La fiancée de Dracula

(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.

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)...

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.

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'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".