"Louisiana" (Louisiana, Spain, I suppose) around the turn of the 19th Century into the 20th. A man in a skull latex mask murders Lord Archibald Marian (Antonio Mayans) in a rather cruel fashion.
Police Inspector Bore (Vicente Roca) is confronted with more suspects than anyone could reasonably cope with. There's the Lord's extra-marital daughter Rita (Lina Romay), living in his house as a punching bag for her father and his wife (Evelyne Scott), the rather mad servant Rufus (Luis Barboo) and so on and so on.
At the reading of the man's will it turns out Marian must have had some inkling of his coming death. At least there's no good reason anyone could think of why he should have made two testaments - one in case of a natural death and a different one in case he is murdered. The latter makes Rita his sole heir. This rather happy endy proposition is cut short by Bore, who'll have to check some things first before he lets the business proceed. To nobody's surprise, the murders continue, and the help of Scotland Yard's best man Major Brooks (Alberto Dalbes), the appearance of another, older testament with completely different contents (and no, I don't see why that should matter, but in the world of this film, it does), and the arrival of even more suspects/potential heirs/potential murder victims for the reading of the older/new/whatever will do nothing to make matters less complicated. Bore also beautifully follows the tradition of the Old Dark House school of mystery in his insistence of putting everyone together in the same place, so they are easier to find for the killer, um, because it's safer.
I have made my love for the lifework of Jess Franco clear enough in earlier write-ups, I think, but even I (someone who adores Oasis of the Zombies) can't bring myself to recommend Night of the Skull. The film's main problem is its genre, or rather the fact that the mystery genre is less than ideal for Franco's directorial strengths and deadly for its weaknesses. Even an Old Dark House Mystery needs a certain amount of internal logic; people just getting information without any explanation of where it comes from, or when and how it was acquired, as happens here repeatedly is to be avoided at all costs. There is also the problem of tension - Franco is always at his best when he can play loose with plot, action etc, while a mystery like this needs a certain amount of tightness and a sort of tension Franco is not used to provide.
The film is not all bad, though. It looks at times delightful. It also has some moments of typical Franco hypnotism and it is always a pleasure to watch an ensemble of favorite Franco actors doing their thing. The problem is just that Franco is never at his best when he is trying to be conventional. (And, I have to ask, what's with the lack of nightclub sequences and sleaze?)
Oh, this is also the only film I know of that is based on "Edgar Allen Poe's The Cat And The Canary", probably the best book never written.
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