Réquiem para o Vampiro

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.

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!

'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.

Two lovely ladies are on the run (why? I'm not sure} and find shelter in a rather Gothic, sprawling castle in the French countryside. They soon run into the lord of the manor, an aged vampire looking to use their luscious, virgin (yeah, right!) bodies as vessels for his progeny. A lot of flesh, a bit of bondage and a touch of lesbianism punctuate another erotic horror masterpiece from French filmmaker Jean Rollin.

It's somewhat hard to recommend a Rollin film to the uninitiated. Often surreal but almost always beautiful, thanks in part to the lovely ladies frequently in the buff and the photography pf the locations. Rollin clearly has an eye for beauty. However the plots and story lines are often very slight. Heck there is hardly any dialogue in the first thirty to forty minutes of 'Requiem'. But man does he have an eye.

REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE is the story of two women named Marie and Michelle (Marie-Pierre Castel and Mireille Dargent), who are on the run after some unknown -until later in the film- event. They're also dressed as clowns. Making their way to a crumbling castle in the countryside, they are besieged by thirsty vampires and their barbarous henchmen.

The first half of the film is nearly dialogue-free, mostly relying on the actions of Marie and Michelle to move things along. In the second half, they are prisoners, spending much of their time naked. A rather slow movie, lovers of action will most likely self-immolate around the 15 minute mark. However, if you enjoy weirdness, this is a feast thereof...