The Diabolical Dr. Z

Jesús Franco's 1966 Spanish film follows Irma, who sets out for revenge after her father dies when his colleagues reject his work. She takes control of a nightclub dancer through hypnosis and has her kill with poisoned fingernails. It is one of Franco's hundreds of films but among his most careful; Alejandro Ulloa's black and white photography and the nightclub sequences build an aesthetic close to French crime films. The story is wild and its logic thin; the real matter is style. Estella Blain's dancer, in her spider costume, became one of the cult images of the period. The pace is uneven. Who it's for: viewers who like European horror and cult productions of the sixties. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative logic, or who dislikes low-budget genre cinema.