Normally I'm a big fan of Jesus Franco's work as they often border on the delightfully sadoerotic where reality and fantasy are often blurred and dissolve in to bouts of acid like dreams and flashbacks. "The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff" is sadly one of the bigger bores from the Franco library and one that feels like a thirty minute premise stretched in to almost ninety minutes. Factor that in with a goofy villain relaying a hopelessly convoluted devious plot, and you have what is essentially just a glorified Spanish novella that is a take on Svengali. I'm still not sure why Dr. Orloff has to have such a convoluted and complicated master plan behind him and why, if he has the power to manipulate young Melissa in the womb, didn't he just trigger his plan when she was a child, or better yet why not just possess someone else in to pulling off his muddled intentions. It's also never made clear what Dr. Orloff is after exactly. Sometimes he comes off as a man acting on vengeance and then he's after Melissa's money.

The entire final fifteen minutes revolves around Orloff explaining his plan beat by beat and then standing back victorious while I sat thinking "Did you really need to have such a complex plot?" There are such a things as cutting corners, even for madmen. And there's not even much of an indication why Dr. Orloff is not around Melissa every single day as she's plagued with repressed memories that can somehow signify what her memories are trying to warn her about. She's kept preserved by her two gorgeous sisters (Loreta Tovar is especially delicious) whose intentions are also never quite clarified for the audience while a kind stranger who crosses paths with Melissa one day is compelled to learn why she's kept locked up and is being transported back and forth. Meanwhile the body count rises for Melissa's guardians, and "The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff" essentially ends on a yawn inducing thud that never really draws the attempted emotion director Franco tries to convince us we should be feeling for these individuals. The DVD is not very well restored with a very average transfer, and English subtitles that work only eighty percent of the time. The rest is up to you to figure out. Beyond the movie, there is an interview with director Jesus Franco who explains the origins of Dr. Orloff, not adding much to the obvious incoherence of his narrative.

Convoluted, confused, and absolutely muddled, "The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff" is a tedious bore, and one that could be quite the ingenious metaphysical thriller but is lost in a labyrinth of its faulty logic, and gaping plot holes, all held up by bland paper thin characters. Jesus Franco has definitely accomplished more than this time waster.