Jess Franco: From Bangkok with Bullets (BLU-RAY Review)
DIRECTED BY: Jesús Franco
STARRING: Howard Vernon, Helena Garret, José Llamas
RATED: UR/Region: O/1:66/1080P/NUMBER OF DISCS 2
AVAILABLE FROM Severin Films
There are directors whose filmographies feel carefully curated, meticulously planned, and artistically refined. And then there’s Jess Franco, a man who seemingly made movies by wandering into random hotel rooms with a camera, three actors, half a script, and the confidence of someone absolutely certain continuity is for cowards. Which brings us to From Bangkok with Bullets, another lovingly assembled release from Severin Films
that rescues two gloriously obscure Franco oddities from VHS purgatory for their worldwide Blu-ray premiere.
And honestly? Even if Jess Franco movies aren’t really my thing, I genuinely appreciate that companies like Severin exist to preserve this stuff in the best quality possible instead of letting it rot in the back alley of cinema history beside moldy beta tapes and forgotten drive-in memories.
Because somebody has to preserve the weird.
First up is Trip to Bangkok, Coffin Included (1985), a movie that sounds like it was generated by smashing together the titles of three unrelated Eurospy films during a fever dream. The plot technically involves espionage, assassins, gangsters, and intrigue, but trying to fully explain a Jess Franco movie is like trying to summarize a dream somebody had after falling asleep to late-night cable television and cough syrup. Characters drift in and out of scenes like they forgot where they parked. Dialogue often sounds dubbed by people being held hostage somewhere offscreen. Entire stretches feel less like storytelling and more like Franco casually filming whatever happened to be nearby that afternoon.
And yet… there’s something hypnotic about it.
The film has that grimy, low-budget Eurocult atmosphere Franco fans absolutely devour. Neon-lit bars, cheap hotels, awkward zooms, sudden violence, endless conversations that seem improvised five seconds before shooting — it’s all here. The pacing moves at the speed of a tired man dragging a suitcase through an airport, but every so often Franco stumbles into a genuinely cool visual or bizarre tonal shift that reminds you why his work has such a devoted cult following. The Blu-ray presentation looks shockingly good considering this movie probably spent decades surviving through nth-generation bootlegs traded between guys named Klaus at horror conventions.
Then there’s Bangkok, Date with Death (1985), which somehow feels even more delirious and stitched together from cinematic leftovers. It plays like a spy thriller assembled entirely from deleted scenes and vibes. People smoke constantly. Gunfights erupt with minimal warning. Characters stare at each other for uncomfortable lengths of time while jazz music noodles around in the background like it’s trying to solve the mystery itself.
And somehow I was never bored.
Not because the film is conventionally “good,” mind you. This is still peak Jess Franco chaos where editing feels optional and narrative clarity was clearly sacrificed to whatever tropical location happened to offer the cheapest hotel rates. But there’s an undeniable charm to the sheer scrappiness of it all. Franco made movies with the energy of a man convinced he could shoot an entire feature during a long weekend and somehow make it work through force of personality alone.
A lot of the time he actually did.
What really makes this release worthwhile is the care Severin put into these films. These are worldwide Blu-ray premieres for both movies, and Severin treats them with the kind of respect normally reserved for cinematic masterpieces instead of gloriously disreputable Eurospy oddities shot on what feels like leftover vacation footage. The restorations look excellent, packed with detail, texture, and enough grain to remind you these films were born in the beautifully sleazy underbelly of 1980s European genre cinema. The extras and contextual material also help frame why Franco’s work matters, even for viewers like me who don’t always fully connect with his style.
Because here’s the thing: not every movie needs to be a masterpiece to deserve preservation.
Sometimes cinema history is weird. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s a half-coherent spy thriller where everyone looks sweaty and confused while wandering around Bangkok carrying guns and existential exhaustion. And labels like Severin Films
are doing important work by making sure these strange little artifacts survive in legitimate, high-quality editions instead of fading into rumor and bootleg obscurity.
From Bangkok with Bullets probably isn’t the release that’s going to convert Jess Franco skeptics overnight. If you already struggle with his dreamy, chaotic, anything-goes filmmaking style, these movies aren’t suddenly going to play like lost Hitchcock classics. But for Franco devotees, Eurocult junkies, and physical media collectors who enjoy excavating cinema’s stranger corners, this set is another impressive rescue mission from Severin.
It’s bizarre, uneven, occasionally incomprehensible, and deeply fascinating.
Which, honestly, might be the most Jess Franco sentence imaginable.
Extras
Trip to Bangkok, Coffin Included (1985)
- Filmmaking On The Run – Interview With Film Writer/Bit Player/Assistant Director Carlos Aguilar
- Colonel Blimp In Bangkok – Interview With Stephen Thrower, Author Of Flowers Of Perversion: The Delirious Cinema Of Jesús Franco
- In The Land Of Franco Part 14
Bangkok, Date with Death (1985)
- Carrara In Bangkok – Interview With Stephen Thrower, Author Of Flowers Of Perversion: The Delirious Cinema Of Jesús Franco
- Bangkok Back To Back – Interview With Film Scholar Dr. Álex Mendíbil
- In The Land Of Franco Part 15
