Mondo Macabro: The Frenchman's Garden (1978) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Mondo Macabro

Ten years before making his multi-role starring career summation The Howl of the Devil and one year before unveiling his episodic Satanic odyssey The Devil Incarnate, Spain’s Lon Chaney known as Jacinto Molina Alvarez known as Paul Naschy briefly dabbled in nonfiction with his dramatization of the infamous Frenchman’s Garden murders. 

Courtesy of Mondo Macabro

A string of serial murders committed in the town of Peñaflor, a province of Seville, Spain around 1904, the story told of Andrés Aldije Monmejá (Naschy) who operated as a bartender whose establishment was actually functioning as an illegal gambling house and brothel with his waitresses serving as prostitutes.  In between arranging abortions for waitresses that inevitably fall pregnant to prostitution, Monmejá also whiles away his time bedding much of his own staff.

Trying to come up with ways to rip off his customers even more, he and his associate José Muñoz Lopera decide it might be best to start murdering them, stealing their money and burying their bodies in the back of the bar.  But as their mutual avarice increases, so too does the need for more murders and it doesn’t take long for locals and close confidantes to raise their eyebrows upon Monmejá’s homicidal ruse. 

Courtesy of Mondo Macabro

Mounted as a personal project for Naschy, while featuring the actor/director’s usual scenes of himself in bed with a voluptuous naked actress in one of the film’s many love scenes, The Frenchman’s Garden like Tenderness of the Wolves before it is a straight-laced serial killer horror drama.  Rather than try and probe too deeply into the killers’ mutual psyches, Naschy’s film instead tries to illustrate how these two got away with it for so long and why the case itself was dubbed The Frenchman’s Garden murders.

Compared to Naschy’s subsequent projects, The Frenchman’s Garden rescued from oblivion by Mondo Macabro who seem to have spearheaded the revival of all things obscure Naschy, is one the actor/director’s more handsome looking pictures.  Photographed in sumptuous panoramic 2.35:1 widescreen by Leopoldo Villaseñor, the film’s tawdry and gruesome proceedings nevertheless look lovely with an organic looking period production design and striking scenic locale.  The subtle acoustic score by The Devil Incarnate composer Angel Arteaga augments the period setting very well also.

Courtesy of Mondo Macabro

As a Naschy film, it doesn’t quite have the spark as his next picture The Devil Incarnate which saw the actor/director playing the ultimate source of all evil with gusto.  Nevertheless, The Frenchman’s Garden is an otherwise solid serial killer picture albeit a bit dry and overwhelmingly carnal at times.  While this won’t be the one that will convert nonbelievers into Nashy disciples, longtime fans of the cult hero will be pleased to see another one of his largely underrated pictures seeing the light of day outside of its country of origin.  As usual, good job from Mondo Macabro with their pristine 4K restoration of a film you might not have heard of were it not for them.  Not my first pick for Naschy but definitely an intriguing one.

--Andrew Kotwicki