Director: Jesús “Jess” Franco
Screenplay: Jean-Claude Carrière
Starring: Estella Blain, Mabel Karr, Fernando Montes, Howard Vernon, Marcelo Arroita, Cris Huerta, Antonio Escribano (billed as Albert Bourbon), Guy Mairesse
Country: Spain and France
Running Time: 87 min
Year: 1966
BBFC Certificate: 15
Cult Spanish film director Jesús “Jess” Franco directed over 180 films during a career that spanned decades, and was still making films in his final months before passing away in 2013 aged 82. Among his best-known films are the likes of Venus in Furs (1969), Count Dracula (1970) with Christopher Lee, Vampyros Lesbos (1970), and his Marquis de Sade films like Justine (1968) and Eugenie (1970).
For me, some of his best works are his earliest black and white features like The Awful Dr Orloff (1962) and the subject of this review, The Diabolical Dr Z (1966), which is a visually arresting gothic horror.
The Spanish-French co-production The Diabolical Dr Z (aka Miss Muerte) follows Irma Zimmer (Mabel Karr), whose father, mad scientist Dr Zimmer (Antonio Escribano), has passed away, but not before creating a device to control human minds. After his death, Irma attempts to continue her father’s work and seek revenge by targeting those who discredited and disgraced him.
To enact her sinister plan, Irma uses her father’s invention to possess nightclub performer Miss Muerte (i.e. Miss Death), Nadia (Estella Blain), to lure her victims to their deaths, killing them with her sharp, poisoned fingernails.
The film is a really atmospheric and entertaining watch that features some of the themes and tropes Franco would return to throughout his career, like mad scientists and nightclubs, revenge and mind control, including themes that had been at the fore in the earlier The Awful Dr Orloff.
Firstly, this is a really gorgeous film from a visual standpoint. There are some breathtaking images and compositions throughout the film, like the opening that features some roaming first-person footage through underground cells, with some marvellous lighting as the scene takes place during a thunderstorm.
Other striking imagery includes a nightclub sequence where we’re introduced to Miss Muerte/Nadia, who is seemingly seducing a mannequin on a painted spider’s web, which ends with her holding up a skull mask in front of her face; it’s a bravura sequence.
There’s a real sense of movement throughout, too, thanks to the cinematography, with the camera opening doors, rising in a lift and moving with characters throughout. It’s a visually interesting film from opening scene to the last.
The set-pieces are also fantastic, from an opening where we see one of the doctor’s experiments, to the aforementioned nightclub sequence, an early murder sequence in which a woman is run over and a car (which turns out to be Dr Zimmer’s) is set alight by Irma to fake her death, a sequence when Nadia is captured, a brief game of cat and mouse on a train, and the finale.
On the acting front, Escribano is excellent as Dr Zimmer in his brief screentime in the opening scenes where we’re introduced to his experiments and his ideology, as he tries to get permission from a committee to undertake human experiments, before he passes away.
But this film belongs to its two central female performances, both of whom are brilliant in every scene they feature in. Those two female leads are Karr as Irma and Blain as Miss Muerte/Nadia. Their performances really anchor the film and had me glued to the screen throughout – they’re brilliant. Lookout also for director Franco as Inspector Tanner.
Special mention for that finale referenced earlier. It features first-person shots of punches during a fight sequence, involving Nadia’s boyfriend Phillippe who is investigating what’s going on, a glorious top-down sequence on a staircase, Phillippe’s discovery that Irma is behind the deaths and him being experimented on. Franco leaves us with a delicious freeze frame final shot to end the film on.
In closing, I had a great time with Jess Franco’s The Diabolical Dr Z. It’s a visually arresting feast for the senses that features an incredibly intriguing set-up, a compelling narrative, some well executed set-pieces, and strong central performances from the two female leads. It’s an excellent early gothic horror, with science fiction undertones and themes, from cult director Jess Franco.
Film: 
The Diabolical Dr Z is released on a limited-edition Blu-ray on 20th October 2025 by Eureka as part of their Eureka Classics range. The 2K restoration is phenomenal with the gorgeous inky black and white photography looking stupendous. Detail is strong, the black and white contrast is spot on and the film looks fantastic throughout. It’s a really strong transfer, accompanied by great sounding audio and solid subtitles.
Special features:
Limited Edition [2,000 copies]
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Poochamin
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on The Diabolical Dr Z and its director by Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, co-editor of The Films of Jess Franco
1080p presentation from a 2K restoration by Gaumont Film Company
Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release
Optional English dub track
Audio commentary by genre film expert and Video Watchdog founder Tim Lucas
Death on the Continent – a new discussion of European gothic horror in the 1960s with Xavier Aldana Reyes, author of Spanish Gothic
Awful, Diabolical, Sadistic – new video essay by film historian Samm Deighan on mad science in gothic horror from Mary Shelley to Jess Franco
Archival interview with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière
Archival interview with film historian Lucas Balbo
Archival interview with Stéphane du Mesnildot, journalist and author of Jess Franco: Énergies du Fantasme
Original theatrical trailer
Jess Franco superfan Tim Lucas provides a typically first-class commentary, covering the filming locations, actors, art direction, and much more in between. His attention to detail provides a wealth of background about those in front of and behind the camera. It’s the standout extra on a strong disc.
Xavier Aldana Reyes discusses European gothic cinema for 26 minutes in a piece that’s really interesting. He starts with early silent gothic cinema, such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, before moving on to James Whale’s Universal Frankenstein and how the Universal Monsters formula proved influential. Reyes covers the likes of films by Mario Bava, as well as, of course, the Hammer films, and highlights a number of intriguing examples. It’s a really good run-through of the genre.
Next we have a great video essay by Samm Deighan, which takes a look at mad science in gothic cinema. During its 19-minute runtime Deighan opens with Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, highlighting its fusion of gothic horror and science, before looking at other novels and then moving onto films. Deighan touches on early adaptations of Frankenstein and early silent German cinema, before looking at Universal horror and beyond, by way of the many examples of the genre that Franco would bring to the big screen. It’s another fantastic piece.
An archival interview with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière is 18 minutes long and opens with him suggesting that he can’t recall anything about the making of the film. Despite this opening, there’s plenty to glean from the interview as Carrière touches on how he met Franco, the ups and downs of working in cinema and much more. He also shares some intriguing personal insight into Franco.
Historian Lucas Balbo gives a 16-minute look at Franco. Balbo provides a bit more of an academic stance than the other pieces on the disc, looks at the imaginary town where the film is set, the movie’s themes and similarities to early works by the director, and discusses why Franco is such a cult film director.
Stéphane du Mesnildot provides an 11-minute piece which also looks at Franco, his involvement in what was described as the Eurocult movement, and highlights how the director reinvented himself and had prolific years. It’s a short and decent piece.
The three-minute trailer does a good job to sell the film.
I wasn’t provided with the booklet, unfortunately, so am unable to comment on that.
Eureka have provided a very strong audio-visual presentation and a brilliant package of extras for an early gem from cult film director Jess Franco. Headlined by the latest in a long line of brilliant commentaries by Tim Lucas, and supplemented by entertaining and informative new and archival discussions, video essays and interviews, Eureka’s new disc is great all round, and should please fans of the film and its director.
Disc/Package: 
