Saturday, 6 October 2007

Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

I have seen many films by French director Jean Rollin over the years, but had not seen this one previously.  Never mind, his movies are much of a muchness -- seen one, seen them all -- or nearly.  A pretty confection of sex, tasteful nudity and vampires.  The interesting thing about Rollin is that he has an artist's eye and his films are beautiful to behold, the composition well thought out, despite the obviously miniscule budget, but they are absolute tosh and piffle.  In this one, the last vampire of his race knows that he is losing his powers, but briefly seeks to re-establish his realm by initiating two nubile young virgins into his dying community.  However one of them manages to lose her virginity before he can achieve this and, happy to at long last be free of blood-letting, he is sealed into his tomb bringing an end to his line.  Not that this stopped other vampires baring their teeth in subsequent Rollin movies.  Another day, another bite! 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Utter tosh with an odd and sketchy back story and some very odd reactions from
non-vampiric locals who nearly all seem to behave as sex-starved imbeciles not
that the two teenage girls exhibited much more intelligence.   As you say, finely
wrought images and interesting locations but not really much good.