Some movies dare to shock you. Some aim to disturb. Then there’s The Sadist of Notre Dame — a film so misfired, so miserably stitched together, it feels like someone handed Jess Franco a Bible, a bottle of absinthe, and a reel of his own old footage, and said, “Make art… or at least get weird with it.” And get weird he does — in the most sleep-deprived, sexually confused, and theologically panicked way imaginable.
Originally cobbled together from two previous Franco films (Exorcism and Sexorcismes, because yes, those were real), The Sadist of Notre Dame is less a movie and more a cinematic Frankenstein’s monster: stitched together with mismatched limbs, missing vital organs, and occasionally twitching under the illusion of purpose. The only thing “sadistic” about it is what it does to your attention span.
Let’s talk “plot.” Franco — yes, Jess Franco himself — stars as Mathis Vogel, a deranged ex-priest turned writer who spends his days scribbling moralistic rants and his nights punishing Parisian sex workers for their sins… with knives. That’s right. Our lead character is a religiously tormented serial killer who writes erotic fiction by day and murders half-naked women by night, all while grunting like a man trying to pass a confession and a kidney stone at the same time.
The setting? Paris, allegedly. Mostly back alleys, low-rent bordellos, and shots of Notre Dame Cathedral that Franco clearly filmed on vacation and then inserted whenever the movie threatened to become coherent. These stock establishing shots are repeated so often you start to suspect Notre Dame is the only character who didn’t quit halfway through.
Franco, bless him, tries to act. He really does. But watching him as Mathis Vogel is like watching a substitute teacher have a nervous breakdown in front of a class full of mannequins. He mopes. He stares at crucifixes. He delivers voiceovers that sound like they were recorded in a broom closet. And his idea of conveying torment is furrowing his brow so deeply it looks like his face is trying to implode.
Vogel’s internal conflict — religion versus lust, sin versus salvation — could’ve been interesting in the hands of, say, Paul Schrader or Abel Ferrara. But Franco, ever the poet of the perverse, chooses instead to fill the screen with endless nudity, murder-by-stabbing, and lengthy lectures about morality delivered by sweaty men in turtlenecks. He treats theology like foreplay: messy, confusing, and deeply inappropriate in a public space.
Most of the runtime is spent watching Vogel stalk women, grope crucifixes, and have hallucinations about being whipped by nuns — yes, seriously. His victims are mostly sex workers or performers in smoky cabarets, all of whom take off their clothes on cue, writhe on couches, and deliver lines like:
“Do you like pain, monsieur? Or do you only pretend to be holy?”
These scenes, designed to titillate or horrify, mostly just repeat. Woman performs. Franco stares. Music screeches. Blood dribbles. Repeat. The sex scenes are less erotic than a slow oil change. The killings, meanwhile, have all the intensity of someone reluctantly slicing a birthday cake with a butter knife. No suspense. No gore. Just Franco looming in the shadows, breathing heavily, and making you wonder if this was a cry for help from the editing room.
Speaking of editing: it’s abysmal. The film splices together footage from Exorcism and Sexorcismes with the finesse of a blind butcher. Characters appear, vanish, and reappear wearing different outfits. Scenes cut mid-sentence or repeat entirely. A subplot involving a morally ambiguous police detective is introduced like it matters, then forgotten faster than Franco’s tripod. Dialogue loops, scenes jump back and forth in time, and at one point I swear we get the same murder from two different angles — three scenes apart.
The cinematography is textbook Franco: low light, weird zooms, shots that begin with the camera pointed at the floor and then pan up as if surprised someone’s in the room. He shoots from behind furniture. He shoots through curtains. He shoots mirrors reflecting mirrors. It’s less “artistic” and more “Jess Franco was crouching behind a lamp and dropped the lens cap.”
And the music. Oh God, the music. A relentless, looping nightmare of synth stabs, shrieking violin, and organ droning that sounds like someone strangling a Casio keyboard while screaming into a paper towel roll. Every murder is accompanied by music so mismatched you’ll think your speakers are haunted. Even the sex scenes get the same musical treatment — which is fitting, since most of them feel like a slow descent into purgatory anyway.
The dialogue is a masterclass in awkward Franco-speak:
“There is no love without pain.”
“I was a priest… now I am an animal.”
“They strip… and with each garment, they kill God.”
If you’re not laughing by the third line, you’re probably in the wrong genre — or you’ve already slipped into a coma.
By the time the movie limps to its conclusion — with Vogel either dying, hallucinating, or simply walking out of frame and never being seen again — you’ll be emotionally vacant, intellectually drained, and morally offended… but mostly just tired. The final scene tries to be poetic. Instead, it feels like Franco forgot to write an ending, so he just cut to black and hoped no one would notice.
Final Verdict: 1 out of 5 agonized nuns with a side of jazz shriek
The Sadist of Notre Dame is what happens when a filmmaker tries to combine theology, erotica, murder, and a reel of half-used footage from older films — and ends up with a wet sock full of existential despair. It’s neither scary nor sexy. Just slow, sloppy, and soaked in low-budget pretension.
Watch it only if you’re writing a thesis on Eurotrash auteurism gone wrong, or if you’ve made a bet that you can survive 90 minutes of Franco staring mournfully at stained-glass windows while whispering about sin. Otherwise, say a prayer, avert your eyes, and leave the sadist at the cathedral steps where he belongs.
