Two Orphan Vampires (1997)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jean Rollin

Cast: Alexandra Pic as Louise; Isabelle Teboul as Henriette; Bernard Charnacé as Dr. Dennary; Nathalie Perrey as a Nun; Anne Duguël as Mother Superior; Tina Aumont as the Ghoul; Véronique Djaouti as Venus

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

As a film made in the mid-nineties, it befits that French filmmaker Jean Rollin made a film which does not feel of its era at all. As much as I admire the nineties, one part of it is that it can be gleefully tacky as much as rich in great filmmaking. The one thing that is anyway comparable to the trends of that time is that, as many films reflected culture from an entire decade before, Two Orphan Vampires is the same, the opening contrasting postcards of religious paintings, fantasy and fairy tales, part of a work that will nod to advertising art for Houdini and magic shows, fantastical art and even Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984 (1994) by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, a book which helped praise Rollin's own work alongside other European auteurs in genre cinema who were known for blending erotic and horror cinema together. Here in the autumn/winter of his career, Two Orphan Vampires even if a horror film with blood and nudity feels at odds which what would be expected, as much an art film even against other titles in his career. It is amazing to think you can compare this to the work of fellow French director Eugène Green, of The Portuguese Nun (2009), with his long, almost Bressionian moments of dialogue, dangerously near the precipice of pretentious but ultimately charming and rewarding in being a bit more freer to let scenes play out as far as needed for mood and effect. This in itself will be an acquired taste even for those who can appreciate The Shiver of the Vampires (1971).

At Glycines Orphanage are two girls named Louise (Alexandra Pic) and Henriette (Isabelle Teboul), who one day could see in black and white, and then became blind, adored by the nuns as angels in mortal form. In truth, they are two vampires, who can see when it is at night, and still need to feast on blood. Theirs is a bitter sweet tale as it is clear in the dialogue between them, in their friendship/platonic love with each other, that they have died and reborn multiple times before, fearing the time they will not come back if it happens again. Immediately distinct in their identical clothes and white canes, the two are sympathetic in that, while they need to feed on the living, they are clearly close, engaging in their ponderings on existence, and obsessed with books on Aztec culture and magic while they believe they are reincarnations of the Aztec goddesses. The film is a series of events, ones from their previous lives, able to come back to life after being killed, as well as ones from their new life, as a doctor adopts them and they continue to explore the world around them. They are anti-heroines but in a way close to classic transgressive art of the early 20th century, fitting as they spend a night finishing Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye (1928) at one point, where there is more weight to this film's gleeful undercutting of religion, where they are the perfect pair in the daylight, going to mass and loved by all, but by night are blood thirsty vampires. The fact the film is sympathetic to the nuns, whilst doomed to eventually know their real selves, emphasizes this further They do encounter other supernatural entities, all of which are women, such as a she-wolf in a flashback who haunts a train depot to a female flesh eating ghoul. There is also a brief cameo from Brigitte Lahaie, whose work with Rollin became iconic in the likes of Fascination (1979). Baring the doctor who adopts the leads, there are no male characters in the film barring extras or minor roles, a world as a result onscreen which is frame entirely around who have the discussions on the meaning of life as well as the small dramatic plots. 

Its brief story is more of an engaging character piece, of characters doomed to repeatedly die despite their happiness, both girls having to feed and relishing it, but always at a risk of being caught. Its presentation could frustrate people, but bearing in mind, digging deeper with what Rollin was obsessed by, this is a waking dream of a film crossed with the kind of aesthetics of book illustrations that look exceptional when used in the opening and end credits of the film. It has an atmosphere too, even managing to shot in New York City on the Brooklyn Bridge, famous in horror for Zombi 2 (1979). The bright, vast locations of the day time to the blue lit environments of the night time scenes set up the mood immediately. His obsession with sexuality and sensuality is still there slightly in the vampires' relationship, including the sexual nature of how vampires bite a victim's neck that has always existed in the mythology, but barring two moments or so of nudity, this is quite a chaste film more concerned with friendship. The bonding of Louise and Henriette, at times like teenage girls onscreen, other times very wise and adult in their reflections of the world around them, is the centre piece of the film that, even if it feels languid next to other Rollin films, will be the thing that will immediately win viewers over if they can vibe on its tone.

The film's mind is more on magic and supernatural creatures than carnality of other films of his I have seen, and in mind the film before this, Killing Car (1993), was an odd tangent in his career as a distillation of a revenge thriller and the old Godardian term of a "girl and a gun", this whilst closer to his trademarks still feels idiosyncratic to them. Probably the biggest reason why people could be put off Two Orphan Vampires, if they are not prepared for it, is because this strips away the blood and nudity in Rollin's films and leaves the unconventional plotting, where two vampires get bored of their predicament and do whatever they desire to escape it, presented not as a conventional three act narrative. For me it is nice to go through such an abstract, dreamlike film that paces itself well. The dialogue is all of interest even if it is unconventional at times. It is an interesting take on vampires that does not compromise the mythology while adding new things for its own depiction. The two lead actresses are very charismatic as their characters, to the point that their potential ego in believing themselves to be gods is actually sweet natured and understandable pride in their existence than despairing their "curse", whilst emphasizing the idea of transgression with an old school weight to it when, rather than the horrifying thing in reality, an Aztec blood ritual of thousands to the point blood covers vast stairways is pictured here as a moment of glowing bonding between them. The distinct age fluctuation in their appearance in fact adds a strange air to the proceedings which makes their characters more interesting as well. The directions the film takes make sense - a world of supernatural beings who are methodical and languid, none of the hectic tone of, say, the Twilight films, and most horror films, where two vampires can kill time as best friends for most of the running time.

