This Jess Franco movie, also called Christina, Princess of Eroticism, sounded too good to be true. And it is not a complete and total disappointment, although it could have been a LOT better. The plot, in a nutshell, has Christina coming to an old mansion to hear the reading of the will of her father, only to be told that no one lives at the mansion. But when she goes there, she finds people occupying the place. Cue spooky music.

After we get past the typical Jess Franco introductory travelogue of random location shots, we are introduced to Christina, a very pretty Christine von Blanc. On her first night at the inn, she wakes from a fitful slumber and pads downstairs in a long-sleeved top and panties which are shear enough you can see her huge and dark 70's bush. She finds a female doctor downstairs and complains about it being hot. Hot and damp. Just so.

More travelogue and voice-over narration as we travel to the mansion. The dialog and voice-overs are excruciatingly lame. At the mansion, Christina is introduced to all the people who aren't living there, including Uncle Howard, played by the always creepy Howard Vernon. You may remember him from Women in Cellblock 9, where he played the creepy doctor who got off on torturing beautiful naked women. So I guess he's not all bad.

At about 17 minutes in, we see Christina sleeping nude on top of her bed, and she has a great body that is nicely lighted. The camera takes us on a slow tour from top to bottom and back again. She awakes, slips into a large shapeless gown, and has a bizarre confrontation with the mute Basilio, played by Jess Franco. She goes back to bed, wearing the nightgown.

Christina goes for a walk on the grounds and at the 24:30 minute mark encounters a lily pond that looks seriously stagnant to me, but inviting enough to her that she strips down and goes for a swim. Two dirty old men watch her, one in a hideous orange leisure suit and the other in a button-front sweater, both of which give dirty old men a bad name.

At 31:15, Christina bursts in on Carmence (Britt Nichols), who is trimming the pubic patch (although not very aggressively, based on the size of the thatch) of a blind chick (Anne Libert). Or she may have just been holding the scissors down there. They are red-tipped, indicating they were used to inflict the bleeding cut on the blind chick's left breast. Which, coincidentally, Carmence has been licking, because she is a sloppy licker and we see blood on her mouth, and which she commences to start licking again with Christina watching. Christina flees.

Christina wakes from sleep to the sound of dream voices and, wearing a long white linen gown, walks downstairs and sees herself laid out on the floor. Or she imagines it. She gasps and runs out into the grounds. Eventually she returns and faints and at 41:30, she ends up on top of her bed again naked, with Carmence watching her.

About 51:30, Christina is sleeping on top of her bed naked again. She wakes up and sees a porcelain dildo standing erect in the middle of her room. She slowly approaches it and then whacks it, "shattering the big ebony phallus," we are told by the blind gal who is just sitting there, who goes on to prophesy bad luck for hurting the phallus. If only that argument worked in Real Life..

At 54:00, the blind gal returns to her room and undresses when she is strangled to death for no apparent reason by Basilio, the mute guy. At 1:09:00, there is a ceremony in which a naked Christina is laid out on the floor with her feet together and her arms stretched out to the sides with candles spaced around her. Another naked gal mounts her and apparently stabs her. But it is a dream sequence.

She wakes up screaming. There is a confusing montage where she is chased by zombies who crawl up from under the leaves. The zombies looked vaguely familiar and at any moment I was expecting them to stop, clap, and start doing the Thriller dance. (Go ahead. Watch it yourself and tell me if you disagree.) They surround her! They reach for her! Then a 1970s Ann Wilson lookalike walks in and pokes her with a lit torch! Then she wakes up and faints (?)! The zombies lay her out on the floor (fully dressed in the white gown) surrounded by lit candles! Ann Wilson pours blood on her gown! The zombies are mesmerized! She ends up crazy!

Although there is copious nudity, including the delicious Christine von Blanc, and the overall tone of the movie is foreboding, there is very little GIMP. The blind chick with her breast bleeding as Clemence licks her blood, maybe. The blind chick getting strangled, definitely. Christina on the floor (dressed and naked) surrounded by candles in some sort of ceremony, maybe. The naked-on-the-floor Christina mounted by another naked chick and apparently stabbed, but you don't see anything, definitely. Lots of tease, no delivery. So this flick, typical Jess Franco in every way, gets a D for GIMP.

I can't find anywhere this is for sale, although my friend Howard might let you borrow the ratty VHS copy I watched but probably not. Amazon lists a newer version, also by Jess Franco (go figure), and starring different people. It does show up in IMDB, although under its non-English name.