La novia de Drácula

Often overlooked in discussions of the wave of new kinds of movies in the late '60s and early '70s is the new kinds of horror flicks. Jean Rollin was one of the wave of new Euro-horror directors of the era. His movies tended to feature unabashed gore and eroticism. His output started to dwindle in the '90s.

At the beginning of the 21st century, he released this oddity. "La fiancée de Dracula" ("Dracula's Fiancee" in English) depicts vampire hunters investigating a group of vampire-like individuals. There's the requisite nudity and bloodsucking. Otherwise, the movie just sort of drags on a lot. It's not a terrible movie but it seems like they drew it out too much. The movie's strengths are the shots of the castle where everyone converges.

Anyway, teenage boys will no doubt enjoy the sight of all the hot babes. I don't predict anyone else getting into the movie.

Out of all the movies involving the character of Dracula, this has got to be one of the most uninteresting ones I have ever come across.

I'm somewhat familiar with the director Jean Rollin and his other movies and it seems to me that this movie is very different from most of his other work. The movies I had seen by him were all very straightforward horror flicks, involving blood and gore and a revenge from the death type of plot. Not this movie though.

Seems to me that this movie was more trying to be a drama, rather than a horror. This is not necessarily a bad thing of course but it is when the story is just so incredibly odd and uninteresting and offers you absolutely nothing thought provoking or entertaining.

It's still something that could had worked. I mean, just look at any random Werner Herzog horror/thriller. I think this movie was also going for a same sort of approach with its style and approach but it just never worked out, at least not for me. The movie is lacking in style. Basically it is a very cheap looking one with nothing in it that impresses. Same goes for all of the characters and the story really.

Don't even ask what the story was all supposed to be about, since it was all such a big mess. The main plot is not that hard to follow and it's very simply written but it are all of the plot lines and characters surrounding its main plot that makes this movie such a confusing mess and also a totally uninteresting one to follow. Parallel worlds, a circus dwarf, killer nuns. Did this movie really thought it was being clever, by simply throwing in as much non-sense stuff as possible? It certainly seemed to me that way but I really wasn't fooled by all of it. I could see through this movie so easily and could see it for what it truly was; A poorly made mess of a movie, that tries to make sense and be clever by being as silly as possible. Now, that just doesn't make any sense to me.

You can't even really regard this as a Dracula movie, or a horror in general. It takes a totally different approach, that unfortunately just isn't much good.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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".

The fifth Rollin film I've watched naturally features a good deal of nudity and gore: it's bizarre and incoherent, to put it mildly, but undeniably fascinating for all that - even if, unfortunately, the TV reception got messed up during the first few minutes of the film!

Coincidentally, it emerges as yet another "Nunsploitation" film (which followed my first-time viewing of SATANICO PANDEMONIUM [1973]!; see review above) - apart from being an esoteric vampire (and zombie) flick!! We also have here an interesting depiction of the effect which the chosen (but unbalanced!) vampire bride-to-be leaves on the order of nuns who harbor her. These, then, have been given silly names pertaining to their idiosyncracies, like Sister Pipe and Sister Cigar (given their smoking preferences) or Sister Funnel (which is what one of them unaccountably keeps on her head)!; likewise, there's a (cave-dwelling) ogress and a (horse-riding!) she-wolf on hand - but these carry no make-up whatsoever, save for the latter's talons!!

As for the Dracula figure (who uses an old grandfather clock as a teleporting device!), however, he's as under-developed here as he had been in Jess Franco's comparable (and almost identically-titled) LA FILLE DE Dracula (1972)! The film's climax - featuring Rollin's beloved seaside setting - is totally wacky, with mad nuns attacking Dracula's horde of disciples (including a couple of old crones and a love-struck dwarf-jester!) and the ogress (a veritable female zombie but a sexy one!) feasting on a naked vampire, before the latter is eventually fried by the oncoming sunlight!!

While the flat digital shooting manages, for the most part, not to obliterate the typically dream-like mood created for the film, its cast includes a comeback to Rollin territory for Brigitte Lahaie as the she-wolf I mentioned above (by the way, I should be watching her first horror film for him - THE GRAPES OF DEATH [1978] - soon) and Bunuel regular Bernard Musson(!). Rollin's latest offering is the only one I've watched from him of recent vintage; while not exactly a good film, it's certainly unique for these times - and, frankly, I'm more interested than ever now to watch a contemporaneous Franco effort (if anything for comparison's sake)...

If your expecting another classic from Jean Rollin, then you will be very disappointed. It seemed that Mr. Rollin was poking fun at the work that made him the artist he is today. Avoid this and rent any Rollin film from the 70's instead.