Nothing feels contrived in the film in what happens, anything odd feeling appropriate for the dreamlike tone. It feels like spending a week with these characters in their immortal lives only with a few deaths at their hands taking place, and the danger they will be discovered and killed themselves adding dramatic tension. It looks good, and even if the score is dated synth for this decade when it is was made, it feels like it is actually from the eighties, the depth of that era's music here to and adding to the material. There is nothing in Two Orphan Vampires that feels amiss, and that Rollin made a film completely against what is expected with these genre tropes is admirable, more so in that he succeeded for me.

The Living Dead Girl (1982)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jacques Ralf and Jean Rollin

Cast: Françoise Blanchard as Catherine Valmont; Marina Pierro as Hélène; Mike Marshall as Greg; Carina Barone as Barbara Simon

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #252

 

You're gradually abandoning death.

Out of Jean Rollin's career, The Living Dead Girl comes off as one of the bleakest and melancholic. At first that may prove deceptive due to the establishing prologue. Two men, one drinking on the job to add insult to injury, are secretly storing dangerous chemical waste in a family crypt of the long gone Valmont family, whose manor is on sell. Deciding to add grave robbing to their sins, they unfortunately find themselves in the midst of an earth tremor, which leads to not only their demises but also a barrel to spill next to the tomb of Catherine Valmont (Françoise Blanchard), the last of the family who passed, resurrecting her. The Living Dead Girl is gruesome when it needs to, as the younger of the grave robbers gets his eyes exploded by finger poke, but strained in a depressed sadness, and an extreme naturalism for the fantastique director, the film eventually becomes a sobering piece for the French auteur even if it is with this gruesome violence and nudity.,

It is instead a tale of friendship, of two girls in childhood who bonded and even had a blood pact. One was Catherine, a ghoul now slowly regaining her memories as she wanders her family home, the other Hélène (Marina Pierro), who learns something has transpired and comes to help Catherine. Even if it means getting sacrifices, women, to be mutilated and killed by Catherine to drink their blood, Hélène's love for her will mean helping in any way. This proves an issue as, regaining her mind and voice eventually, Catherine herself views her undead state as a personal hell she wishes to escape. With an American woman, on vacation, having spotted Catherine in the distance and become fascinated by her, the dramatic catalyst for tension to appear in the narrative, this is a film about this friendship, a very emotional plot thread, which will become heartbreaking.

It is a great film from Rollin. It is also distinct with a noticeable change for him in that, whilst he used very real French locations a lot in his films and made them part of his work's dream logic, this is stripped of his oneiric style which has a striking result. Entirely set in land, so with his trademark use of beaches no existent, baring the manor having a gothic aesthetic, alongside the family crypt underground, this is entirely grounded with a stark naturalism. Alongside the lack of music in the score either, this has a fascinating atmosphere especially when, in the world disconnected to Catherine's trauma and Hélène, the world of the nearby town is, even if dated fashions, insanely modern even decades later to see. A local town where you see a French outdoor market, and a musical concert at night as a set piece, Rollin documenting ordinary France even by accident is a very idiosyncratic change of pace, especially as this period for him had a lot of experimentation with his style - The Escapees (1981) was his attempt at a drama, whilst The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984) was an attempt at an old pulp serial on a low budget, whilst he began the decade with The Night of the Hunted (1980), effectively (including the cold modernist aesthetic) when Jean Rollin tried a David Cronenberg movie in tone.

The mood is emphasised by how nasty the film gets, as Rollin's films introduced more violence as they went on, the red of the fake blood contrasting the stark aesthetic of normalcy or that, rather than the female vampires of earlier films, "ghoul" is apt for Catherine. Even if fake guts and offal are involved, her breaking open of victims, even biting their fingers off, to get to their blood like a feral animal whilst they die screaming slowly is absolutely horrifying. Far from pleasurable as gore scenes can be for viewers in horror movies, it is here painful, meant to force a viewer to experience what agonising mutilation this all is. The violence's extremity does not detract from the emotional core but arguably emphasises it as, with Catherine eventually viewing herself as a monster when she gains clarity again, this is a tragedy of her friend Hélène refusing to let her go again. Even if it may lead to something horrible, the greatest of tragedies which ends the narrative comes from Hélène's love and friendship.

It is a bleak narrative as a result to sit through, but with Rollin, who viewed himself less as a horror director based on the idiosyncrasies of his work, this is something absolutely admirable, as he was gaining more and more emotion to his work as he went alongside his pulp influenced storytelling. It is for him a brilliantly executed and beautiful piece.

The Escapees (1981)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jean Rollin and Jacques Ralf

Cast: Laurence Dubas as Michelle; Christiane Coppé as Marie; Marianne Valiot as Sophie; Patrick Perrot as Pierrot; Louise Dhour as Mme Louise

Canon Fodder

 

Canon Fodder are reviews of films by figures or movements which do not qualify for the Abstract Reviews but are important for figures connected to those reviews, or from directors/figures I hold with great regard. Here, we have a tangent in Jean Rollin's career.

While I have softened to this film, The Escapees is definitely a flawed film, something to still truly admire but definitely not one you would immediately recommend to enter the French auteur's filmography, requiring context first even if you are a huge admire of it. It stands out considerably as Rollin making a drama. Not a genre film, but a production, whilst it has some eroticism and the ending involves some gore, where Rollin is trying to create a film without fantasy or horror elements. It comes from the eighties, which was a very unconventional period for him. After a decade of his trademark erotic-fantastique-horror movies, those that were made in the early eighties at least varied wildly in genre. Cronenbergian sci-fi horror in The Night of the Hunted (1980); the film serial/pulp pastiche made on an incredibly low budget The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984); and Zombie Lake (1981), an infamous production which Rollin stepped into for good credit, a production even Jess Franco who was not shy of extremely limited resources skipped out of in the first place. In the midst of this The Escapees is a drastic change of pace even from those films.

