Draculas Braut

(2002) Dracula's Fiance/ : La fiancée de Dracula (In French with English subtitles) HORROR

Written and directed by Jean Rollin that has the professor (Jacques Régis) and his protege, Eric (Denis Tallaron) peering over while hanging around in a cemetery. A circus dwarf, Triboulet (Thomas Smith) who wears a court jester's hat shows up to meet another vampire (Sandrine Thoquet) and he offers his neck to her. And just when Triboulet was going to make out with her on a cold rock table, Eric grabs him with the professor asking him questions about "Paralle" and the whereabouts of the "Queen of Shadows" as she has the ability to awaken Dracula from the grave. We find out the person they are looking for, her name is Isabelle (Cyrille Iste) who is said to have some vampire DNA. She also happens to be the one marrying Dracula except that she is being held up at the "Mansion of Madness", and surrounded by "The Nuns of the Order of the White Virgins". The Professor also has the ability to hypnotize and connect with other's mentally either by speaking with them telepathically, Down the line we also find out he can sometimes consist to be able to see what Isabelle is able to see as well.

I agree with the previous user when the reviewer had said Jean Rollins best movies were from the 1970's than his later movies. Especially this one that was made on 2002, it was obvious he was remaking movies he had already done from the 1970's when he was still innovative. Jean Rollin was making Dracula's Fiance as he was going along depending on the budget. He is older with the movie's direction looking very confuse with it's contradictions. The women or actresses are not attractive nor are they often nude enough, nor are they are even young. It was also too talky with many sequences that did not make much sense such as Triboulet the dwarf had a knife, and he uses it to kill the village idiot girl since she was sucking the blood from the redhead, the one he was attracted to. Triboulet had every opportunity to cut her down since she was tied up and bring her down below deck. Isabelle sails across on a boat by herself with Dracula's spirit guiding her, but viewers never saw how the others came across. Much of the main characters just happened to suddenly to appear on the other side. I also could not stop looking at the professor's infected eye, for it just kept getting redder and and redder, so Rollin finally made the decision to make adjustments. We also did not see the existence of the other senior citizen Paralle vampire person. Anyways, if there is one movie I do not mind seeing remade again, this and the Rollins lager movies have to be the ones.

I'm fairly new to Jean Rollin's output (as I've only watched "The Living Dead Girl" and "Requiem for a Vampire"), but again like those aforementioned films (even though I wasn't blown away from this one) I enjoyed the strange, surreal quality of one of Rollin's latest works; "Dracula's Fiancée". The supernatural meets sensual erotica, in what is a crazy canvas for Rollin to let loose providing a sense of wonder with its moody atmospherics, brooding performances and demented butchery. A professor and his assistant are trying to hunt down the tomb of Dracula, which leads them to Dracula's fiancée and through her they can uncover his remains as they get drawn in to a parallel world. The pictorial story is jadedly convoluted and slow-moving, but fancifully gripping in the surrealistically Gothic universe that's created as its populated with eccentric creations ranging from Dracula, a she-wolf, baby-eating Ogresses, vampires, dwarf-jester and some raving mad nuns within a attractively remote backdrop of castle ruins and sprawling beach line. It's the macabre meeting the beautiful, as Rollin's hypnotically symbolic imagery is richly presented (like the boat ride) and arrestingly captured by its whimsical, haunting soundtrack. Sometimes you find yourself being lost in this bewildering world, forgetting about its ponderously thick script filled with many abstract ideas. There's a lot going on, than what is actually shown even when it favours its sparse long stretches. It's an atypical character journey of a Dracula tale, but at its core it's the usual love story filled with unrest, desire and heartache. Still underdone in the details. The theatrical performances are acceptable and the make-up FX is passable. Erotically nightmarish blood sucking entertainment.

"May you rest in peace".

I've seen a handful of Jean Rollin films, and the only ones I liked were his zombie flicks The Living Dead Girl and The Grapes of Death; which is pretty ironic when you consider that ninety percent of his filmography is made up of lesbian vampire films. Well I must be a glutton for punishment having seen this film after seeing so many Rollin films that I didn't like; but to my surprise it would seem that four decades of lesbian vampires has actually taught Rollin something, and while The Fiancé of Dracula suffers from most of the same problems as Rollin's other films; it is actually surprisingly good! As you should expect, the plot is completely made up of nonsense and focuses on some Van Helsing wannabe and his dopey assistant as they go around hunting "parallels" (hot lesbian vampires, basically). Their investigation leads them to a strange convent (via a circus dwarf) and the pair soon discovers that the nuns are harbouring a young woman who just so happens to be the fiancé of the almighty Count Dracula...

Naturally, the film is completely incoherent and nothing after about the first fifteen minutes makes a lick of sense...but Rollin films generally aren't meant to, and he does at least get the ambiance right. Most of the actresses used are stunningly beautiful - even more so when given lesbian vampire roles and Rollin makes good use of them; in particular Rollin stalwart Brigitte Lahaie who has an interesting role as a 'wolf woman'. It soon becomes easier to just take the film scene by scene rather than trying to enjoy it as a whole and the film features plenty of interesting scenes - one that involves a young girl eating a baby is a highlight. Given that Rollin made most of his films between the late sixties and early eighties; it would be reasonable to assume that The Fiancé of Dracula is merely an imitation of his earlier works, but actually that's not the case and this film appears to be as 'true' to Rollin's style as anything he made earlier on in his career. There's not much point talking about the ending because it makes just as much sense as the rest of the film; but while this film isn't brilliant, it's better than most of Rollin's stuff and his fans should enjoy it.

After a long fallow period exacerbated by health problems, it looked as if Jean Rollin would never get back on track. The sublime surrealism of his early masterworks was increasingly being overshadowed by long periods of inactivity and the occasional disappointing dud. Even the highly-touted TWO ORPHAN VAMPIRES seemed like a far cry from his glory days. Well, it may be impossible to bring back the early '70's, but I suspect that FIANCEE OF DRACULA is the best Rollin film we are likely to get from the second half of his career. It certainly makes me wish he'd crank out a few more. Whereas TWO ORPHAN VAMPIRES struck me as a somewhat tired parade of setpieces, FIANCEE actually feels like a fully-realized story where the characters interact and drive the narrative. The music is much better than the synthesizer droning that's been contaminating Rollin's later pictures, with the composer actually using several different instruments. In fact, the one thing that struck me about this film is that for the first time in ages there is a Rollin movie that doesn't seem hamstrung by budgetary constraints from start to finish. Instead there is great imagery, an interesting story and a refreshing lack of predictability.

A professor and his young assistant are investigating about the coming of the master of parallel,who is simply Dracula.They go to convent and follow Isabel,a mysterious woman,who could be the next fiancee of the master."La Fiancee de Dracula" is clearly not as good as Rollin's best works like "Lips of Blood" and "Fascination".Still it has some surreal moments and a good amount of female nudity.The ending is really beautiful and tragic.It's nice to see Brigitte Lahaie in a rather small role.So if you're a fan of Jean Rollin's wonderful cinema you can't miss this film.Highly recommended,especially if you like vampire flicks.My rating:7 out of 10.