'Sola ante terror' aka 'Alone Against Terror' (1983) Dir. Jess Franco.

For me, one of the compelling, lesser known genre features shot during Franco's latter-day Alicante period is Sola ante terror (Alone Against Terror). Alone Against Terror's relative obscurity is due in large part to its unavailability, rather than the quality of filmmaking, which in this pleasing instance is remarkably more sophisticated than one may think! This low-budget, captivatingly lurid psychodrama centres around the increasingly ignominious plight of fragile, mentally traumatized invalid Melissa (Lina Romay). Witnessing the grisly death throes of her beloved father (Antonio Mayans)traumatizes her so severely she is rendered comatose with shock. Paralysed, Melissa becomes bed bound, begrudgingly nursed to adulthood by her boozy, prototypically wicked, evilly inheritance-coveting stepmother.

The main strengths of Franco's hysteria-laden thriller reside in the charismatically tweaked protagonists and welcome generosity of sublime eccentricity! Oppressively confined to her bedroom, forced to listen to her stepmother, and her equally degenerated sister's hedonistic carousing, Melissa's nightmares become ever more intense. Melissa's precarious grip on reality fatefully shattered by the haunting apparition of her gruesome-looking father demanding that she revenge his brutal murder! As always, Lina Romay's energised performance is exemplary, watching the tragic, disarmingly angelic, Melissa righteously dispatch her villainous in-laws proves enormously edifying! 'Sola ante terror' is professionally shot, has a fine score, a sympathetic heroine, and the sordid, Sangria-sotted sister's antics have a deliciously camp, Almodovar-like quality!