Requiem pour un vampire

Requiem for a Vampire (1973)

*** (out of 4)

Erotic-horror from French master Jean Rollin about two fugitive girls (Marie-Pierre Castel, Mireille Dargent) who are on the run from the law and end up in a creepy castle where many young women are chained in the basement. The girl's learn that vampires run the castle and they want the two ladies to join the undead since they are virgins. With countless horror and porn titles under his belt, to me this is the best that Rollin has to offer as his art-house style perfectly blends in with the erotic nature of the subject matter and best of all is that the film never once feels too long nor does the pacing have any issues. One might say THE LIVING DEAD GIRL is the best the director has to offer due to how violent and gory it is but I think on the whole this here is the best. I think what works so well is once again that beautiful atmosphere that the director is able to bring. The movie really does feel as if you're watching a nightmare as there's this quiet, still atmosphere that really makes you feel as if you're in the land of the dead. I thought the opening fifteen or twenty-minutes is where the director really works his magic because we see the girls on the run, going through the county side and eventually arriving at this castle. I thought Rollin did a very good job at building up this atmosphere and things just turn downright crazy once the vampire enter the picture. The highlight of the film is a rather long sequence where several of the male vampires go into the basement and attack the women that are chained up. Full nudity galore as this sequence clocks in at nearly ten-minutes and it's nothing more than the men groping the woman and I'm certain this was done so that the male viewers could get more than just a eye-full. This sequence is tinted in this strange pink/rose color and it really adds to the film and the downright surreal nature is just untouched by anything else in the film. The rest of the movie deals with the women trying to decide if they should give in or not and of course there's more violence and nudity. I thought both Castel and Dargent were very good in their roles and the supporting cast isn't too bad either. They're all certainly a lot better than you'd normally see in a film like this. Those unfamiliar with the work of Rollin will probably find this one of the easiest of his films to get into and those just wanting to see some nudity and erotic stuff will find plenty here.

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-

'Requiem For A Vampire' is the first disappointing Jean Rollin movie I've watched. It starts off beautifully enough with two girls made up as clowns fleeing a scene which we are later told was a murder. Desperate and hungry they wander the countryside looking for food and shelter. Most of these early sequences feature very little dialogue, and are beautiful and haunting. Both the girls themselves and the landscape they inhabit are perfect and typically Rollinesque. Eventually the girls look for sanctuary in mysterious and apparently abandoned castle. This is where their troubles really begin, because it is inhabited by a vampire and his entourage who force the girls into luring men to their doom. It's around this point that the movie falls apart for me I'm afraid. I that the movie is listed as having a runtime of 95 minutes. The DVD version I watched clocked in at around 75. I can only assume that the footage I missed would have salvaged this one from mediocrity. There was very little nudity, which is unusual for Rollin, and I saw virtually no "Sadeian sex" that the back cover blurb mentioned. I can only comment on the cut I saw (released by Salvation, who are normally very good), and this version was weak and uninspiring. I hope one day to see the complete version and that it is up to the usual high standards of Rollin who has become a great favourite of mine.

One of Rollin's best, although lacking the stylish gaudiness of his earlier masterpieces. However, considered as the work of an impressively productive director with about as many misses as hits, this film holds a high ranking in his oeuvre. He starts smash dab in the middle of obviously complicated unexplained criminal events, with the two female protagonists done up in ludicrous clown costumes. After the death of their fellow fugitive, they set fire to their car and wander off into the woods. Dark, young beauty Mireille Dargent stumbles into an open grave and ends up covered in opened dirt as nearby Marie-Pierre Castle watches, too scared to speak. Once unearthed, she and her friend find a seemingly abandoned castle with a decomposing body in the basement. Some uninspired vampires bring the girls to their dungeon of depravity. Dying vamp Philippe Gasté, the last of his kind in great need to make more with the help of vamp pal Anne-Dominique Toussaint, gives them a wee bite. They're somewhat uncertain about this idea of slowing turning into the blood-sucking undead, but things head in unexpected directions from here in typical Rollin style, if typical can be described as such. Although many of Rollin's women find themselves thrust unexpectedly into a world of evil, a close inspection of their characters from the beginning suggest a previous loss of innocence. Rollin's women do not succumb to these influences - indeed, they generally escape from their perilous situations - but it's important to remember that this sort of behavior may well not be old hat to them. Requiem uses extremely effective pacing, which many mistake as boring. Some extremely long takes contain little distinguishable action, denying the audience a passive film experience. This style of filmmaking instead demands total audience involvement, with only occasional instances of the glossy seduction suggested by the film's pretext. Rollin's decision to spend so much screen time on seemingly aimless wandering evokes a misguided spiritual quest, with obvious sexual connotations in the form of vampires. The experimental score by Pierre Raph, who worked with Rollin on the notorious Démoniaques, compliments this uncertain, possibly confused journey. In stark contrast to these rather profound elements stands the unnecessarily graphic sexual torture that goes on the castle's dungeon. This goes to an unnecessary extreme - I can't, for example, imagine anyone enjoying the image of a bat nestling in a woman's vagina. However, movies do need a target audience and Rollin could easily have chosen a worse genre into which to work his ideas. After this film, Toussaint began her career as a producer.. Dargent and Castle, prototypical Rollin girls, appeared in several other of his films.

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!