05-29-2020, 04:31 PM
I dislike vampire movies, or thought I did. Oddly enough, I don't think I ever saw a Jean Rollin film.
Now I'm embarked on a Jean Rollin retrospective. No, it's not on Criterion channel; rather, Kanopy just has a lot of his films.
I started with this film because it looked the most perverse. It does get pretty intense down in the dungeons for a while. But in general it's just two nymphettes (introduced in clown make-up in the middle of a car chase and gun battle) who soon venture onto the grounds of a derelict old castle and can't find their way out. There they fall under the spell of some vampire types, and there's some nice surprises in where that goes.
But the main draw of this film is the atmosphere, and the camerawork. From what I've read, Jean Rollin never had much of a budget. But he had a knack for getting permission to shoot in old castles and cemeteries, and he was very good at using what was at hand.
To help finance the films he loved to make, he did porn movies. For these, he used a pseudonym, which IMDB is very good at differentiating, so you can easily avoid these while gorging on his quality work.
Oh. And because of his work on porn, finding actors willing to do nudity was seldom a problem. There's generous swathes of flesh in the mists and shadows, almost all tastefully done.
Requiem for a Vampire was Jean Rollin's favorite film. I can see why. It has such a dreamlike quality, with those two nymphettes venturing into a dark and dangerous castle estate where, mouselike, flitting from hiding place to another, they try to eke out an existence in the shadows of greater machinations.
Now I'm embarked on a Jean Rollin retrospective. No, it's not on Criterion channel; rather, Kanopy just has a lot of his films.
I started with this film because it looked the most perverse. It does get pretty intense down in the dungeons for a while. But in general it's just two nymphettes (introduced in clown make-up in the middle of a car chase and gun battle) who soon venture onto the grounds of a derelict old castle and can't find their way out. There they fall under the spell of some vampire types, and there's some nice surprises in where that goes.
But the main draw of this film is the atmosphere, and the camerawork. From what I've read, Jean Rollin never had much of a budget. But he had a knack for getting permission to shoot in old castles and cemeteries, and he was very good at using what was at hand.
To help finance the films he loved to make, he did porn movies. For these, he used a pseudonym, which IMDB is very good at differentiating, so you can easily avoid these while gorging on his quality work.
Oh. And because of his work on porn, finding actors willing to do nudity was seldom a problem. There's generous swathes of flesh in the mists and shadows, almost all tastefully done.
Requiem for a Vampire was Jean Rollin's favorite film. I can see why. It has such a dreamlike quality, with those two nymphettes venturing into a dark and dangerous castle estate where, mouselike, flitting from hiding place to another, they try to eke out an existence in the shadows of greater machinations.
I'm nobody's pony.