The Escapees in question are two eighties year old girls at a mental asylum. Michelle (Laurence Dubas) has only just been brought back in, immediately hating her confinements when she catches the attention of Marie (Christiane Coppé). Virtually catatonic, baring rocking in a chair, this wakes Marie up for the first time in a long while, encouraging her to free Michelle and leading to the two escaping together. Michelle is a more brazen character, happy with her new found freedom, wishing to be with a man and also live whatever way she wants to, whilst Marie virtually tags on like a child. Marie out of two is definitely the most complicated and interesting of the pair; a very shy nervous figure, she comes from a privileged background Michelle did not, as later dialogues reveals, someone more than likely a victim of sexual molestation which has left her with greater psychological damage. Almost childlike or at least hyper nervous, following Michelle along and reacting when Marie is with others negatively, acting negatively especially when she is touched, only in a scene where she finds an ice rink at night, actress Coppé clearly trained with some skill in ice skating, does she feel briefly comfortable in her own skin.

The Escapees' biggest issue to digest it is that, attempting a more conventional structure without necessarily more plot and over a hundred minutes is that it is glacial. Very methodical to an extreme melancholic tone with largely dialogue scenes, what does grow and leave it nonetheless one of his warmest films is however the sincerity. His admirations are on full display. He admires "the theatre of the street", a quote taken by from one of the first people they encounter, Maurice of Maurice and His Exotic Dancers, with two West Indian female dancers performing at wasteland areas, such as a junkyard near railways. He admires outsiders in general - Sophie the dockworker, wearing a leather coat and cap like many of her colleagues, who is also a thief, and the staff of a bar that take in Marie and Michelle eventually. The film, without the more surreal or erotic content does open up a lot of his trademarks, including the sense of empathy he had for outsiders.

It feels odd seeing Rollin strip back so much and make a dramatic narrative. It does show that, for a subdued film, Rollin's work in general was always subdued next to outside Euro-cult directors of his era. Muted colours, very little very dated, and all-matter-of-fact; Rollin also knew how to find distinct locations to films at, such as his obsession with nautical culture which leads to a lot of coastal and dock based locations which are striking. He could figure out how to use the most banal locations of France to his advantage; little surreal touches are the result of this, like in how the leads meets Maurice and His Exotic Dancers it involves encountering one of the women playing drums in the middle of the wasteland between motorways. Also, even as his most grounded film, he still manages to have a scene of the leads finding a book of legends, befitting Rollin and his obsession with pulp, here just stories and escape the aspect he pays tribute to.

As a result, the ending of The Escapees especially becomes one of his most tragic, all going sour when the yuppies appear, including Brigitte Lahaie, and an ill advised decision to join two men and their girlfriends back home transpires, where they will try to pressure Marie and Michelle into sex, and there are real firearms and weapons on the wall as one of the men's collection from abroad to become involved. This is, honestly, one of the Rollin's weaker films, due to it trying to carry his style to drama, which does feel awkward. It does lead to a shock when the film does reach its ending, because of the sudden increase in violence and nudity, but at the same time the ending by itself helps the film considerably. It takes what has transpired before and given it worth due to the sadness of the material, finally making the experience something meaningful and worthy of Jean Rollin's filmography.

Dracula's Fiancée (2002)

 

Director: Jean Rollin

Screenplay: Jean Rollin

Cast: Cyrille Gaudin as Isabelle; Jacques Orth as Le Professeur; Thomas Smith as Triboulet; Sandrine Thoquet as La Vampire; Magalie Madison as L'ogresse / La Folle; Brigitte Lahaie as La Louve; Thomas Desfossé as Dracula

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #204/An Abstract List Candidate

 

Late era Rollin - the films after this such as The Mask of Medusa (2009) up to his death are far more difficult to see sadly. Thankfully, Dracula's Fiancée still feels of his oeuvre, immediately when we start in a graveyard and a pale skinned vampiress with striking red hair awakens, and a vampire hunter with great hypnotic powers (and his younger male assistant) watches her from afar. What continues from this is work fed off pulp and the "fantastique", which Rollin has been much closer to even if his career is mostly slotted into the horror genre as here.

His narratives are not driven in the sense their narratives are not psychologically complex. Rollin's cinema is far more interesting when viewed not as horror in the traditional sense, but that these films feel like the cinematic equivalent of serialised storytelling, which progresses in sequences with evocative moments than necessarily leading somewhere from a progression. In this case, that the hunters are tracking down "parallels", figures of a supernatural form that can help them find Dracula, who is to be married to a mortal woman named Isabelle (Cyrille Gaudin), ordained to and having been kept safe for him by nuns who are being contaminated by her prescience, going mad as a result.

Like pulp narratives, different chapters bring their own sequences which link together, picking up more characters as we go along. The pleasure of storytelling in itself is part of his obsessions. He has complete sympathy for the macabre, where in spite of being technically the heroes, the two male hunters are for less sympathetic even next to the Ogress, a beautiful tall woman living in a cave who eats babies. His love of the macabre is found in all the distinct figures here - the nuns, the dwarf actor (first seen in a jester's costume) not defined for who he is but as a character in love with the red haired vampiress, even minor figures like a female violinist who makes her appearance (with her instrument) out of a casket. In general, whilst his cinema has had a lot of female nudity, and he has made adult films, the women are usually the strongest figures, distinct in their prescience. None so much as when Brigitte Lahaie appears, a regular of his career who, starting in adult films, he brought over to his work and gave a chance to. Here, making an entrance on a horse as the She-Wolf, her small role is awesome as a tribute to her.

