The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus (1962)

- La mano de un hombre muerto
The last 1/4 is fantastic, 24 April 2005

A series of murders of young women have the townspeople believing that a centuries old killer, Baron Von Klaus, has returned from the dead. Many of the locals claim to have seen his shadowy figure rising from the nearby swamp. Is it really the dead Baron come back to claim more victims or is it one of his descendants?

The biggest reason I don't rate this movie any higher is that I found the first 3/4 of the movie to be incredibly boring. There's little suspense, little action, and little drama. I generally don't mind a slow moving movie as long as there is plenty of atmosphere and a sense of dread. But, Franco doesn't seem to be one of those directors who excels at atmosphere. Usually, he doesn't seem patient enough, but here he just seems to have no idea of how to do it.

The final fourth of this movie, however, is quite well done. The ritualistic murder is both frightful and erotic at the same time. And there is some real suspense in the chase scene leading up to the murderer's capture.

The more Franco movies I see, the more I'm growing to enjoy his choice of music. The snappy jazz scores are now one of the things I look forward to.

6/10