Der Teufel kam aus Akasava

While, admittedly, only a small number of uninitiated people would type in the title to Jess Franco's 1971 film The Devil Came from Akasava into a search engine, it's still safe to say that the various taglines that pop up to sell the film, ie: "action," "adventure," and/or "horror," all fail to describe the true selling points for the new dvd release by Image Entertainment. The honest way to market the picture is as a unique curiosity for anyone with a taste for groovy soundtracks, mod clothing, or simply as an excuse to check out one of actress Soledad Miranda's last films (she died at the age of 27 in an automobile accident along the Lisbon highway, just weeks after another Franco film she also starred in that year, Vampyros Lesbos, would rake in respectable European coin). Presumably fans of Jess (or Jesus) Franco, an incredibly prolific Spanish filmmaker known for low-budget, erotic fantasies, and other genre excursions, will need little coaxing. Anybody else, however, might feel like they've been sucked into watching a bizarre soft-porn experiment that decided to focus on verbal expositions rather than anything that might even remotely be labeled as "a money shot." The story deals with a stone that turns metal into gold but also has a deadly side-effect akin to what happens whenever the eponymous treasure from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is opened, except instead of melting Nazis it turns people into badly suntanned zombies that roam about in a confused state. What follows is a mad medley of espionage, assassination, double-crossings, and chair-dances. Lest the latter topic conjure images of some Joe Eszterhas penned opus such as Showgirls (1995), novice viewers should take note that Franco's voyeuristic gaze is decidedly less bombastic but decidedly more auteuristic, and definitely more sincerely fetishistic. Indeed, Franco, who worked with the ultimate auteur, Orson Welles, on Chimes At Midnight (1965), holds his own claim to the label of auteur. In Necronomicon: Book Two, edited by Andy Black, he is interviewed by Xavier Mendik in the chapter titled "The Sadeian Speaks: An Interview with Jesus Franco" and Franco says "I have to consider myself as an auteur. I have had some critics, who have said that I have made some bad films, but my reply is that the person who writes the script, directs the film, edits and even sometimes composes the music for the film is an auteur. (Laughs) He may be a bad auteur, but he is still an auteur." Any audience with a taste for a time capsule treat of a Europudding production that feature dubious dubbing, slow pacing, and zoom lens abuse will know to focus, instead, on the great color schemes, adventurous fashion statements, and bold musical selections that can be found in The Devil Came from Akasava, which is billed as the "final installment in the sexy Franco/Miranda series (after Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)." His audience may be small, but as Franco admits in his Mendik interview, "their support is good enough for me because I am making films which are not very expensive and so I will be paid almost immediately, so I can do another film if I want." Or, in this case, another 145 films - the number he's credited with directing SINCE The Devil Came from Akasava. For more information about The Devil Came From Akasava, visit Image Entertainment. To order The Devil Came From Akasava, go to TCM Shopping. by Pablo Kjolseth