He has a lot to work with in this film, just from the nuns themselves. It feels neither blasphemous either to elaborate on them, but that they are a whole group of quirky figures who add a lot to this particular film. Even when it comes to them smoking continually - pipes, cigars, an electronic crucifix one on the table for the Mother Superior which lights up and plays music - or when two are possible gay. They actually prove the more dominant characters of the cast than you would presume; figures still actually on the side of God, just more loosened up in their behaviour, even one of them being allowed by the Mother Superior to use a pagan Gypsy ward against evil, a dance ritual with its own costume. Including a taxidermied tiger in one scene among the film's many elaborate props (the kind you would find in antique stores), I was thinking more of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar and Dark Habits (1983), his film about eccentric nuns who take drugs, write erotic literature and keep a pet tiger.

The timelessness of his material really helps with Rollin's filmography; even when set in the modern day, and showing that period where he made a film, he usually tackled gothic material which existed with less concern of aging aesthetic. Whilst of the 2000s, this still feels of his own timeless era due to his aesthetic obsessions, particularly with his use of gothic architecture, from castles to caves here, to characters dressed without excessively dated fashion. He was always contemporary, but out of step of fads, so his work has aged better. Even his flirting with modern science fiction or modernised horror work turns into The Night of the Hunted (1980), which was cold and septic like a David Cronenberg movie.

In terms of what Dracula's Fiancée feels like, his work is glacial. Rarely does he move the camera or have any elaborate filmmaking techniques, a solid hand instead. It is onscreen where he constructs, and his work is striking and was able to create iconic images on low budgets. His trademarks are here and still striking - he is obsessed with the coast and beaches, as much as with nautical culture, with the film eventually leading to Isabelle being taken by boat to an island, a location where the nuns there willingly sacrifice themselves to Dracula, the corpses washing up shore and "turning into spiders". Or that he has an obsession with people climbing out or in grandfather clocks, a door to alternative realms which is an inspired surrealist touch.

The images for the this films specifically are just as memorable, such as skeletons of bishops playing chess, the pieces opening a secret passage, or funny little touches like a nun wearing a funnel for a hat even in the mist of the final confrontation on a beach. A horror director not actually that fond of gore at all, even when he breaks that rule here, one of his gorier works at moments, it has a scene such as a woman carrying her own severed heart in her hands, a sequence where he breaks his own trademark with goof cause. It is not necessarily a film to begin with his career for the uninitiated, but neither did he succumb to the lack of power to his work either, neither feeling like a throwback to his older work as an older statesman either. As melancholic as his early films, the ending is effectively a tragedy, with characters trapped on a ship, but it does at least offer as well a harmonious conclusion for others at the same time in a different location out of time, leaving this with its entirely distinct personality.

Abstract Spectrum: Atmospheric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Killing Car (1993)

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Director: Jean Rollin

Cast: Tiki Tsang; Frederique Haymann; Jean-Jacques Lefeuvre; Karine Swanson; Jean-René Gossart

Synopsis: Seemingly random shootings are taking place across France, a toy car left with each corpse found by the police. As two detectives try to find the culprit, the viewer follows said shooter from the beginning, a mysterious and glamorous woman (Tiki Tsang) who acquires an old American car bloodily in the first sequence and is on her shooting spree for revenge against people all connected to a past transgression against her.

Killing Car, honestly, is one of the more spottier Jean Rollin films I've seen in terms of consistency. Still immensely rewarding but one where it has to be viewed in context of what it succeeds in despite the flaws. Rollin's films are mostly opaque anyway, an acquired taste, but his usual region of cinema in erotic horror movies adapted well to emphasis of atmosphere over plot. A revenge based thriller, grounded entirely in reality but filmed in the same way as his horror films, is an entirely different proposition, a nice break in convention in his filmography but in this case is one that needs a viewer to appreciate his films first, a perfect candidate for that idea, whether you believe in the auteur theory or just like to a follow a working director (or any artist), where there's films that are entryways for a person and others for the hardcore fan base. Far from something that's off-putting as an idea, it's more of a case for me as a huge Rollin fan that, unless a film director completely betrays their trademarks and seems to plummet in even personality as well as quality of a film, you can find virtue in even their more difficult work, whether its artistically extreme or in the case of Killing Car, an experiment for him outside his comfort zone which is marred mainly by over reliance on plodding dialogue sequences when he's always been someone who kept said dialogue brief, poetic and emphasised imagery instead.

Barring the last stage of his career in the 2000s before his 2010 death, I've seen most of Rollins' filmography that wasn't the porn films made to help fund his personal projects; arguably Lost in New York (1989) was the perfect swansong for him to have left on, a TV production less than an hour long which yet boiled down his obsessions into a piece that felt his most self reflective from what I've seen, peering back at the imagery and pop culture that fed his imagination as a young boy and what films he'd later make as a director in a film strange devoid in his usual eroticism but emphasising his beautiful interest in female comradery in the midst of strange, fantastical journeys. However it wasn't the end as, whilst released in 1993, also in 1989 he filmed what would be his return to cinema in the early nineties with Killing Car. Within Rollin' filmography it does have a lot to love, though as an experiment in an entirely different genre than he'd usually tackle, it's also an awkward experiment whose flaws also stand out, one of those films in a director's career who I love knowing fully its imperfections.

