Jess Franco has been so prolific in his career that, inevitably, his work has proven to be rather inconsistent, the quality often depending on a combination of personal commitment and having the time and money to actually do more than simply point and shoot. At his best, he made works or remarkable poetic beauty and genius – strangely erotic, surreal, dream-like horror films that are unlike anything else ever made. At his worst, he made fairly ham-fisted, screamingly camp but astonishingly dull exercises in sex and violence. Exorcism is closer to the latter than the former, though it has just enough oddness to lift it out of the depths occupied by films like Macumba Sexual.

Franco himself stars as Vogel, a demented defrocked priest who has escaped from an asylum but now lives openly in Paris, writing lurid historical S&M articles for a local sleaze rag. The magazine's editor and staff – including Franco muse Lina Romay and punky-looking Monica Swinn – are also involved in staging fake black masses for the delectation of bored socialites, but this doesn't sit well with Vogel, who takes it for the real thing and sets out of a sluggish rampage of murder in order to save the souls of various sinners, before kidnapping Lina. The local police, led by Olivier Mathot, are on the case but seem to lack motivation, even when told that Vogel is living in an apartment across from the missing girl's.

Exorcism is one of Franco's more convoluted movies – not so much in terms of plot, but in the way the film has been chopped and changed over the years. This is the 1975 softcore edition, while the less raunchy 'horror' edit Demoniac is also included on the disc. There's also a hardcore version (Sexorcismes) and chunks of the film would later turn up in 1979's El Sadico de Notre Dame. None of these versions can be said to be the definitive edition of the film, and all suffer from the often clumsy chopping together of available footage to make the required edition. Sadly, Exorcism feels like it's been edited with a chainsaw at times, scenes jumping and starting or ending abruptly. Of course, things are not helped by the fact that this is taken from a somewhat battered print – presumably the only available source (this print effortlessly contains the sort of damage that faux-grindhouse producers spend ages recreating on video).

However, the film manages to maintain a certain sordid fascination. The staged S&M shows are a particular obsession of Franco's, having cropped up in a number of his films, and here they are certainly eye-popping. Ironically, Lina Romay feels rather under-used beyond the initial performance, which is a pity as she is an undeniable visual presence, unashamedly naked in most of her time on screen. The pacing is rather slow, but whenever you feel yourself getting bored, Franco will throw in a bizarre sex scene or unconvincingly bloody killing to wake you up, and the jazz score is typically lively.

Of course, the dubbing is shocking – lazy and peppered with inadvertently hilarious dialogue, which adds a little additional unintentional entertainment value to the whole thing. This, plus the regular sex and violence, stops the film from becoming dull – but this is third rate Franco really, and if you are unfamiliar with his work, it's definitely not the place to start.

Demoniac removes more or less all the nudity and runs almost thirty minutes shorter. It's nice to see included for completists (though it's sad – if understandable – that the hardcore cut wasn't also included) but you don't need to watch it.

DAVID FLINT

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