Jess Franco’s Kiss Me, Monster is the cinematic equivalent of a hangover brunch where everyone forgot to bring the food, the coffee’s cold, and someone accidentally put on a turtleneck backwards and called it “fashion.” This 1969 disaster is Franco in his most smugly self-satisfied phase, convinced that winking at the camera will distract from the fact that he’s shot a spy film with the tension of a sponge bath and the logic of a taxidermied flamingo trying to do calculus.
It stars Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni, a pair of leggy redheads who strut through the film like they’ve been hypnotized by Franco’s saxophone-heavy score and are trying to find the nearest exit. They play Diana and Regina—detectives, secret agents, lounge singers, possibly strippers, and allegedly the protagonists of this mess. It’s unclear. Franco gives them names and outfits but never bothers with anything so pedestrian as character development, motivation, or a coherent objective.
The plot—bless it, if we can call it that—revolves around secret formulas, mysterious disappearances, and some kind of musical code embedded in a song that reveals the location of a hidden fortune. Or maybe it’s a lost scientific discovery. Or an interdimensional portal to hell. Doesn’t matter. What is certain is that nobody in this film, including the characters, director, editor, or possibly the cinematographer (if there was one), has the slightest clue what’s going on.
The movie opens with two people being murdered while engaging in some light necking—an important Franco trope that’s meant to signal “thriller” but mostly feels like he just wanted an excuse to shoot a close-up of a woman gasping before cutting to a plastic dagger. From there, the movie descends into a vortex of nonsensical jump cuts, double-crosses with no setup, and long, meandering scenes of people standing around in go-go boots, pretending to be important.
Diana and Regina are supposed to be cool, competent femme fatales, but they spend most of their screen time either pouting, posing, or awkwardly running away from slow-moving villains who look like they moonlight as dental hygienists. Their dialogue is filled with cryptic nonsense like, “The answer is in the chords of the blue samba,” which sounds like something Franco found scribbled on a cocktail napkin at 3 a.m. and mistook for genius.
And the tone. Sweet hell, the tone. Kiss Me, Monster can’t decide if it’s parody, homage, or just a drunk uncle impersonating James Bond in the mirror. It wants to be hip and irreverent, but lands somewhere between Austin Powersand a community theater version of Modesty Blaise, with none of the wit and all of the wardrobe. Every scene thinks it’s being clever, but instead of wit, you get Franco’s version of “cool”: random saxophone stings, actors with no timing, and a camera that zooms in like it’s chasing a fly.
Let’s talk about the zooms. This movie is 50% Franco zooming in and out on people’s eyes, cleavage, or handbags for no reason other than “it’s art, baby.” The remaining 50% is made up of awkward silences, non-sequitur dialogue, and transitional scenes that exist solely to show someone walking across a room, sitting down, and staring into the void.
The editing is pure dadaist chaos. Shots cut mid-sentence. Action sequences are assembled like a ransom note. There’s a motorcycle chase that could’ve been exciting if it weren’t filmed like Franco dropped the camera in a basket and let a dog carry it. Fights are choreographed with all the urgency of a couple arguing over a grocery list. At one point, a villain tries to strangle someone with a necktie and it looks like a middle school play version of Mission: Impossible.
The sets are drab, the lighting is inconsistent, and the costumes look like they were pulled from a discount bin at a retro brothel. The music, composed by Franco himself, features an endless loop of jazz licks and bongo solos that suggest a man trying to seduce a xylophone. It’s supposed to be groovy and seductive, but it mostly just feels like elevator music with a head injury.
And then, just when you think you’ve found your footing, Franco hits you with some utterly baffling fantasy element—like a secret society or a zombie or a gorilla costume in the background—and you realize you’ve given up expecting anything resembling logic. This isn’t a film; it’s a montage of half-finished thoughts tied together by eyeliner and Franco’s inexplicable belief that plot is optional.
The worst part? There are moments—fleeting, tragic moments—when you see what Franco wanted this movie to be. A psychedelic, sexy, postmodern spy spoof. A Eurotrash riff on Dr. No filtered through an opium haze and played by burlesque dancers. And there’s a version of that movie somewhere in the multiverse. But in this one, what we get is Franco sleepwalking behind the camera while two women parade through a series of loosely connected scenes like they’re searching for the script that never arrived.
And by the final act, when the film hurls everything it has into a climax involving secret passages, fake deaths, surprise shootouts, and a possible werewolf (don’t ask), it doesn’t matter anymore. You’re numb. You’ve been gaslit by the editing, betrayed by the sound mix, and emotionally bludgeoned by the sheer absence of stakes.
In the end, Kiss Me, Monster is the kind of movie that makes you question your own memories. Did I just watch a mystery? A comedy? A tourism ad for bad lighting? Jess Franco seems to think he made a stylish romp. What he actually made is a film-shaped object filled with attractive people, empty dialogue, and enough dead air to suffocate a small village.
Verdict: A mod-era fever dream with no fever, no dream, and no functioning brain cells. If you like your spy movies with all the coherence of a shaken Etch A Sketch and the pacing of a tranquilized tortoise, Kiss Me, Monster is your ticket to madness. Otherwise, back away slowly and kiss your time goodbye.