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Appreciating the film comes from knowing, to Killing Car's credit, that it was made in less than a week on a meagre budget¹, which as a challenge for Rollin is insanely strict to work under and few directors would be confident to even attempt. The greater emphasis on dialogue scenes to make up its length and explain its plot, as a mysterious gunwoman is leaving bodies around French locales, feels really like the result of having to work under strict dates of production, having to hastily think of how to connect up the seemingly random shootings of random people by Tiki Tsang rather than having more time to depict it in his usually visual form, which does drag scenes a lot. When he's entirely playing to his strength most of the other time in Killing Car, it does work immensely, knowing still in context of a career on mostly low budget where this is stringent in cost even for Rollin and accepting the issues that would have on the production. Playing Killing Car's tone in the opaque tones of his more well known work does create a strange hybrid as a realistic thriller, imagining the plot languors of other thrillers and revenge films by themselves to create an unconventional concoction. Rollin himself admitted to its flaws as his own creation, but admired it and when the film groans in atmosphere it succeeds.

Moments do feel like the worst indulgences of softcore Euro cinema but thankfully they don't undermine the film, merely making scenes feel like something from an American softcore film like Jim Wynorski's Hard to Die (1990) than from someone like Rollin with a lot of flair to his eroticism. Tsang and the female cast are stunning physically enough, making the constant undressing even in context of a director known for a lot of sex scenes and female nudity in his films more absurd. Likely it's because, in the context of the more atmospheric films of yore, the sensuality felt more appropriate and connected well, whilst here there are moments, such as Tsang in a night club dancing for minutes in a skimpy costume, which feel like part of having to quickly improvise scenes for such a short length of film production than for the sake of an erotic tone. One scene in a business tower goes as far as being silly for Rollin where, when the power goes out, a female character decides rather than hastily getting dressed to wander about in her underwear with an old oil lamp in hand. Aside from this, the film does a lot better especially with Australian model Tsang in her only film role as the lead, stunning and sensual in appearance alone without need for the prolonged night club dance scene in the middle or the more cheesecake moments, standing out more in fact for her masculine dress and her grave demeanour in a way that does help her stand out, with just one film, next to figures like Brigitte Lahaie in Rollin's previous work.

Credit is also due for Rollin as Killing Car emphasises how good his visual eye is even on such a low budget. Were it not for some of the exposition, plodding conversations between the two detectives etc., it cannot be argued that such a noticeably low budget film takes advantage of its resources well. The opening sequence is in fact a great one for any of his work to have started with, an attempt to steal the titular car for the purpose of a revenge streak becoming far more complicated with a group of female prostitutes being dragged into a running gun battle with the anti-heroine over many locations, Rollin's ability to find eye catching locations for distinct and surreal scenes exceptional, a theme park in the day followed by, more memorable, a night time conclusion in the midst of tens of replicated statues placed in line for an alarming visual sight. Even one of the cheesier technical details where, probably in the midst of the production of Lost in New York, b-roll of New York City streets is used to give the belief French speaking actresses are in the US, has a dreamlike quality in spite of being an obvious cost-cutting way to have a pulpy story dynamic.

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Technical Detail:

The period the film was shot in, just about to enter the nineties, does effect Rollin's style, starker as a result. Sometimes it suffers from the lack of the poetic style whilst others Rollin is able to overcome it. Thankfully, as Two Orphan Vampires (1997) showed later, Rollin always through his career added a sense to the fantastical to ordinary French locations which helped him greatly. Even for one of his more reality based films, this still occasionally rears its head here. His obsession with the fantastique - filming at a funfair, little details in the background like a set of Thoth Tarot cards - is matched by his willingness to use everyday scenery and objects rarely found in cinema like this but what a viewer would grow up with as part of the fantastical reality. Sadly his trademark beach isn't found here, but from a car graveyard to the river barge Tsang is frequently stood on in shots have an effect to see, their rundown, ordinary natures imbued with a mystique to his work. Even when Killing Car does feel cheaper in tone to the earlier films due to its brisk production history, the sense of style does lift the film up immensely.

Abstract Spectrum: Expressionist/Fantastique/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Whilst it's an admirable attempt at crafting a surreal thriller, it's one of Rollin's more "normal" films in its heavy reliance on an actual plot than a genre shifting, elusive tone. With its digressions in expressionist dialogue and series of (at first) seemingly random shootouts and killings, its definitely its own distinct take on a revenge film, but its normal next to his more moodier and atmospheric horror films. It's reminiscent instead to another divisive film in his filmography, The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984), an improvised pulp story shot on an incredibly low budget and whatever sets could be stolen on camera, more consistent in narrative drive here as its based around one key plot point, spoon feeding the reasons behind the shootings as scenes pass, but still with a sense of unpredictability in what's happening in the next scene. In context of other Rollin films however, with their deliberate artistic moodiness and more elaborate styles, Killing Car is one of the more grounded films in his unconventional career in spite of this. Tone is a huge factor to which films are his most abstract and staying within reality as a matter-of-fact world, Killing Car is normal if only in the context of a career which includes an alternative reality found behind a stage curtain and a female vampire appearing from out of a grandfather clock.

Personal Opinion:

A minor Jean Rollin film for hardcore fans first, but I confess to loving it still. When it works, it succeeds on the gusto of its imaginative tone, overcoming its brevity of production. It also does possess one of the more tragic endings of his filmography, involving a small cameo by himself in bandages leading to a deeply melancholic scene which, if you can engage with the tone, does stand out in having following star Tsang throughout the film for most scenes. Even against some of the more sluggish moments, it's this ultimately which I'd take away from Killing Car alongside its more inventive moments.

