films they were quite disturbing and freakish. I've never been a fan of Foster so his presence here doesn't do much for me and Escano doesn't work either. Lina Romay plays a sex slave who thinks she's a dog but she doesn't add anything. Katja Bienert is the one who comes off the best but I'm sure many will have a problem with her nudity and sexual situations since, according to the birthdate she gave, she's only fifteen here. Check out Eugenie de Sade and Eugenie...The Story of Her Journey Into Perversion instead as they show Franco, this story and the eroticism at their peak.