Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Witchfinder General 666 The prolific Spanish Exploitation deity Jess Franco made some of the most famous cult gems in his repertoire of almost 200 films with the gorgeous cult-goddess Soledad Miranda, who tragically died in a car accident at only 27 - an accident which robbed the world of cinema of one of its most stunning beauties. Sadly, the majority of their collaborations were released only after Miranda's death in August 1970. Being a big fan of both Jess Franco and his most beautiful muse, I am always looking forward to seeing one of their collaborations. Their most famous one is probably the brilliantly titled VAMPYROS LESBOS (1970) in which Miranda plays a Lesbian Vampire Countess, others include NACHTS WENN Dracula ERWACHT (COUNT Dracula, 1970) the cast of which also includes Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski and Herbert Lom, SIE TÖTETE IN EKSTASE (SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY, 1971) and EUGENIE DE SADE (1974). DER TEUFEL KAM AUS AKASAVA aka. THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA (1971) is probably the most shamelessly nonsensical of their collaborations and yet Soledad alone makes it an absolute must-see for any admirer of beauty.THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA seems like a very-low budget, but stylish James Bond rip-off, only that it is a female Bond with exhibitionist tendencies, played by one of the most mesmerizing women ever seen on screen. The sublime Soledad plays a foxy British secret agent who poses as a stripper. She comes to a tropical island in order to solve a bunch of disappearances... without giving too much away I can promise that the 'mysterious' motivation for the disappearances is hilariously nonsensical. The entire film makes hardly any sense, and yet it is incredibly entertaining. Once asked about the reason for film-making, the admitted sleaze-lover Jess Franco stated "showing the female body naked". And many parts of the plot here seem to be an excuse for the stunning Soledad Miranda to take her clothes off (which is more than welcome). The nudity in this film is very tasteful nudity (as opposed to many of Franco's rather pornographic 80s outings); as almost all Franco flicks from the early 70s, this a very stylish and groovy flick with a cool jazzy soundtrack. The rest of the cast includes many familiar faces, such as regular Franco-flick eerie-man Howard Vernon, Paul Muller and Horst Tappert, who is primarily famous in German-speaking countries for his role of the TV-inspector Derrick.Overall, THE DEVIL CAME FROM AKASAVA is certainly not Franco's masterpiece, but an incredibly entertaining flick that doesn't take itself seriously, and a must-see for the goddess Soledad Miranda alone.

Glen McCulla Jess Franco rides again, marshalling his "Count Dracula" stars Frederick Williams and the always alluring Soledad Miranda in this tepid espionage thriller, allegedly based on an Edger Wallace story.Williams here features as a b-grade Eurotrash James Bond, sent to the tropical state of Akasava on a mission to investigate the mysterious death of a professor. He is, thankfully for the viewer, teamed with Miranda's Scotland Yard investigator, and the pair are enmeshed in a confused plot revolving around the Philosopher's Stone: the legendary element that can transmute base metals to gold. This is here represented as a carry case whose contents glow eerily gold whenever opened (shades of "Pulp Fiction"?), and releases radiation inimical to human health.Thankfully, Miranda's character Jane goes undercover as an exotic dancer in a nightclub, so we have a welcome distraction from the alleged plot. Sadly, however, the smoulderingly gorgeous Soledad is hampered here by some distressingly listless choreography which renders what should have been some of the most intensely erotic scenes captured on celluloid to what looks like a bored woman shifting restlessly around on a stage. For this unforgivable waste of opportunity, if nothing else, Franco should have been shot.In all, a decent if slow-moving timewasting potboiler with a few wasted opportunities. Worth watching not only for the stunning Soledad Miranda, but also Franco regular Howard Vernon as a hit-man/butler. The scene of him leaping out of a window clutching the McGuffin briefcase, and teleporting from the garden via the magic of bad editing to a field with a waiting helicopter, ensured me that amid the Bondian hokum i was till in Francoland after all.

lemon_magic Someone on the IFC channel lost their mind recently, and so "The Devil" made an appearance on cable late Friday night. It was an intriguing title and a potentially interesting plot summary (I'm always up for a good cheesy zombie movie), but the words "directed by Jesse Franco" let me know that whatever was coming up was going to be pretty crummy. I've seen several of Franco's films, and at first I was puzzled why this guy was allowed to keep making movies. Then I remembered the way people get addicted to stupid things like tobacco or sniffing gasoline. My metaphor for this is that of the restaurant critic who started out hating cilantro (an aromatic herb used in Latino cooking, especially in salsa - some people like it, some people think it tastes like soap), then felt OK about it, and eventually became addicted to it. There's just something about Franco's slapdash, hackwork style that irritates a person in a way they may grow to enjoy. He's like a American version of Roger Corman that way. Anyway, the Franco style is in full display here. This movie is much better than the train wreck that was "Castle Of Fu Manchu" (my reference point for all things Franco), but it's still pretty cheesy. The lead actor is a fairly dashing sort, and there are a couple of enticing young babes who serve as great camera bait - they light up the screen very nicely when they are around. And there are also a bunch of Continental looking character actors sleepwalking through their roles - think "Hammer film studios supporting actors who have given up all hope of ever doing anything better." And there's a weird "hip, swinging" soundtrack that seems to start up a new motif every 60 seconds or so, but every piece is scored for Hammond organ and wah-wah guitar and there's no dynamic range to them - it's as if the soundtrack people took the Hank Grawford/Jimmy McGriff quartet, fed them Quaaludes and Chianti, locked them in a studio, forced them to play for an hour at gunpoint, and recorded the results from a room 10 yards down the hall. Then they just cut the music into snippets and jammed them into scenes at random, regardless of what was happening on screen at the time. And the plot itself...well, I never did quite figure out what was going on. There's a spy story buried in her somewhere, with a McGuffin device that turns metal to gold and humans into zombies, and I think the movie is actually supposed to be a spoof, but it's hard to make out and even harder to actually care. The English dub is so tin-eared and full of clinkers (and delivered by a bunch of ESL voice actors who sound as if they are reading the lines for the first time) that it removes almost every ounce of enjoyment I might have gotten from the movie. Seriously, I might have rated this movie at least two or three points higher if I'd been able to watch it with subtitles in its original language.Anyway, it's vaguely watchable (especially during its cheesecake moments when the sweet young things disrobe) and it's by no means the worst thing Franco has done. I might even watch it again for the irritation value sometime if I get the chance.

unbrokenmetal "Der Teufel kam aus Akasava" was released after the untimely demise of its star Soledad Miranda. First off: she has made better movies, especially "Vampyros Lesbos" and "She Killed In Ecstasy"! "Der Teufel kam aus Akasava" suffers from the confusing screenplay (said to be based on an Edgar Wallace short story). The MacGuffin for the fight between several parties is a kind of radioactive "energy stone" everyone wants to get hold of. Soledad plays a secret agent in the disguise of a nightclub dancer. Don't ask why she starts her investigation that way. Trusted, experienced actors from the Edgar Wallace series like Siegfried Schürenberg and Horst Tappert are a bit lost here, but (surely not only to me) Soledad Miranda is worth every penny one might spend on the DVD. She performs a dance in the nightclub which is a wonderful demonstration of her beauty, her screen presence and her elegance. Expect nothing more, expect nothing less.