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¹ Information taken from: http://requiemforjeanrollin.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/cinema-of-jean-rollin-killing-car-1993.html

The Night of the Hunted (1980)

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Dir. Jean Rollin

A young woman Elisabeth (Brigitte Lahaie) is being persued in the woods, only to be discovered by Robert (Vincent Gardnere), while he is driving, rescuing her. However she cannot remember who she is, who she was escaping with, who she was escaping from, and any short term memory after a few minutes. The pursuers eventually locate her and take her back to a black tower block in the city, ran by a doctor to cover up an incident where many people have developed the same affliction, losing all memories and even basic motor skills, all put together in the tower out of public view. Elisabeth intends to escape again, while eventually Robert appears at the black tower to try and help her leave, the doctor and the armed guards around the tower in the way. With the possible exception of Killing Car (1993), drastically different to his filmography though still linked in mood and style to his traditional horror films, The Night of the Hunted has some drastic changes from many of the others. Gone are the gothic castles, the vampires, the trademark beach scenes and the such, and in its place, the pre to early 20th century aesthetic inspirations of Jean Rollin are replaced by contemporary, harsh and cold urbanism of an early David Cronenberg. The result is unexpected; as I am finding Rollin is far more different then his cult reputation originally suggested, this film emphasising the fact.

From http://www.gotterdammerung.org/film/jean-rollin/
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At his most restricted financially, making a lot of porn under a pseudonym, Rollin suddenly turned to a producer, made a gamble and asked if he could make a horror film instead. He was successful, a horror film with sci-fi tinges and the budget of one of the porn movies he would make, with many actors Rollin worked with in them allowed to try something new and fresh. The surprise for me watching the film is, without knowing this back-story originally, I never saw any structural or budget restrictions that badly affected the film. Now knowing of the back-story, it never feels like it's of a lesser quality still. The only real divisive aspect of this film, in hindsight, was the abrupt inclusions of sex and violence to appease the producer. This includes a ridiculously long sex scene between Elisabeth and Robert, and countless nude and undressing scenes with the other actresses, not sensual like other Rollin films but more stark and blatant. The violence, including sexual violence, as the mental disintegration causes violent behaviour in the victims, is even more abrupt, nasty and for many it will feel out-of-place and off-putting, more so as violence is never this strong in other Jean Rollin films I've watched. As much as it is also of my own personal taste, these aspects aren't compromises for the film's quality. In fact, in vast contrast to Rollin's preferred elegance, it works to add an anxiety over The Night of the Hunted that makes it more darker and malicious in tone. It feels outside of Rollin's usual filmmaking, even compared to Killing Car, envisioned almost as a Videodrome (1983) type of movie, the sex and violence in that film's zone of emotional detachment. Hell, even the bizarre circumstances around a character using scissors on herself has an appropriate oddness to it.

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With Jean Rollin as well, having to compromise or improvise is as much part of his auteurist style, (like many of my favourite directors), so you cannot ignore the accidents that happened to be able to make this film in the first place, the scratches on its celluloid as of much importance as his fascinations. It's a bleaker film as a result, the urban and industrial settings dehumanised. There is a strong aesthetic  as always for Rollin, the brutal scarlet reds on the interior walls of the black tower, the modern design etc., more imposing and claustrophobic than other films. It's a good lesson to learn from for potential filmmakers that, far from a detriment, having the budget severely restricted like Rollin did here wasn't that big of a hindrance, the kind of locations you might've found in a porn film of the time, maybe even one of Rollin's own, having a fittingly dead quality to them. Why this lesson has been lost in the recent decades I'm not sure, causing one to wonder what has led to the drab look of many a modern genre film - digital cameras, locations not easy to find, budgets even more restricted or pure laziness? Here in this film, even the gym has a stilted air to it, along with the other locations. Long corridors like a maze, and cold, perfunctory furnished rooms for the unwilling occupants, who ling or slump themselves on mass around said corridors aimlessly.

From https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/
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The concept of a disease that causes mental disintegration takes one into a existential version of Rollin's cinema, as much importance on what happens to the occupants as their memories are lost as it is on Elizabeth trying to escape the tower again. That it feels to throw away the potential for this concept, in favour of the trademark mood piece tone of a Rollin film, is not an issue but probably perfect for this particular film. Enough is said in what is shown to savour. The occupants are a form of living dead, inventing new names for daughters another may have had or making up new memories together. There's no clear theme or message behind the film, but as a scenario of what such a concept would be like, the obsession in Rollin's films with their dream logics by way of pulp entertainment, allows for a poignant take on the idea. Time is passed, because Jean Rollin is not a conventional director, watching someone with an old photo book one minute, reflecting on whether it's their family or not, the other on characters musing on whether they knew each other once and pretending they were classroom friends as young girls regardless; what's true or not is left for you to imagine by Rollin. It does have moments as a result which are far more potent than if treated in a more conventional way, such as the uncomfortable moment a character's motor skills are so disintegrated they cannot hold a spoon properly and feed themselves. Rather than have to follow a message, the playing around with such a scenario evokes far more interesting ideas in-between the compromises.

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This is a genre film first and foremost, Rollin a genre film director more so than everything else, one who happened to make genre films in his own idiosyncratic way. Despite his difficulties getting films funded, he was still able to in an era where exploitation cinema could be made in personal ways as long as there was something sensation and titillation for the pundits and international markets. With this film I get further proof "pulp" is a key inspiration and interest for the director as horror is, the reason I've used the word twice in this review - pre or early 20th century adventure stories, crime and mystery stories, tales of masked criminals and secret organisations, and anything you can also think of that can be linked to this area. Even in the closest thing science fiction, Rollin still has influences from the past in here. Even in his nastiest toned film I've got Georges Franju stuck in my head think of Rollin. Once guns are involved in The Night of the Hunted, when Elisabeth tries to escape the black tower and Robert gets involved, there is as much a tone of crime or thriller movie inherent here, furthered by the urban locations. It furthers how more unconventional Rollin is as a director than what I initially learnt of him as, able to mix and celebrate each genre he's interested in by making those that exist in the middle and part of all of them.

