Isabel Is Number One!

The Passion of Isabel is number ONE! The new girl in town is officially the rave of the month. The results from Amazon are not in yet and those results can make JUSTINE jump back up to the top at the end of the month, putting some distance between her and Isabel, but who knows, maybe Isabel will retain its place on the top if it keeps selling as it is doing now. Meanwhile, the positive comments are coming in:

Her passion feeds our passion
Phlebas (Crux Foundation)

I think Bea’s body is made for being tied and whipped. Very beautiful woman.
The Beast (CruxForum)

Isabel is becoming very popular. Bea did an amazing job playing Isabel and this film is on its way to become a classic like Red Feline on The Cross. I didn’t expect less. Bea was very happy with her first fat payment, but she’s not yet committed to anything in the near future. Her interests are behind the camera now. She offered Jac her services as Camera Operator and Assistant Director for his next film, Cage, Jac accepted so Bea is part of the crew as a trainee for Director of Photography and Assistant Director and probably as production assistant as well, all of which is what she would love to do in the future.

I just finished watching “The Passion Of Isabel” and I’m happy to say I enjoyed it much more than “Justine”. While Jac is certainly no Vincent Price and Bea is no Sandra Knight (See the The Tower of London) they do a credible job as torturer and victim. The sound effects and Bea’s acting more than make up for his limp wristed wielding of the various whips and floggers used throughout the film. The extended scenes of foot torture and bastinado are greatly appreciated and if this becomes a regular part of RF productions, then Margot will have a new subscriber!! I also hope that Bea will continue working in this genre because I think she could be quite good with more training as an actress and could become as popular as Amy and Mila with fellow GIMPERS.
bastinado

Bea always surprises Jac by first saying no and then saying yes and jumping in a role with incredible intensity. But she also surprises him by saying yes and then saying no. To the question whether Bea will make more movies like The Passion, I don’t have an answer, and that’s a fact. Jac is moving on with Cage, a film based on Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in a style more like Pygmalion than JUSTINE. Will there be more films in the old Red Feline style? At this point I know that there’s the possibility of a Training Danielle movie. Jac and Danielle are working on the pre-production of Cage, it includes sessions with Danielle in a number of painful situations, I heard she’s very limber and she can possibly do an extreme Strappado scene. Danielle might end up playing the Agent Y role of no interest to Bea.

I thoroughly enjoyed the The Passion of Isabel. It’s old school Red Feline. While I enjoy the full production pieces, I prefer the films like RF on the Cross, Romana crucifixa est, the Seven Days series, …, ect. They are more intense, from my perspective. BTW, I’m really looking forward to the completion of the Seven Days on the Cross series. I’d given up on seeing Part V.
HammerTime (Crux Foundation)

I argued before that the Red Feline style of movies had some limitations and that it was not very likely that Jac would be making many more of those. The Passion was an exception, the conditions were all there and Jac and Bea took the opportunity; but if we were to compare the past with the present, the Passion is somewhat similar to Le Marquis de la Croix, so it wasn’t so much going back to the old style but rather making something in between the old style and our big budget production movies. The company must go on with the bigger productions, and there are at least five movies waiting for the green light. One of them, Cage, is practically ready to be approved. It’s a matter of completing the cast, which might happen as early as next week. Cage might start production in the middle of next month.

There are four movies in post production right now. Pygmalion, Spectres of Blood Castle, DoubleCross and Seven Days on the Cross 5. All of them to be released before the end of the year, two of them theatrically.

I bought Isabel and went through it part-way once, frustrated by the things that always frustrate me about RF films. Then later again just to see what it was. It’s a Jac Avila film. Rick’s style was a problem for me in certain cases, but I let it go because I liked what he provided in return. Jac’s camera work and quality have gotten much better. He’s still a wimpy whipper, and the use of red dye is way over the top for me, and his acting makes a wooden indian look responsive. He should find someone to play the parts he plays–but would you, if it were you?! Passion is about Bea, and she is impressive. She’s not asked to do a lot of acting, but she’s worth watching almost every minute she’s onscreen. Her character follows the story experience. Even if she weren’t a beautiful young woman and even if she wasn’t willing to be hung up all over the room nude, she would be worth watching. Take it for what it is. Jac somehow is able to convince very attractive women to climb into his fantasy world and pay the price to do so. And he makes some money filming and selling it. It’s another guy’s wet-dream, but at least he’s got great taste in victims, and he delivers enough in this one to make it worth $30
petelobo

There weren’t any pretensions for grandeur in The Passion. When Jac worked as an actor in Amy’s second feature film BARBAZUL, he didn’t have any other role during the shooting of that very impressive film, other than producer, of course, but he didn’t do anything else in the set. Amy was directing it and she was totally in charge. The only thing that Jac had to worry about was his role as the psycho killer. He has been praised for his acting in that movie, he was compared to the likes of Tony Curtis in The Boston Strangler, to name a few.

In the case of The Passion, he did everything by himself, from setting up the set, working with the decor, the lights, moving those lights every time he had to have different angles of the same shot; he spent some time setting up the cameras, setting up and working the crane, while shooting and acting in the movie and sometimes while torturing Bea! He also worked on the special effects, the make up … and as if that wasn’t enough, he had to direct Bea and himself, because he was acting too! Too much on his plate, right? I think so. This is not what he prefers to do. It is too much work, but it is also a lot of fun. He doesn’t mind doing it once in a while, however, he has other interests too and he will be working on a feature film where he will act and direct, but he will have a crew to do the actual, physical, work of setting up the shots.