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Requiem for a Vampire

Requiem for a Vampire

List Price: $24.99
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not what you might expect.
Review: Ever since I saw a copy of David Piries "vampire filmcult" in a public library, back in the 70ies, I wanted to see this movie. The book then contained a lot of impressive pictures of stunning beauty and erotic violence. Finally Salvation shipped me the DVD, and I could finally see my second Rollin movie - after I'd seen Grapes of Death in a movie theatre back in the 80ies. So I set down, pressed play and watched two beauties (though strange beauties)lost somewhere in Europe who stumble upon the last vampire and his red-haired desciples. So what to expect? Rollin is no Franco, so anyone reading about torture scenes should proceed with caution here: Rollin cannot decide whether he wants to recreate the silent beauty of Dryers "Vampyr" or create an exploitation movie. So you'll sit for the first 35 minutes whatching the girls walking through fields, woods, graveyards and nothing - absolutely nothing - happens. The way it is filmed though creates a dreamlike atmosphere that can drag you - if you like this kind of movies (like Eraserhead) - into this surreal world. Then they meet the red haired witches in a (not really impressive) castle - a little bit of violence and nudity - and then again they run through the woods for 20 minutes (this movie is 70 minutes long !!!). The vampire himself is not very impressive and some "effects" are truly laughable, detracting from the sense of wonder the movie had tried to create. Then, the S/M scenes: They are not what you'd expect, not like the Franco-stuff you might have seen. It's more like recreating the paintings of Bosch, and so there is little to no action in these scenes, it's more like looking at photographs. And they are very short, and in-between. So don't expect half an hour of relentless torture.

You can see the lack of money everywhere in this movie and I think the endless woods-walkings have to do more with them being cheaply to film than with any artistic imagry. But they work and that's ok.

Technically, you can't expect more from a 70ies low-budget (nearly amateur level) flick. Salvation/Redemption did a great job there. Although I miss the director's commentary, the private behind-the-scenes stills are funny. All in all the movie is short and the extras do little to enhance the value. Salvation should take a look at the DVDs from Something Weird to see how it's done.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Another crappy vampire movie
Review: I am a fan of vampire movies. I am a fan of indie movies. I speak fluent french. This movie is a french indie vampire movie. This DVD is garbage. The actors are soooo bad. I gave it 2 stars instead of one because there is a sort of humble feeling in the directing. If you take out about 20 lines of dialogue from this movie, it would be a silent movie. Also, the plot just made no sense - I mean really really bad - even the gratuitous sex scenes were nonsense - any porno has a better plot. I'm sorry I spent money on this movie -- it's too bad I didn't see a review such as the one I am writing now.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jean Rollins - An Original Director
Review: I've always been a huge fan of B-Grade horrors from the 70's and I have only just stumbled onto the Jean Rollins movies. In the right atmosphere of a darkened room, this movie keeps you interested to the end always wondering what will happen next as no typical horror flick formula is followed here. The lack of dialogue lets you appreciate the art and camera direction with great use of colour and bizzare costumes. The castle settings are perfect for the dungeon scenes. There's more nudity than gore but most of the "horror" is assumed by the viewer. Overall, I enjoyed this movie and look forward to seeing more of Rollins' films.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Elegant exploitation
Review: Jean Rollin is definitely one filmmaker with a unique vision. But he's always been hampered by extremely low budgets and a general run of bad luck. His films are often derided (see several of the reviews below), but any artist with an original style is easy to make fun of.

Rollin's strong suit is his feel for lyrical, surreal imagery in the midst of generic gothic trappings (castles, graveyards, darkened forests, etc.) His films' weak points are half-baked scripts and occasional bad acting, although, to be fair, these faults are often due to funding problems and last minute changes forced on the filmmaker by adverse circumstances (See the chapter on Rollin in the excellent book Immoral Tales).

Requiem for a Vampire succeeds admirably at creating a dark and dreamlike mood, although the torture scene (which Rollin was obliged to put in the film by the producers against his will) and the ridiculous vampire teeth (obviously pegs the actor has stuck between his gums and his lips--they noticably slide around!) break the spell.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jean Rollin--Master of the surreal & erotic
Review: One of Rollin's best, and 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.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Grade: B+ 90%

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Aaaarrrggghh! (And not out of pleasure)
Review: Oooh nooo! This kind of movies make me ashamed of being a European. Don't let yourself be fooled by such adjectives as Poetic, Visually stunning, Atmospheric etc. This excuse of a film featuring two repulsive females in ugly clothes roaming senselessly around the moors in search for any excuse for some uneventful lesbian activity is not even stupid enough to invoke some laughter, even though the audience I watched it with was powerfully tempered by alcohole and some pleasure-inducing mild drugs one is allowed to mention in the net review. But no! I'm deeply considering organizing a Jean Rollain fiend club here, because the three movies I was stupid enough to order were better off unreleased or unfilmed. Besides, even the DVD transfer of this one sucks. Only hope I had found some as useful a review here as is this!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This film had me seeing RED...It SUCKS!
Review: So typically trite and melodramatic as only the French can accomplish. What you have are two young damsels (but, perhaps not of noble birth) running across country and through the woods to the last daddy vampire's castle in the middle of a vegetable patch, only to be tormented by ghouls of a smelly kind, and the daddy's two wives, who possess fangs that are obviously not from the canine tooth root as they are situated too far on the edges of their mouths. The dialogue is somewhat sparse, but for the cries of one of our damsels as she is flogged by her companion, who is in turn, so under duress by her own savagery that she cries with enough fake tears to fill a coffee can. One notbable exception to this overall boring approach to erotic vampirism is the scene where daddy vampire (in the form of a bat) feasts upon one of his psuedo-wives in a less than expected private place between her legs. Otherwise, my friend Pepe could have made a better movie in his basement with our two good friends, Penelope and Ritanita. Want to laugh...buy it, but beware!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bite And Suck
Review: There's something simultaneously sexy and creepy going on here. The minimal dialogue makes this seem almost like a silent horror film. I'm not a big Rollin fan but this is a good movie, laying on tons o' sex and blood letting. ...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: gorgeous sensual visions
Review: This fantastic film allows us to see the vivid fabled visions that must fill Jean Rollins' mind. The flighty narrative is liberated from sequential logic, but is positively elevated in the process. The story comes off like a flickering memory. A haunting attraction pulls us in for a rare glimpse into a dream we can't pull away from for fear of forgetting upon awakening. The characters are beautiful and frail creatures. Possessed with a determination to uphold their forbidden and blithe lust they use childlike luck to guide their journey. An unbelievably beautiful film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: weird and wonderful
Review: this is the first film by jean rollin that i saw and it really left an impression. i remember sitting there thinking "wow!" and then wanting to see it again because it was so mysterious and poetic. it's like a dream on film with it's unusual twists and weird and yet often beautiful moments.


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