Lorna The Exorcist (Jess Franco, 1974)

nResting her head in the vicinity of her intended victim’s voracious nvagina, a naive young brunette takes one last deep breath before nbeginning to explore the crevice-laden riches that lay beyond the ngenerous mounds of curly blonde pubic hair with the rose-tinted contoursn of her immaculate face. Using the tongue that’s been growing steadily nin her oral cavity ever since she was born, a tongue that she has mostlyn used, up until this point, to taste sugary sweets, the naive young nbrunette, whose conduct is becoming more devilish the closer she comes nto hitting minge-based pay-dirt, gingerly pokes around the outer layer nof the festering sheath-like structure in search of hypothetical nsustenance. Hi. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am, in my own nconvoluted way, attempting to describe a scene that occurs in Lorna The Exorcist, yet another deliriously nawesome film by Jess Franco that had nme repeatedly, much like the impish brunette with the inquisitive tonguen was doing during her cunnilingual refresher course, gasping for clean nair. Lack of oxygen, notwithstanding, whenever I find myself in the npresence of a Jess Franco film, a sense of ease seems to wash over my nnormally prickly aura. There’s something about his films that cause me nto become entirely transfixed by whatever is occurring onscreen. Whethern it’s the sight of a crazed brunette woman writhing on her bed as a nresult of her wonderfully unshaven crotch being inundated by an army of ntiny cunt-conjured crabs or a sequence that features a crazed brunette nwoman in black hold-up stockings writhing on her bed for different, nnon-cunt crab-related reasons all-together, I feel as if Jess Franco nknows exactly what my mind wants to see. His camera never fails to focus on what matters, nand in this film, his camera always right on target.

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nAs usual, the film opens with a number of close-up shots of nature n(leaves and lemons mostly this time around). Set to the hypnotic music nof classical guitarist André Bénichou, we’re quickly ushered inside nwhere we find a curly-haired slinky blonde woman not wearing pants. She nis, however, wearing a lacy top (the kind that causes one to reveal the ncontents of their crotches whenever they shrug their shoulders or reach nerotically for a jar of molasses that is just out of reach). Oh, and nshe’s wearing a lot of eye makeup, too.

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nLying on the bed, the slinky blonde begins to perform self-massage on nherself. When the music starts to get even more hypnotic, that’s Lina Romay’s cue to enter the fornicating fray. Of course, she doesn’t enter nvia the bedroom door. Don’t be silly. She sort of just appears out from nbehind some curtains. Slowly approaching the slinky blonde, who is stilln groping her thighs with a shitload of gusto, Lina, her long mane of jetn black hair no doubt causing the slinky blonde’s vagina to become nengorged with an ill-defined amount of wetness, offers her thumb as a ncorporeal gift.
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nAfter the slinky blonde has sucked her thumb to the npoint where its taste has become commonplace (even though it’s been fourn days, I can still taste your thumb in my mouth), Lina rests her head nright near the area where her pussy doesn’t have anatomical njurisdiction. Her face might be out of pussy bounds, but that doesn’t nmean her tongue can’t cross over to the pussy side of the tracks. And nthat’s exactly what she does.
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nThe music, the eye makeup, the curly hair-straight hair dichotomy, the ntaut flesh, the uncompromising camera angles, and the pussies all nconspire to elevate this particular opening sequence into a mind-blowingn work of erotic art.
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nIt would seem that what we just watched was a sappho-drenched dream transmitted directly from the mind of Linda Mariel (Lina Romay), the daughter of a rich business man. Snapping out her trance-like state, Linda, who is wearing a modest light blue turtleneck, declares that she is bored. No matter. Excited about the prospect of celebrating her eighteenth birthday in Saint-Tropez, Linda is practically giddy. Suddenly, the telephone rings. Her mother Marianne (Jacqueline Laurent) answers it and tells her father Patrick (Guy Delorme) that it’s for him. Who is it, he asks. Why, it’s a “sexy female.” That’s weird, he probably thought to himself. I wasn’t expecting a call from a “sexy female.” His playful demenour quickly turns serious as the voice on the other end of the line identifies herself as “Lorna.” Holy crap.
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nMeanwhile, at a clinic in another part of the country, black hold-up nstockings and madness have a date with titillation, and prospects look nvery sexy. Sitting on her bed in a seductive manner, an unnamed brunetten (Catherine Lafferière) is ripping pages out of a fashion magazine n(judging by the size and the quality of the photos it looked like an nissue of Vogue). Anyway, summoned by the clinic’s chief doctoring guy n(Jess Franco), the unnamed brunette is brought into his office sans npanties; and like the slinky blonde in the opening scene, every time shen raises her arms, we catch a brief glimpse of her vagina. Determined to nfind out who she is, the doctor demands that she tell him who commands nher (he seems to think she is under the influence of an unseen entity).

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nWhile I loved the way her creamy, European thighs seem to glow effervescently between the blackness of her hold-up stockings and the harshness of her gunmetal dress shirt, someone get this woman some panties.    

