Title: Jess Franco: El Sexo Del Horror (Bizarre Sinema: Wildest Sexiest Weirdest Sleaziest Films)
Written By: Carlos Aguilar
Edited By: Carlos Aguilar, Stefano Piselli, Riccardo Morrocchi
Foreword Written By: Jack Taylor
Published By: Glittering Images
Approx. 192 pages, Copyright 1999.
ASIN: B000R7TO1C

“After being set aside and scoffed at for so many years, what can I say… I find it funny. And, naturally, that pleases me. Even though it all reminds me that the glorious phrase by Oteiza ‘After I spent my life going from one failure to the next, now these people come along to pay homage to me?!’.” – Jess Franco

Jess Franco is a prolific director who has directed over two hundred films. He has worked in just about every film genre with eroticism and horror related themes populating most of his films. Many of his films exist in alternate versions. Jess Franco is also a man with many aliases and talents. Besides directing he is an actor, composer, writer and cinematographer.

In recent years the films of Jess Franco have been experiencing a renaissance with over one hundred of his films being released on DVD to date. One would think that with the growing acceptance of Jess Franco’s cinema that there would be more critical literature about the man and his films.

To date there are only two English language books written about Jess Franco and his films. Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco written by Lucas Balbo, Peter Blumenstock, Christian Kessler and Time Lucas. This book was originally published in 1993 and it is now long OOP. The other English language book is Jess Franco: El Sexo Del Horror (Bizarre Sinema: Wildest Sexiest Weirdest Sleaziest Films) written by Carlos Aguilar and this book like Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco has become difficult to obtain a copy. There are several other non English friendly books about Jess Franco like Alain Petit’s Manacoa Files (in French) and Andreas Bethmann’s Jess Franco Chronicles (in German).

Carlos Aguilar’s Jess Franco: El Sexo Del Horror (Bizarre Sinema: Wildest Sexiest Weirdest Sleaziest Films) is a virtual treasure trove with its numerous film stills, lobby cards and posters from all around the world. There is an image for virtually everyone one of Jess Franco’s films with some of his more well known films getting literally dozen of images. Besides the abundance of Franco related images the book also comes with a table of contents, a candid interview with Jess Franco, a foreword written by actor Jack Taylor, a discography detailing releases on several Franco film scores that have been released on LP & CD and a bibliography. Also include with this book is a synopsis for every one of Jess Franco’s films. The core of the book is like a lengthy easy in which Carlos Aguilar dissects Jess Franco the man and his films. The various stages of Franco’s career are broken down in to sections. The text while informative it only scratches the surface of Jess Franco’s epic filmography. All the text for this book is presented in English and Italian.

Ultimately the wealth of images in Jess Franco: El Sexo Del Horror (Bizarre Sinema: Wildest Sexiest Weirdest Sleaziest Films) make it an essential purchase for all hardcore fans of Jess Franco and this book also serves as a nice primer that for those who are interested in discovering more about the cinema of Jess Franco.