Verdict
Summary
Lurid at times, sexy, and oddly compelling, the movie showcases Franco’s style over substance, but it’s a lost art these days, so enjoy.
Plot:
A young prostitute frames a man for murder – her own.
Review:
An older married man picks up an attractive young stripper / prostitute named Linda (Montserrat Prous) and takes her to a hotel room. She slips him a mickey, calls the police, and she kills herself, but she makes it look very much as though her john killed her. When the police arrive, they arrest the man for her murder … but why would she do this? She’s young, she’s beautiful, and the man is clearly innocent, and the man vehemently declares his innocence. No one believes him, but his wife does some investigating on her own. She digs around. Linda, as it turns out, was a well-known nymphomaniac. She’d been around, slept with lots of people, but she didn’t just wake up one day this way. After interviewing some people who knew her, some things start becoming clear, especially when Linda’s personal journal is found. Linda was abused, raped, seduced by creeps, and became a drug addict. She learned to thrive and live off the nightlife, posing nude for lecherous photographers and pornographers, and took on lovers of both sexes. She was even “rescued” by a doctor who thought he could cure her perversions, but even that went south and Linda got thrown out with the garbage. As the accused man’s wife reads through the diary Linda left behind, we see how Linda’s life spiraled out of control, leading her to commit a final act that might make a little bit of sense …
From director Jess Franco (who has a bit part in the film), Sinner pushes the envelope in terms of sex, teetering on the razor’s edge of soft and hardcore porn, but done in such a way that manages to titillate more than satiate. Sure, Franco keeps his camera trained on pubic regions and breasts (a sequence where Linda goes cold turkey while naked in bed is laughably gratuitous, for example), but the movie has a mystery at its core, and it’s never boring, so fans of exploitation cinema and erotica will more than get their fill with this one. Lurid at times, sexy, and oddly compelling, the movie showcases Franco’s style over substance, but it’s a lost art these days, so enjoy.
Kino Lorber’s recent Blu-ray release of Sinner: The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac looks great in high definition, and is numbered #4 on the spine as part of their new Kino Cult sub label. Special features include an interview with Tim Lucas, four new interviews, but two language tracks, English and French.