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nBrought back to her room in a pantie-less heap, the unnamed brunette nstarts to, you guessed it, writhe around on her bed. Suddenly, she nsenses someone else in the room with her. I wonder if it’s the same nwoman from Linda’s dream. Yes, it is. It’s Lorna! Oh, we don’t see her, nbut I could totally feel her presence.
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nAngry when she finds out her father isn’t taking her Saint-Tropez, Lindan throws a hissy fit. Informing her daughter that eighteen year-olds ndon’t throw hissy fits, Patrick convinces Linda that they must go to nCamargue, specifically the commune of La Grande-Motte. Why must they go nthere? Well, that’s where Lorna wants them to go. You see, as we will nsoon find out, there’s a bit of a history between Patrick and the nmysterious Lorna. And judging by the quickness in which Patrick changes nhis plans, Lorna, much like the unnamed brunette in the black hold-up nstockings, has a profound hold on him.
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nReplete with provocative writhing, black hold-up stockings, and crazy neye makeup, you wouldn’t think Lorna the Exorcist would need anything nelse to help bolster its status an alluring work of transgressive art. nBut that’s where you would be wrong. A character onto itself, La nGrande-Motte is a truly bizarre place. Giving the film an added sense ofn uneasiness, the pyramid-shaped hotels (designed by Jean Balladur) that ndot the landscape of the seaside resort seem to play tricks on not only nthe viewer, but the characters as well, especially Patrick, who seems noverwhelmed by the imposing nature of the resort’s so-called “utopian narchitecture.”
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nIf you thought the hotels looked kooky from the outside, you should see what they look like on the inside; it’s almost as if the rooms of the hotel were designed for a science fiction film. Either way, Patrick, Marianne, and Linda seem happy with their new digs. No doubt feeling a tad icky after travelling all this way (her legs and feet must be drenched in sweat after being cooped up in those knee-high leather boots for such a long period of time), Linda decides to take a bath. As she’s soaping herself up, this eerie music starts to throb on the soundtrack. Which can only mean one thing, it’s time yet again for Lorna make her presence felt. And she does so by getting in the tub with her. Licking Linda’s birthday pussy with the care and dedication of a pussy connoisseur, Lorna straddles Linda in a manner that allows both their pussies to be licked simultaneously.
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nUnlike when we first met her during the film’s opening scene, Lorna now has straight blonde hair and has applied a thick coat of green eye makeup to her ocular infrastructure. Fashion changes aside, Lorna has not asked Patrick to come here to show him her new look, she’s here to collect Linda. What do you mean “collect Linda”? Well, apparently a deal was made, a Faustian deal, eighteen years ago, and Lorna is ready to collect her reward. After hounding him via the telephone, Lorna finally meets Patrick face-to-face. Having not seen each other in eighteen years, Patrick is not surprised at all to find that Lorna hasn’t changed one bit since their last meeting.
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nEven though he agreed under duress (he was about to insert his penis into her vagina and obviously wasn’t thinking straight), Lorna still expects Patrick to keep his end of the bargain; which is to give her his first born daughter when she turns eighteen. Despite owing his lavish lifestyle to Lorna (she made him incredibly wealthy after the deal was made), Patrick has no intention of giving his daughter to her (he’s so determined that he asks the hotel manager to get him a gun). In order to prove that she’s serious about wanting to possess Linda on her eighteenth birthday, Lorna instructs her man servant (Howard Vernon) to beat Patrick with a seashell.
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nJust in case we were starting to forget about the unnamed brunette in black hold-up stockings, Jess Franco periodically provides us with updates on how she’s doing. As expected, her writhing has gotten more wiggly than ever, and she’s starting to hallucinate. But on the positive side of things, her black hold-up stockings are holding up quite nicely.
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nWaking up in the harbour, Patrick, who is helped by a leggy onlooker smoking a cigarette, staggers back to hotel room. Battered and bruised, Patrick is relieved to find his wife (looking magnifique in an orange dress that sort of matches the walls of their room) and daughter safe and sound. Telling a concerned Marianne that there’s a strange woman from his past bent on their destruction, Patrick doubles down (his gun has finally arrived). Which is ironic, since doubling down is what got him in all this trouble to begin with (Lorna helped Patrick, a degenerate gambler at the time, win big at the roulette table). 
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nIt’s a good thing the gun he ordered has arrived, because all hell is about to break loose. Now, in the majority movies, the expression “all hell is about to break loose” has come to mean an upswing in plot-based action. However, in the Lorna the Exorcist universe, it means vaginal crabs and odd-looking dildos smeared with hymen blood. 
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nLavishing praise Lina Romay has become second nature to me; so much so, that her fearless, unselfconscious style of acting is the gold standard in which to judge gauge a performer’s moxie. The slinky blonde, whose common sounding name does not do her unique aura justice, is the real power behind Lorna the Exorcist throne. Exuding a palpable stench that bled uncut eroticism, Pamela Stanford is a camp-adjacent delight as the titular troublemaker. Unflinching in the face of the exquisite largeness of Lina’s bulbous behind, Pamela manages to create an air mystery around her character. Sure, the liberally applied green eye makeup helped a great deal in making us believe that a slinky blonde could cause brunettes the world over to writhe in erotic agony, but if you look past the makeup, you’ll notice that Pamela’s gaze is mesmerizing.
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nOozing atmosphere like it were a second-rate bodily function, Lorna the Exorcist isn’t a film you merely watch with your eyes, it’s an all-consuming experience that repeatedly plunges your face, whether you want it to or not, into the dark recesses of your petrified subconscious. The fact that all the scenes take place during the day seemed to add to the weirdness, not diminish it, as you might expect. It also helped that the buildings all looked like the were spawned out of some kind of geometric nightmare. Starting with a muff diving bang and ending with an extended shot of what has to be the gape-iest maw in film history, Jess Franco has inadvertently fashioned an erotic horror masterpiece for the ages.

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