She Killed in Ecstasy (1971) – Film Review

Director: Jesús Franco
Cast: Soledad Miranda, Fred Williams, Paul Muller
Certificate: 18

By Sarah Morgan

Directors and stars often form close working relationships, each managing to get the best out of the other.

Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon are a prime example, two people who despite being skilled practitioners of their art while apart produced something extra special when they were together. See also Martin Scorsese with either Robert De Niro or Leonardo DiCaprio, or Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood for others with similarly inspirational relationships.

One that is far less well known is that between cult film-maker Jesus (or Jess) Franco and Soledad Miranda, who used the stage name Susann Korda during the last years of her acting career.

“Revenge”

In the 1950s and 1960s, the former flamenco star had appeared in numerous movies in her native Spain and beyond, most notably 100 Rifles, a spaghetti western in which she shared scenes with Burt Reynolds. However, she was on the verge of giving up acting to concentrate on family life with her husband and young son until she met Franco.

After casting her in a small role in Count Dracula, the pair made Vampyros Lesbos, then came together again just a few weeks later for She Killed in Ecstasy, a fabulous and outlandish (well, Franco never made any other kind of movie) thriller.

Miranda plays Mrs Johnson, the wife of an ambitious doctor/research scientist whose latest experiments are torn to shreds by a team of fellow boffins who feel his work is not only pointless, it’s also blasphemous.

Distraught, he takes his own life. His wife keeps his body at home while she carries out her revenge, first seducing her victims, then murdering them.

In places it’s a grisly, sordid tale, but for once, Franco pulls back from being as shocking as you might expect him to be. For instance, the scenes of necrophilia involving Mrs Johnson and her deceased husband’s corpse would have been far more repulsive if Dr Johnson didn’t still look handsome, something Franco expert Stephen Thrower points out during his appraisal of the production, which is among the special features.

“Anger and torment”

The film is, however, visually arresting, and includes scenes shot at Xanada, an extraordinary apartment complex in Calp, Spain, designed by architect Ricardo Bofill.

Although not as famous as its predecessor, Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstasy is the far superior film, not least because of Miranda’s magnetic performance – you can see her character’s anger and torment in her eyes.

She died in a car crash just a month after filming completed, prompting a devastated Franco to shelve all the plans he had for their film-making future. Now we’re left with what remains, while wondering what might have been.

Sarah Morgan( Writer )

Sarah Morgan studied film journalism at post-graduate level with the BFI and has been writing about TV and film for PA Media’s newspaper, magazine and new media customers since 1996. She’s also written for a wide range of other publications, both online and in print, including the book Offbeat and Intermission magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Talking Pictures TV podcast. When she isn’t watching movies, she’s collecting and reading vintage crime and horror paperback books or, for her sins, watching her beloved Sheffield Wednesday.

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