jean rollin

Vampire movies typically fall into three categories: traditional gothic (think cobwebs and capes), modern twists (Twilight or Lost Boys if you’re old school) and erotic lesbians. No joke, the lesbian vampire film has a long and storied history, about on par with the Nazi zombie sub-genre (what…you’ve never heard of that either? Sheesh!). Yet the work of French director Jean Rollin defies all categorization. Early on you can probably credit that to a lack of filmmaking talent in general. But as his work evolved so did the man behind the camera, leaving behind a catalog of films that exist outside of any typical horror film structure, but resonate in your mind like a half-remembered dream.

Dream-like is the term probably most often thrown at Rollin’s work. And Redemption Films and Kino Lorber have put out a dreamy series of five Blu-ray Rollin titles. The Nude Vampire is rough going. Provocative title aside, it’s simply too clumsily made to overlook its faults. But it does introduce Rollin’s overarching theme of tragic interspecies love (human / vampire) and becomes more interesting in retrospect.

Shiver of the Vampires offers a more coherent plot and a few genuine innovations. The use of a fuzzed-out guitar score and primary colored lighting certainly predates some of Dario Argento’s latter work. And we finally see flashes of Rollin’s ability to compose images of shocking artfulness. The story is pure Hammer – a young couple fall under a vampiric spell at a decaying castle – but the execution is more haiku than horror, including several clever “entrances” for the undead queen at the stroke of midnight.

The Iron Rose ditches vampires altogether but keeps things decomposing. Trapped in a cemetery after hours, another young couple find themselves – and their relationship – in mortal danger. Yet there is no actual physical threat. Intentionally or no, Rollin has crafted a brilliant study in psychological terror without staging one terrifying scene. The Iron Rose simply shouldn’t work; there’s not enough plot to go around. But everything from the naturalistic acting to the stylistic sparseness works in its favor.

Lips of Blood is likely the most accessible film of the set, with a film noir-type plot that involves a conspiracy to keep one man’s childhood memories a mystery. Those memories revolve around a woman in white living amongst the ruins. From Rollin’s oeuvre it shouldn’t be a spoiler to reveal she’s actually a vampire, one whose brood is on the loose and working to bring the two lovers together. Lips of Blood contains probably only 30 minutes of total dialogue. Rollin allows the story to unfold in a lyrical fashion, bringing out the fangs when appropriate, but never giving in completely to any commercial tendencies.

The final film, Fascination, could have very easily fit into a half-hour Twilight Zone format. A thief on the run hides out in an abandoned chateau. Abandoned that is until midnight when it becomes the annual gathering place for a coven of blood-drinking debutantes. Fascination features Rollin’s most overt “adult” content (a lengthy lesbian session), something that would become more common when foreign producers created hardcore “inserts” for his films after release. But it remains a decidedly poetic and playfully nasty exercise in class warfare shot with an expert eye for still life (or in this case still “death”) images. Each film in the series contains and introduction by Rollin, interviews, trailers with the option of English dubbing or subtitles.