Well, I know Fox has a knowledge of the history of this movie, Marquis De Sade and what not, but without any history or interest going into it this movie was bad. It drug on for quite a while and the subtle idea Fox talks about was non-catchable unless you know something about Marquis De Sade.

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Yo, I remember when Fox copped, under the name "Deadly Sanctuary", this piece because this was one of the movies that started this whole thing. From start to finish I was enthralled by the copious amounts of beauty and skin, and skin and beauty.

However, gotta agree with Fox on this one about the underlying theme of the film. The film does have its better moments of the film have to include the immediate removal of the sisters from the school, the football tackle, and anytime, and I mean ANYTIME, Jack Palance was on the screen (Can you blame the guy for being piss drunk?) It also doesn't help that the lead, Romina Powers, got the part due to connections (They say on the DVD) rather than talent, which is clearly evident, but she's hot so who cares? Well, then again so is the chick who was supposed to be the lead AND so is the woman who took Justine in, AND Justine's sister. Ah hell, they're all smokin'. Although this is definitely an "L" on the board, it's still more than meets the requirements for this one to be one of the good ones. Go buy it, fool!

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I'll admit it: I love this movie.

The perversity, the silliness, Jack Palance, it's all just gravy in my boat. Yes, I know Jess Franco directed it, I'm not holding that against it. This is the ONE movie by him I've been able to stomach.

The film is based on the works of Marquis de Sade, who is portrayed in the beginning of the movie thrashing around in agony as he sees the ghosts of his writings around him encased with him in his prison cell. He then begins writing "Justine." Which, by the way, is historically inaccurate, as de Sade was imprisoned for writing Justine, but whatever.

There are quite a few things I like about this film, but the main thing is the overlying nastiness of it. Poor little Justine tries to do the best thing she can in all situations and just constantly gets the short end, while her evil sister ends up with more riches than she ever dreamed. In the end her sister says some BS about a virtuous life being better than riches, but the road there is just nasty.

Another subtext of the film is that through her constant torture and suffering, she begins to realize that she enjoys the suffering. This is accentuated by the end torture sequence in drunk-ass Jack Palance's cult, where he explains to her that she defines life by suffering. It is a little difficult to tell with Romina Power's wooden performance, and I wish that Franco had gotten his way with the casting, as the movie probably would have been so much better with Rosemary Dexter as Justine...but that's all in the past.

The visuals are very nice, the acting sans Power is relatively decent, and basically I had a blast watching it. Seeing what this poor girl goes through is a trip in itself. For crying out loud, the first scene is a nun telling the two sisters that their parents are dead and they have to leave the nunnery immediately because they have no more money. Damn.

Maybe I also relate to Justine because of this site. I mean, we willingly torture ourselves with these awful movies, and for what? Riches? Nay. For our readers' very minds, where we could do the evil thing and let them suffer as we are blissfully unaware of the horrors that exist out there. See? Pure poetry.

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