A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973)

Contrary to its salacious title, A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973) is among Jess Franco’s more somber, moody works, and one of the most unusual and original takes on the zombie genre. It’s also among his strongest, most personal films. A meditation on death, isolation, and loneliness, Franco explores the lengths to which one will go to maintain human (or, in this case, inhuman) connections.

The story begins in typical gothic horror tradition: on her way to her family’s remote estate to hear the reading of her father’s will, Christina (Christina Von Blanc) stops at an inn, where she is warned to stay away from the cursed place. Basilio (Franco) arrives to pick her up. Arriving at the mansion, Christina finds her estranged relatives exceedingly eccentric. She’s visited at night by a ghastly woman who implores her to leave. Basilio wanders the halls at night with a severed chicken’s head. She also suffers nightmares in which her dead father visits her. Meanwhile, the neighbors claim that her house is abandoned. Little do they realize that is indeed inhabited–but by the undead.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead feels akin to a Jean Rollin film or, as other critics have suggested, Carnival of Souls (1962) or Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970). It’s a spectral story of a character who slowly transforms into a ghost-like figure–at first spiritually, and later more literally (though there’s hardly anything “literal” about this film).

What’s so unique about this presentation of zombies is that Christina’s family isn’t presented as a horde of mindless, flesh-eating automatons. (Extra footage added by Jean Rollin, however, presents zombies of the more conventional variety.) Franco’s zombies retain a deceptively human personality. They also seem to have very human needs, for togetherness, for a home, for family. These are the same qualities for which Christina is longing.

Dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are recurring preoccupation for Franco. The final lines of A Virgin Among the Living Dead could be used to describe many of Franco’s films: “Your mind will no longer discern the truth. You will create your own nightmares.” And they’re certainly applicable here. As in Nightmares Come at Night (1970), the relationship between reality and fantasy, conscious and unconscious, truth and fiction, is not binary: for Franco, these are fluid states whose truths inform one another.

Like many of Franco’s films, this one exists in multiple versions and titles. The version streaming on Kino Cult includes the zombie footage shot by Jean Rollin. For Franco’s original cut, you’ll need to buy the Kino Blu-ray, which includes Christina, Princess of Eroticism. The Blu-ray also includes additional “erotic” footage, commentary by Franco scholar Tim Lucas, and several short documentaries and tributes, in addition to trailers and a photo gallery. I am quite fond of the digital transfers of these films presented by Kino/Redemption, as they’re faithful to the celluloid nuances of their original prints. Also, but not overly correcting the prints, they retain much of Franco’s original mood. The lighting is often very sparse and naked, almost documentary-like in some scenes. In others, it is more heavily stylized and artificial. The fluidity between these two styles enhances the surreal quality of the movie, when the viewer is never quite sure whether to believe what Franco is showing. It’s also a question that daunts Christina until the final moments of the movie.

Streaming on Kino Cult, or available on DVD/Blu-ray.

-Cullen Gallagher