I don’t have the same interest in Jess Franco films compared to a lot of other people out there, so one might look at my review and scoff at what I have to say. Hence why I figured I should warn you ahead of time. Anywho, let’s strip down naked and slide into my review of Shining Sex and much like my sex life, I want to make this review short, awkward and misinformed. Read on!
Shining Sex spurted out onto film in 1977 and stars the insatiable Lina Romay and her hairless vagina as Cynthia, a woman who performs sex acts for money (I assume). During one of these overly long sex shows, where we are forced to look at extremely blurry closeups of vag, Cynthia meets two odd-acting audience members who want her to cum back to their place for a little ménage à trois. Cynthia jumps at the idea and thinks it’s perfectly splendid. She heads to their apartment and during yet another long scene, this time featuring lesbians!!!, Cynthia has some weird cream rubbed on her hooha, and that cream makes her vagina a deadly weapon. Turns out these two sexually-charged folk are in fact aliens, and they want Cynthia to use her “weapon” to get rid of some people that know about them. Although that plot sounds kind of fun, Franco instead decides he would rather do some more blurry closeups and even longer sex scenes that are shot so poorly I can barely maintain an erection.
Honestly, there really isn’t a story to Shining Sex. Sure, it pretends there is, but you can tell that when Franco started shooting this flick, he didn’t give two hoots to what the actors are saying since everything was dubbed later. He just wanted to shoot some flesh and boy does he do that. Lina Romay is smoking hot, but man I can only take so many long scenes of sloppy copulating and gigantic bush shots (hey, I’m all in favour of some hair, but one of the characters is seriously in need of mossy bank trimming).
The movie has an excessive runtime of roughly 115-minutes and cum to the end after you are all chafed up, you’ll be happy the movie is over because you can only take so much of a poorly shot sex show to get the engines revving.
Blu-ray
Severin Films has scanned Shining Sex from the original negative, and the results show a poorly maintained negative as there is some dirty, dirty dirt and debris present on the screen, with some rough areas springing up here and there. Besides the ugly bits, other areas pop, like details in the trim and the silvery paint on Lina Romay’s lady bits which sparkle. Audio is presented in DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono track in English, and besides the terrible dubbing, the sound is great. Moans come through your speakers with such clarity you might think the neighbours have finally made up.
For a film that doesn’t have much to say, Severin Films manages to find a boatload of people to talk about it. Extra features are stacked with informative interviews and commentaries from the likes of Stephen Thrower and Christophe Gans. It’s crazy how many people love the film and Franco, which honestly makes me wonder if I’m the dumb one here (please don’t answer that). I do want to point out the best feature ever put on a physical disc called Very NSFW Outtakes. The extra runs 13-minutes and is full of gratuitous nudity that was cut from the film, I assume to get a passable rating? These cut scenes are full-on hardcore, so don’t watch them with the family, unless you are the kind of family that is okay with this sort of stuff.
EXTRA FEATURES
- NEW scanned from the original negative for the first time ever anywhere
- NEW In the Land of Franco Part 3 – Stephen Thrower & Antonio Mayans Tour Multiple Franco Locations in Málaga, Spain (HD; 12:42)
- NEW Shining Jess – Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of Murderous Passions and Flowers of Perversion (HD; 19:14)
- NEW Never Met Franco – Interview with Filmmaker Gerard Kikoine (HD; 6:26)
- Very NSFW Outtakes (HD; 13:10)
- NEW Franco At Eurociné – Interview with Producer Daniel Lesoeur (HD; 17:39)
- NEW Commentary with Authors/Podcasters Robert Monell and Rod Barnett
- Trailer (HD; 3:40)
- NEW Filmmaker Christophe Gans on Franco (HD; 29:13)
Verdict
I like sex, I like women, I like aliens, and I like nudity. You would think that Shining Sex would be right up my bumhole and sure, there are moments I enjoyed, but those moments are mixed in with an excessive amount of poorly shot scenes, and a story that doesn’t really exist. However, I’m not one to say no to nudity, and because Severin Films crammed this Blu-ray so full of special features it’s dripping and served up a good video and audio transfer, I would definitely recommend it, especially if you love Franco.