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Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Out of Rollin's films I've covered so far, it's not one of the most abstract he's made, very concise narratively. Despite the moments that feel disjointed - the gore scenes and the random moments an actresses takes her clothes off - the film follows a full narrative, which elaborates on the main premise up to a sobering finale, including scenes of what is done to the amnesiacs that cannot help but evoke reality in a way that may have been more than intended. By its final scenes it builds pulp characters in a situation, and while they are archetypes, they have enough time onscreen to intrigue us, leading to a sad, powerful final image, where the characters have as much importance as the content around them. It's a narrative driven Jean Rollin, unlike the kind of narrative driven cinema he made The Nude Vampire (1970) where the plot strands added as the story goes on push it into more inherently unconventional tangents, changing what has been set up before drastically.

From http://www.midnightonly.com/wp-content/
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That's not to say The Night of the Hunted is "normal". With its clinical, uneasy tone for its content, "medical" based sci-fi horror with a thriller tone to its palette, the film is so far from mainstream for a genre film, lengthy moments of characters musing on the back-story and their situations with relish for the dialogue as exposition. There's moments as well, due to the requirements Rollin had to fulfil to make this film, and his own interests, that are different in from conventional cinema. The scene that stands out as one of the best, and perfect as an example of this, is when the doctor's female assistant, to delay Robert reaching Elizabeth, asks him to dance with her to imagined music in an outside are area before she will tell him where she is. Someone I know online evoked Jacques Rivette in his thoughts of this scene; whether the case it was an unpredictable moment, briefer then I remember it as yet inspired, the same magic realistic of Rivette who is another director with equal interest playing with genre in unexpected ways, seen suddenly with Rollin's film here and something I relish. It's immensely abstract in that conventions, moments like this constant throughout the film, played with in interesting ways, so even as one of the more straight-forward of the director's movies, it's still different from many other films in its genres of interest.

From http://2.bp.blogspot.com/
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Personal Opinion:

The best Jean Rollin film? We shall see, but it's interesting as being drastically different from many of the others, an underrated work possible in the filmography. It stands out uniquely in a unique director's career and, flawed or not, it's damn well impressive.

Halloween 31 For 31: The Nude Vampire (1970)

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUZV_9Oh7tDAuS0MTQjQoBb2TrH5gQS7o5M7lqQxk4PPCt0hZ__FdzCPVoc3dizu-T2bN74Jhyx15-qBdf7KBaFSdBIjW_l0MQos0qEH5BjvNA22nsSea4wZgWRWCKLZvBaoDxSLpXtw/s1600/Nude+Vampire,+The_002.jpg

Dir. Jean Rollin

After falling over my words with the first Jean Rollin film to be covered, The Shiver of the Vampires (1971), I have a closer grip of why I like the director's work. It required asking why I've been drawn to the films I've been interested in, the sort of thing that would be a question for the whole blog. Feeling that I am too complacent a person, films that knock me briefly out of this complacency attract my attention. Political and serious message films fail because they are so easily absorbed into complacent mindsets. A work, not just cinema, even if it's a joke or tacky which causes my ears to prick up, or my eyes to widen, or pushes me into a brief state of confusion or surprise, trying to grip something which is unconventional and refreshing, is what has affected me the most. And it's been far more relevant to my real life than most educational or critically important documents because the irrational or strangeness forces one immediately to look at things in reality in a new light. Jean Rollin still isn't that popular, only a few in paracinema in his fan base compared to other directors, not given his due completely yet. He made erotic horror movies for the most part, with impoverished budgets and on the fly. He was more concerned in The Nude Vampire in mood and an intentionally vague narrative. But watching a film like this, you cast your eyes to conventional cinema, notice most of it is tedious in comparison to what curious things happen or take place in his films, even when they're trying to have serious messages, and realise in my case that Rollin, if a mere director of softcore lesbian vampire films, was nonetheless able to puncture one's view of how a film could be put together in a way far more entertaining, because he is completely unpredictable in his plotting, mixing genre together, and more rewarding because you aren't a passive viewer to his films, always reacting if through titillation, displacement by his lengthy shot times or thrown in a loop by the content of the films.

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A business organisation believe they've acquired a female vampire (Caroline Cartier), the son of the company head (Olivier Martin) encountering her during her attempt to escape and doing what he can to try and rescue her. Her own kind make themselves known to help him, planning their own rescue mission while having interest in his and her being together. This plot outline is a mere minimalist interpretation, without spoilers, and doesn't show what tangents take place that may stump some, finding it all sluggish and fickle, beautiful and utterly enjoyable for me. Okay, let's be honest, as much of the joy with Rollin for me is the cultish nature of his work. The unpredictability. The unique take of the genre tropes. And the thing to not hide from the most, the eroticism, though without wanting to sound crass unless there's honesty to it, it's impossible not to feel desire for a person whose beautiful onscreen, in this case as a heterosexual man for beautiful women, regardless if they're naked or not. As with the other Rollin films I've seen, I don't fear having to justify this because the sexuality never feels like you're gazing at the actresses as mere meat, two dimensional figures for male viewers, the characters having active participation to the content and of great importance even if this is one of the more male driven films of Rollin's I've seen.

