Highly Overrated But Still Good

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

"Küss mich, Monster" or "Kiss Me Monster" or "Castle of the Doomed" is a co-production between West Germany and Spain and this one was made in 1969 already, so it will soon have its 50th anniversary. The director and one of the writers here is Jesús Franco, one of the most impactful B-movie filmmakers, and there are also quite a few German-language films in his body of work. Some of them are Swiss productions, but this one here is not. I am actually a bit surprise this is German though, at least according to IMDb, as the majority of the cast is clearly from other areas pf the planet, mostly Spanish or South American. The only German cast member I am familiar with here is Adrian Hoven, who is still fairly known today. And Chris Howland is also still kind of famous in our country here, even if he is not German of course. Looking at the story, this is a very generic film. Franco, who also appears briefly as an actor as he does frequently, sure did not come up with an impressive script at all. According to IMDb, the film is almost 90 minutes long, but the version i saw was roughly 10 minutes shorter. I am not sure if parts were missing or if it was just a cut version, which is also possible. In any case, the version i watched had surprisingly little (actually almost no) nudity for a Franco film. Sexual references were there occasionally though, but I am not used to something so harmless from the director after having watched some other Franco films. All in all, it is not a failure, but not very far away from that description either. I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down.

I rather enjoyed the first RED LIPS movie, "Two Undercover Angels", despite its shortcomings, but "Kiss Me, Monster" is not just a step down, it's a high dive. This sequel is a totally incomprehensible collage of random scenes and makes its predecessor look like a model of narrative coherence and logical progression. What's more, the English dubbing is even worse this time, if that's conceivable. Even Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni seem to have lost most of the spirit they had in the first movie. Besides Yanni's killer body, the film has very little going for it and it probably ranks as one of the worst spy entries of the 1960s. I give it 0.5 out of 4 stars.

As terrible as it was, I enjoyed this in a perverse "oh god, I could do better than that" kinda way. The guys who looked and acted like they'd flunked the Thunderbirds casting call. The dubbing that made me grateful that chop socky cheapos weren't dubbed in Germany by unemployed bierfest toastmasters. The stock footage that made me pine for the infamous white Jag 3.4 going over the cliff again again. The flashless guns that somehow kill people they're not aimed at (Did Roy Rogers ever patent them?) And the bouffantastic hairstyles that screamed "WIIIIIIIIIIIG!!!!!" loud enough to influence Divine and Joan Collins. Somehow, I understood what little evidence of plot there was. This can probably be put down to a childhood diet of duff mangas and creaky Godzilla movies. The idea is that they get from scene one to finale without being mangled by the badddies. Erm, that's it. My brain barely broke sweat, but my funnybone was in overdrive. I'm not going to give it a post modern ironic 10, but the 5 is praise for making me hoot with incredulous laughter at the lapses in acting ability, plot, and continuity. The soundtrack is surprisingly cool. The band in the disco seem to be performing an excellent ersatz Detroit r n b breaks medley, and the kooky jazz pieces seemed seemed perfectly apt in context.I've seen worse.

I'm not sure how to describe a non-existent plot, but I'll give it a try. Two women, posing as a nightclub act, go to an island to investigate something. Everywhere they go, people (I have no idea who these people are) end up dying - sometimes stabbed in the back while in mid-sentence. Of course there's no sign of the killer. Eventually, I think they find whatever it is they're looking for because there is much rejoicing.This movie is BAD. And, I don't mean bad in a way that can be enjoyable to make fun of. This is the kind of put-you-to-sleep-because-it-makes-no-sense bad. I got the impression that the story was being written at night on cocktail napkins for the next day's shoot. It's the only way I can explain it because I can't imagine anyone sitting down and writing something this bad unless they were drunk (either that or it was written by monkeys). I defy anyone to watch this movie and tell me exactly what's going on.I'm not giving it a 1/10 because it does have a couple of redeeming qualities. What they are escapes me at the moment, but I distinctly remember enjoying at least one scene - it may have been a shot of palm trees. Plus, believe it or not, I've seen much worse.