Requiem pour un vampire

This film was rated higher by others than I would have thought. Vampires usually do a lot of biting and blood sucking. There was more erotic virgin handling and molestation than biting and the like in this one. The use of silence in the film gave it a surreal quality. The whole movie was dream-like. The lure of the victims was not captured. The chase and seduction is the best thing about vampires but those subtleties were lost here. But, I must admit, the film did remind me of Vampyros Lesbos and, to a lesser extent, Suspiria. I must state that vampire films do not have to be bloody etc. But a little blood at the bite would have been welcomed. Not a bad watch if you seek those who walk at night.

A vampire lures beautiful young women dressed as clowns to his castle in Europe.

How many movies have both clowns and vampires? How about clowns with guns? French clowns with guns? And that is only five minutes into a film that has some of the sexiest women Jean Rollin has featured exhibiting his own brand of eroticism (some of which clearly borders on rape).

Being from Rollin, are we surprised that this film faced censorship? The scene where Mireille Dargent is whips Marie-Pierre Castel has two versions. As does the scene where Castel and Dargent make love and the scene where Dargent is being chased by the man. I suppose that two questions can be asked: should we have a director change his vision for decency? And, is there any real purpose to having the women be nude? I will not answer either one.

I would say this film is overall better and more finely constructed than "The Nude Vampire", and has far more cohesion than "Rape of the Vampire". I mean, this one actually has a clear set of heroines and a plot!

After escaping an auto shootout, two sexy female clowns (yeah) stumble upon a mysterious old castle full of classy vampires and some giant viking-type men. There, they bear witness to the vampyric rituals and are forced to remain as vampires, but they must lose their virginity first to become a real vampire.

Like many Jean Rollin films, Requiem pour un Vampire is a very erotic, dreamlike film that utilizes limited dialogue and unlimited sexy French women. . . even though more than a few of them actually do have hairy armpits (I'm not just stereotyping!). Rollin includes more than a few fantastically cool ideas. . . especially the vampire bats that performed oral sex on the captive women. It's very well shot, Rollin's direction is superb in this picture. And, while it does lack a bit in the story, it still maintains a very enjoyable and likable fairytale-like quality. As any fan of this type of erotic horror will tell you, as long as you've got plenty of hot people getting acquainted, some blood, and a pretty setting. . . you're all set. There's really not too much to say about this film other than. . . enjoy it.

Final verdict: 7.5/10.

Vive La France!

-AP3-

This is not Jean Rollin's best film, but it might be his most essential one for fans because it combines the moody visuals of films like "Fascination" and "Two Orphan Vampires" with the perverse softcore sex of films like "Bacchanales Sexuales". Two teenage virgins run away from a school party (which in the strange Rollin universe somehow involves dressing as clowns, having a shoot-out with police, and disposing of the body of their dead male accomplice in a burning car). After a bizarre accident while walking through a graveyard that almost results in one girl being buried alive, they arrive at a deserted castle and do what any two virgins would do in a 70's Eurohorror/sex movie--strip off all their clothes for some hot lesbian action. Soon though they meet the occupants of the castle who are, of course, vampires. Freely rewriting the vampire rulebook, Rollin's vampires in this movie can not pass their curse on to anyone except virgins. Any non-virgins are chained to the wall while the monstrous man-servants have their way with them in gratuitous sex scenes before the female vampire suck their blood from their breasts and the male vampire changes into a bat to commit an act of bestiality that no pervert in the world would find erotic (you have admire the sheer audacity of Rollin if nothing else).

The conflict happens when one girl decides to lose her virginity while the other decides to preserve hers and join the ranks of the living dead. But the bonds of love and friendship are not easily broken. This movie addresses some real themes of coming-of-age and friendship (albeit in a fantastical and at times ridiculous milieu), but no one will confuse it with "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". If you're looking for sex,on the other hand, you certainly won't be disappointed, but unlike all the erotic vampire movies they churn out these days, this is a vampire film with a lot of sex, not a sex film with vampiric trappings. And there is something very personal and obsessive about Rollin's films that the modern-day hacks can never hope imitate. This movie contains all manner of memorable images--preserved human arms holding candles, posed skeletons dressed in clerical robes, a girl in a mini-skirt lying on a coffin being buried alive by oblivious gravediggers, a girl clamoring around the ruins of a Gothic castle dressed in nothing but knee socks. Good or bad, Rollin is definitely a one-of-a-kind filmmaker.

Marie and Michelle are two girls dressed as clowns and on the run from someone with a grudge, this is at least where the film begins with a shoot 'em up car chase through the french countryside. There male companion gets killed in the crossfire and the girls decide to hide out in a seemingly deserted Château where they indulge themselves in some Lesbian sex before they discover they are not alone .The last surviving Vampire and his followers want to enrol the two girls in to the realms of the living dead, but not before they get the girls to lure some fresh blood to the château with the promise of sex.

Rollin's imagery is superb,two wonderfully colourful clowns wandering through barley is quite an exquisite scene,in this often ponderously slow film, the vampires look cool except for some dodgy fangs, there isn't too much of a plot really and I can readily see why some would hate Rollin's work. Rollin seems to my eyes to have his own unique language of film which he sticks to till the bitter end. My main problem with the film is that it was cut to bits, The DVD sleeve said 88mins where in actuality it was a paltry 76mins,IMDB says 95mins so I'm not too sure what I've missed and how badly the continuity was hampered by this, a lot I would guess.Not my last Rollin film,I'll certainly watch some more