The Sadistic Baron von Klaus (a.k.a La Mano de Un Hombre Muerto) (1962)

Recently, I've gotten access to a DVD player (yes, I've been behind the times; you try to get a DVD player, Photoshop, and other fun stuff on a student aide's salary...), so I had to christen it with something special. I had many choices, but then I caught a glimpse of this little Jess Franco gem at the rental store, The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus. How could anyone sane resist a title like that?

Usually picking a film for their title is a bad idea, especially when it comes to films imported under the banner "Euroshock" or the like. I forget what it is, but I've heard that The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine was released originally under a less provocative title. More well-known to me is The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism, a film that has neither a torture chamber (well, not a real spiffy one at any rate) or even a doctor of any kind, much less a sadist, and was released in Europe as The Pit and the Pendulum. As for this film, it is from continental Europe and there's one potentially shocking scene where the villain of the piece whips a bound, naked woman to death, so maybe, in this case, the "Euroshock" label is justified. And even better, although the film's original title is translated into English as "The Hand of a Dead Man," there is a Baron von Klaus in the film (two, actually, or three, debatedly) and at least two of them are sadists, so that makes the title justifiable too. Two positive marks already!

This film was directed by Jess Franco [well, his name's Jesus Franco, but he's better known on our side of the pond as 'Jess,' so...], who is well known for the most lavish and erotic productions this side of Ken Russell, particularly Vampyros Lesbos. Except for a brief glimpse of Franco's own motifs and a few scenes here and there (particularly the aforementioned whipping), however, this is disappointingly a straight-forward horror-mystery.

Except...there really isn't that much of a mystery.

The plot revolves around a journalist Karl and a police investigator named Borowsky trying to find a sadistic serial killer in a small German town. The superstitious locals think it's one of the local von Klaus family, driven by the ghost of the first Baron von Klaus who also took out his sadistic urges on young girls. The main suspect for much of the time, Max von Klaus the grouchy uncle to the current baron Ludwig, is walking around with Red Herring tattooed over every particle of his body while Ludwig not only looks very perturbed through out the film, but he also stumbles upon the ancient lair of the original sadistic Baron von Klaus within ten minutes of the film, telegraphing the "twist" far in advance.

Yet, the film makes up for this flaw in atmosphere. Although there's a few rather poor choices in staging (like the human skeleton in the cellar which Ludwig doesn't even notice when he first comes down and the overabundance of cobwebs), there's much else that is genuinely subtle. There's the music Ludwig plays from the original Baron's cellar, echoing faintly through the house, as Ludwig's fiance's roams through the castle. There's also the relentless stalking of the film's female protagonists by the killer through wide, brick streets (none of whom, save arguably Ludwig's fiance, are 'innocent' by today's horror movie standards, but yet one of them is attacked yet survives...ah, to see a film about a serial killer before the 'slashers' era). The supernatural elements are kept at a minimum, and even leaves a little ambiguity about whether it's the original Baron's ghost or Ludwig's own tormented mind that's driving him to kill, making the precious last few scenes we spend with Ludwig in full killer mode all the more interesting.

All in all, while far from his most ambitious or striking effort, this film is an interesting early entry by Franco. The characters are lively, especially Inspector Borowsky and Karl Steiner during their constant interactions. These two men don't really fall into the tired old pattern of embittered detective and ambitious reporter, but show signs of a more complex and friendly professional relationship. The patrons and workers at the local bar help give even the small cast an authentic sense of community. The characterization is weakest, though, at what should be the film's center. Ludwig, despite being both the killer and the title character, isn't given time to really develop or show his inner turmoil until about the last twenty or so minutes of the film. His fiance and moral foil doesn't help by not evolving into much more than the Naïve Maiden in Distress. Perhaps the film would have been much stronger had it dropped any pretensions at a mystery and stayed, at least in part, with poor, insane Ludwig throughout. In the least, such a movie from such a perspective would have put few limits on Jess Franco's imagination.