With Christmas coming up I started searching round for films from auteur director "Uncle" Jess Franco that I could give to a friend as a gift.Taking a look at the titles that Anchor Bay had put out,I spotted a weird looking Spy flick,which led to me getting ready to go spying with Uncle Jess.The plot:Returning from their latest spy mission, Diana and Regina are told that they must go and track a missing Doctor Beltran who has created a formula for super- humans (as you do!) Attempting to gather info on the Beltran's location,Diana find themselves hitting dead ends,when their informants begin to get mysteriously killed.Going undercover as a nightclub act on an island,the duo soon begin using their charms on island leader Eric Vicas,who they each suspect has something to do with the killings and Beltran's disappearance. View on the film:Trimmed down from its Spanish version,co-writer/(along with Luis Revenga & Karl Heinz Mannchen) director Jess Franco offers a deliciously scrambled mix of dazzling psychedelic glamour and slick spy murky dealings.Whilst the movie has weirdly been rated 18/R in the UK, (despite there being no swearing,and only a few topless glimpses from the very sexy leading ladies)Franco gives Diana & Regina a jet set lifestyle,as Uncle Jess trademark zoom button is drizzled with vivid reds and yellows which keep up with Diana and Regina's breezy friendship,whilst the smooth Jazz from Jerry van Rooyen keeps the dirty spy dealings bubbling away.Whilst covering the duo in a glamorous appearance,the writers cross light Comedy one liners with surprisingly ruthless double dealings,as Diana and Regina's high-kicking adventures are met by back stabbing killings of anyone who tries to help the girls out! Despite their voices being dubbed,the stunning Janine Reynaud & Rosanna Yanni both give terrific performances as Diana and Regina,thanks to Reynaud and Yanni giving them a sweet natured warmth,with sly hints of the cunning espionage skills being hidden from view,as Uncle Jess joins in on the spying game.

I rather enjoyed the first RED LIPS movie, "Two Undercover Angels", despite its shortcomings, but "Kiss Me, Monster" is not just a step down, it's a high dive. This sequel is a totally incomprehensible collage of random scenes and makes its predecessor look like a model of narrative coherence and logical progression. What's more, the English dubbing is even worse this time, if that's conceivable. Even Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni seem to have lost most of the spirit they had in the first movie. Besides Yanni's killer body, the film has very little going for it and it probably ranks as one of the worst spy entries of the 1960s. I give it 0.5 out of 4 stars.

I'm not sure how to describe a non-existent plot, but I'll give it a try. Two women, posing as a nightclub act, go to an island to investigate something. Everywhere they go, people (I have no idea who these people are) end up dying - sometimes stabbed in the back while in mid-sentence. Of course there's no sign of the killer. Eventually, I think they find whatever it is they're looking for because there is much rejoicing.This movie is BAD. And, I don't mean bad in a way that can be enjoyable to make fun of. This is the kind of put-you-to-sleep-because-it-makes-no-sense bad. I got the impression that the story was being written at night on cocktail napkins for the next day's shoot. It's the only way I can explain it because I can't imagine anyone sitting down and writing something this bad unless they were drunk (either that or it was written by monkeys). I defy anyone to watch this movie and tell me exactly what's going on.I'm not giving it a 1/10 because it does have a couple of redeeming qualities. What they are escapes me at the moment, but I distinctly remember enjoying at least one scene - it may have been a shot of palm trees. Plus, believe it or not, I've seen much worse.

This is an appalling movie by most people's standards, but I totally loved it. A must for anyone with a weakness for camp 60s psychedelia (of the Barbarella/Modesty Blaise/Diabolik variety) this Jess Franco film regales us with the further adventures of the 'Red Lips' gals - Diana (Janine Reynaud) and Regina (Rossana Yanni) who last brightened our lives in the still-more-outrageous Sadisterotica.Two sexy undercover agents on the trail of a mad doctor and his race of Frankenstein-style monster hunks, Reynaud and Yanni strut about in deliriously over-the-top high-fashion outfits. Bicker back and forth like Edina and Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. Reduce any unfortunate male who crosses their path to a pool of helpless mush. Oh, and they even find time to perform a transvestite nightclub act on saxophones. Now that's what I call style!As for the 'plot'(if there is any) I've seen this movie twice and still can't fathom it. Something about a tropical island, animatronic muscle men, whip-wielding lesbians, feathered cabaret outfits, effete and sinister scientists and a mystical secret sect who sit around in black Ku Klux Klan hoods and crimson robes and struggle (vainly, it turns out) to explain what is going on. The continuity is even more abysmal than in most of Franco's oeuvre - so much so that the girls seem to be driving a different car in every shot!Yet as an introduction to this mad genius and his deranged and surreal style of movie-making, you could do a lot worse than Kiss Me Monster. At least in the version I saw, there's almost none of the lurid blood and sex that was standard in Franco's later work. The one truly nasty moment here is a brief-but-gruesome surgery scene. Otherwise, it's all good, clean, campy, psychedelic fun. Everyone on and offscreen seems be in a drug-induced haze. Well, it WAS the 60s after all!