Sometimes, fathers and sons don’t get along. Alfred Orloff (Antonio Mayans) is trying to do what his father, Dr. Orloff (Howard Vernon) AKA Big Poppa, never could and that is to resurrect his comatose mother/lover named Melisa. Alfie employs his monstrous manservant Andros to help him snatch party girls and sex workers off the streets, so that he can use their life energy to restore mommy. Detective Tanner races, albeit rather casually, to stop these crimes. His loving wife unwisely decides to help by using herself as bait. Meanwhile, a hobo runs around, bewildered by all this weirdness. He represents the audience. That’s us, BTW.
El siniestro doctor Orloff (1984) is one of several vague sequels to Jess Franco’s seminal work, The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962). There are moments in this that barely feel like a movie, but it has credits at the beginning so we have to assume that this some kind of a film, maybe. Jess Franco himself has a cameo in this one and his performance is as subtle as a trainwreck, a stereotypically gay trainwreck. Hoo boy. It’s something! Regular Franco collaborator, Juan Soler, does a hero’s job behind the camera, making this bizarre trash beautiful to look at. I would love to know who provided the swirling, nightmarish synthesizers that make up this crazy score.
Between Antonio Mayans turning knobs and looking concerned in a mad science-y way and Howard Vernon’s finger-in-a-light-socket haircut, you’re in a for a strange, if not particularly exciting time. Hey, Alfie. When Dr. Orloff, THE Dr. Orloff, is the voice of reason in a conversation, you’ve clearly lost perspective, and it’s time to reevaluate your efforts. That’s life advice. The lovely ladies on display are barely characters, but the actresses’ willingness to flaunt their skin and put up with being carried around by an oaf makes them cool in my book. Nice work if you can get it?
As any Jess Franco fan will tell you, even his lower tier efforts will have something of interest buried in it somewhere. The Sinister Dr. Orloff is almost criminally languid and ponderous, but its dreamy weirdness and oddly documentary-style feel to the street scenes in downtown Alicante are high points. For some Franco fans, this is exactly what they want to see: sadomasochism, incest, barely explained pseudoscience, characters staring wistfully at nothing in particular, and undulating female flesh. But I have to imagine that others will be put off by the repetitive nature of this non-storyline. Personally, I like Sinister Dr. Orangutan but I love Oasis of the Zombies (1982), so please disregard any “opinions” I have on “movies”.
Did we need Antonio Mayans’s nose hairs in HD? Obviously, the answer is yes. Mondo Macabro’s release of The Sinister Dr. Orloff looks outstanding. Colors are vibrant and the grainy nighttime scenes are just mouthwatering for cinephiles. In the extras, there is an audio commentary by film historian Nathaniel Thompson and author Troy Howarth, an awesome interview with Antonio Mayans, and last but certainly not least, an interview with the always great Stephen Thrower. The only thing bad I can say about this release is the cover art. It hearkens back to some clunky looking DVD-era junk. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t do better, but the original poster is a banger.