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With Rollin, both surrealism is an active force in his work, not merely coincidental, and his participation in a way of French cinema to make genre decorative and fanciful even when deathly serious is obvious. The first images, in a lab with men in red hoods and a woman with a blue bag over her head, caused me to think Rollin had suddenly turned into George Franju for a film. Turns out that wasn't far enough to go in terms of genre! From there you get men in startling animal masks and a suicide cult. Twins (Cathy and Pony Tricot) with ridiculous clothes, consisting of tiny blinds of discs barely covering their bare torsos, designed for their boss to play with erotically, along with Velcro skirts, during telephone conversations. Vampires welding burning torches for once, not the usual way around, storming people hiding in the library of a mansion in the countryside, and a plot twist that pushes the film into metaphysical sci-fi by way of Rollin's obsession with beaches. His style is disarming for those expecting the tropes he is using here - vampires, crime thrillers, even the Parisian crime stories of a Louis Feuillade - to be depicted as they are usually, his slow matter-of-fact nature, with mostly monotone acting, (the Robert Bresson comparison isn't that absurd as it may sound to most people), disarming the conventions and alienating those who want what is usually wanted in these films. But it's been inherent in French cinema, including Louis Feuillade for that matter, to both have mystery in their takes on genre and idiosyncratic in how the material around direct plot points are expanded upon and made of the most interest.

From http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_reviews56/
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In Rollin's case, the plot, continually talked of in dialogue, is concentrating on the material around it or makes the plot expedition part of the tangents by making it more of a texture than something of the more importance. Put it like this, in a one example of this which pretty much sums up Rollin's deliberate style, the moment where the protagonist's friend is brought into the events, over a phone call, is usually a minute in most films. Here, the concern before is of the camera being seduced by the friend's lover, a voluptuous black woman who is completely naked, the camera in extreme close-up on body parts, not directly and pornographically, but glancing at her as a goddess and a moving statue, and slightly further back shots to take in her languid expressions to it. Purely titillation on the surface, but as she gazes at the camera out at the audience, playful as she cups herself, pulling us in with her own intent, and wanting to seduce the friend, Rollin, having this play out for a few good minutes before a phone call interrupts the pair being able to sleep together finally, the protagonist needing his friend's help, is as concerned with mood of a sensual moment and everything else surrounding plot events as well as when the phone call takes place. Moments, not just the erotic ones, play out longer than they usually do even in the Italian genre films, basking in the inconsequential moments for other filmmakers. The plot is a game which is to be taken seriously but the participants are as much allowed to rest in the middle of important events, the obvious exception being when guns are shot or someone is stabbed, but immediately after, as in an opening sequence, a pause can take place, a lengthy, hesitant one, before a specific person realises they need to escape.

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This plays out in the whole of The Nude Vampire, the contemporary setting of urban areas, office buildings, and lavish homes and mansions against the gothic and Parisian aesthetics creating a peculiar contrast. Everything feels new and oddly attractive because of it, going along knowing that it's a flush of motifs in a continuous dream, like Rollin's films are. Befittingly like the Italian-US mindbender  The Visitor (1979) - [reviewed here] - found, the importance of corridors and rooms, exterior urban streets and office buildings, as characters is immensely useful to add to the atmosphere of a film, always with an anticipation for a tuned-in viewer of a character stumbling onto a secret behind a door or a potential threat. As Rollin viewed women as even more of interest and of more importance in his films, though male characters as here are treated with importance too, anyone can have a gun pointed on another person, anyone can suddenly appear, of any gender, and be a being of importance and centre of a scene's importance. This means, as well there being no crass gender archetypes to get in the way, that things are much more interesting in Rollin's films for me because he's yet to get predictable, and that's far more a good night's entertainment as well as art because, even when repeating motifs, he is catching me off-guard and bringing out something exciting or an image immensely surreal in each new scene. Here, by the ending, he stumped me in taking his usual vampire film and turning the vampire plot, in his second ever feature film, on its head, the metaphysical science fiction, suddenly introduced with an amusing inclusion rather than pointlessly, undermining the vampire part of the film's title! The greater aspect of this is, barring the exceptions in his filmography, he rifted on the same types of horror film in all I've seen but so far has always made details different in each. The result that even in repetition, it never feels like he is becoming redundant.

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Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Out of the two Rollin films so far covered on the blog in general, The Nude Vampire is the more "abstract". While The Shiver of the Vampires is closer to Rollin's conventional style - minimalistic in plot - it yet has more of a "mainstream" tone, a gothic vampire film plot in a Rollin movie. This by having a more wildly detailed story which shifts gears makes it more unpredictable. It's avant garde score by Yvon Serault, from noise to melodic pieces, is even more unpredictable than the moody prog rock of the other film. This feels a more freewheeling work which precariously juggles, even throws in, content abruptly, improvised, as it goes along that could've collapsed the whole film, but with an ending that unravels how the film starts, it stands out more. The more contemporary urban locations barring the last quarter in the mansion, while The Shiver of the Vampires was very gothic, adds to the abstract nature, horror twisted through then-modern day reality, to the point it becomes unconventional again. The openly mysterious and surreal ending, nearing the ballpark of David Lynch of a distance travelled into a new dimension between space, even with a thick set of curtains to go through guarded by a pleasant elderly man and women, is much more "quirky" and unpredictable than that of the other film, still going against expectations but still kept in genre traditions.

From http://www.rockshockpop.com/screencaps/NudeVampireBlu/12-1.jpg

A Cinema of the Abstract movie?

Obviously. The question instead is what'll happen as I connect his filmography together. Will any film feel too ordinary within it? Will new pleasures be found in the films I've already seen reflected through those I've just watched? And as for this film in particular? I found it immensely enjoyable.