There are films that explore the dark heart of religious corruption with nuance and intelligence. And then there’s The Demons (1973), Jess Franco’s sexed-up nunsploitation cocktail—shaken, stirred, and spilled all over the shag carpet. This is not a movie. It’s a medieval fever dream directed by a man who clearly spent more time oiling his camera lens than writing his script. If the Inquisition had handed out punishments in the form of low-budget softcore historical epics, this would be Exhibit A.
The poster promises fire, flesh, and hell. What it delivers is Franco’s usual grab bag of wandering zooms, naked women writhing for vaguely explained reasons, and moral hypocrisy so on-the-nose it might as well be tattooed on a lecherous bishop’s forehead. Set during some blurry approximation of 17th-century France, The Demons plays like someone dropped The Devils into a vat of expired baby oil and filmed it through a haze of bad decisions and synthetic lace.
The plot—and believe me, we’re using that word loosely here—follows the adventures of two orphaned sisters, Kathleen and Margaret, who get caught up in the hellish gears of the Inquisition after their mother is burned at the stake for being a witch. Naturally, this leads to lots of heavy breathing, vague Satanism, and long scenes of people staring into the middle distance while somebody moans offscreen.
Kathleen, the “good” sister (played by Anne Libert), gets arrested and tortured in increasingly elaborate and ridiculous ways, mostly while half-nude and tied to something. Margaret (Catherine Lafferière), the “evil” one, escapes into the countryside where she seduces everyone within a five-mile radius—including, at one point, a small forest. Franco makes no effort to disguise his real interest here, which is not religious critique, character development, or historical context—it’s breasts. Endless, glistening, slow-motion breasts.
Let’s talk about the torture scenes. Because Franco sure as hell does. You’d think they’d be brutal or harrowing. Nope. They’re just drawn-out excuses to pan over actresses tied to racks, ropes, and vaguely erotic stretching contraptions while other characters leer and stroke their mustaches like 1970s porn villains auditioning for Game of Thrones. The “torture” is mostly Franco himself, zooming into a nipple for 45 seconds and calling it cinematic tension.
The villains include an evil priest who may or may not be possessed by libido, a witchfinder general with the personality of spoiled ham, and a dominatrix noblewoman played by Britt Nichols, who wears her corset like it’s a badge of honor and delivers lines like she’s reading erotic poetry to a potted plant. Every scene she’s in feels like a community theater production of Dangerous Liaisons performed during a thunderstorm on mushrooms.
The performances range from wooden to confused. Most of the actresses look like they were told they were filming a historical drama, only to find out halfway through the first take that this was actually a sex film set in the 1600s. The men, meanwhile, are mostly there to leer, stab, or deliver exposition while gazing longingly at someone’s thigh.
And let’s not ignore the dialogue—dear God, the dialogue. Franco tries to inject some theological weight into the script, but it all comes out sounding like a 13-year-old’s first attempt at erotic fanfiction. Characters speak in half-mumbled philosophy about sin and temptation while fondling chalices and peeking under habits. One character actually says, “The Devil dances in the eyes of lust,” before cutting to a scene that looks like a deleted number from Cabaret performed by Satan’s backup dancers.
Visually, the film is Franco on autopilot. The cinematography is grimy, soft-focus, and filled with smoke machines working overtime. Scenes are lit like someone forgot to pay the power bill and decided to film by candlelight and hope for the best. The sets—half Renaissance fair, half abandoned brothel—do their best to be gothic and oppressive but mostly come off like an overambitious high school play where everyone lost the script and just started making out.
The editing is, predictably, a mess. Scenes jump around like Franco shuffled the reels in a panic. One moment you’re in a dungeon, the next you’re in a field full of topless witches summoning Satan with interpretive dance. Transitions happen mid-sentence, mid-moan, or not at all. If continuity were a sin, this movie would burn in the fires of its own incoherence.
The score is pure Franco jazz sludge—wheezing flutes, sad harpsichords, and ominous organ music that sounds like it was recorded inside a haunted vending machine. It kicks in randomly, often drowning out dialogue or playing over scenes of complete silence, like a bored soundtrack trying to entertain itself while waiting for the movie to catch up.
And the nudity—oh, the nudity. There’s a scene in which a possessed nun (or possibly just drunk) performs a full-on naked interpretive dance in a chapel, flailing around in slow motion while Franco’s camera tries to keep up like a drunk uncle filming a wedding. Another scene features an orgy in a barn that turns into a séance, then a catfight, then a montage of unrelated candle close-ups. By the end, you’re not sure whether you watched a religious allegory, a fever dream, or a low-budget porn parody of The Crucible.
The final act, which should be a reckoning, is instead a blur of shouting, writhing, and a sword fight so badly choreographed it could’ve been staged by blindfolded toddlers. A character is stabbed and reacts five seconds later. A witch is burned, sort of. Franco ends it all with a shot of the sky and a flute solo, as if hoping you’ll think something profound just happened. Nothing did.
Final Verdict:
The Demons is a half-baked pile of historical sleaze, stitched together with goat entrails, Catholic guilt, and Franco’s unrelenting fascination with sweaty cleavage. It aims for Ken Russell’s The Devils and lands somewhere between a softcore Monty Python sketch and a Ren Faire gone horribly wrong. There’s no horror, no drama, no coherence—just a lot of naked people crying in candlelight while a guy in a wig mutters about sin.
Watch it only if you’re conducting a forensic study on how not to make a nunsploitation film. Or if you’re trapped in a Jess Franco box set and need something to help you hit rock bottom. This one’s got demons, all right—but they live in the editing bay. And they hate you.
