La fiancée de Dracula

...Or, a Jean Rollin film, in other words.

Certainly, this is his best film in years. Despite the sort of technical inadequacies that have always dogged his low-budget work, I have never been able to resist Rollin. Indeed, larger budgets have often hampered him, in that his unique style largely depends on a sense of post-apocalyptic dereliction and a wistful sensuality shot amidst empty castles and isolated necropoli.

If I remember right, Rollin had the largest budget available to him so far, yet does not make the mistakes he made with Deamoniacs (the first film where he had any real money) and fill the run time with lots of pointless but boring "action" sequences. Instead, the extra wad of cash allows him to expand his universe but at the same time revisit many of the locations of the past. And yes, before you ask, that beach IS in it.

As always, Rollin's unique sense of humour is present, though in a far more sophisticated manner than in his previous works(it helps if you see the original French versions). A sequence in a nunnery, for example is underscored by various paintings by Clouvis Trouille seen in the background. Long a huge influence, or rather "brother" in the same fraternity as Rollin, Trouille's work has been referenced more and more in his films as of late. Thank God, none of the campery of Frisson De Vampires here.

Most importantly, Rollin references and recreates images seen in earlier films. The Grandfather clock/TARDIS arrangement; the beach; various castle seen in other works. I could go on. The point is, Rollin has not only taken his time to retrofit is films into one great whole but to also hint that there is one continuous Master Story Arc throughout his entire oeuvre.

If you are new to Rollin, see The Nude Vampire, Rape of the Vampire and Fascination first. If you are a long-term fan you will not be disappointed and, indeed you will await his next film (which, despite all the secrecy, has, in fact finished shooting already) with eager anticipation...

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.

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)...

Fiancée of Dracula (2002)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A professor and his assistant are trying to track down Dracula but aren't having any luck so instead they locate his fiancée and have her released from a nun-ran mental hospital. Once the fiancée is out, various circus freaks help her locate Dracula and of course the Van Helsing-wannabe is along for the tracking. After years of ill-health and not tackling any movies, director Jean Rollin tried a comeback with TWO ORPHAN VAMPIRES and this film, which followed five years later. Sadly, neither film returned the director to his glory days of the 1970s but I guess fans can at least be thankful that he did get to crank out a few more movies. This film here, plot wise, is an incoherent mess that never really adds up to much of anything. At 90-minutes the film is way too long because it's hard to get any type of feeling for the actual story since the thing is all over the place. I'm not sure if Rollin just wanted to throw everything on the picture and hope that something would stick but sadly the end result is rather lame and not much works. The biggest problem is that none of the characters are all that interesting and this is especially true of the three most important ones. The professor just comes off as a fool and it's hard to take anything he's doing very seriously. The fiancée is very poorly written and whatever motivations she has just roll off. Then there's the Dracula character who has to be one of the weakest versions from any film. Not only do we get vampires but there's also a semi-zombie and a wolf-woman. This wolf is one of the film's saving graces since she's played by the cult favorite Brigitte Lahaie, an actress who appeared in several of Rollin's earlier films. She's the only real energy in the film as she gets to have fun playing the bad girl and she even gets to make a return in a lesbian sequence. You certainly can't take away from the fact that she looks incredibly good at this stage in her life. As you'd expect, there's some gore and nudity but even this is rather tame and boring. There's just really no reason for one to be involved with anything going on since Rollin can add any energy to what we're watching. Fiancée OF Dracula is only for those Rollin fans who must watch everything he did.

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.