The most restrained and eloquent of Rollin's '70s vampire saga, Lèvres de Sang
In the opening sequence, a middle aged woman supervises the ceremonial placement of a still breathing girl into a coffin, which is then sealed and left in a subterranean room. Flash forward to the present day, in which Pierre (co-writer Jean-Lou Philippe) is plagued by visions of a childhood in which he encounters a beautiful girl in white. He spends the night under her care in a decaying castle, and she releases him in the morning, only to find the gate slammed in her face. He believes these visions are actually memories from his boyhood, but his mother dismisses such thoughts, claiming he should go see a doctor. At a reception for a new brand of perfume, he stumbles upon a promotional shot of a castle which strongly resembles the one in his visions.
Aside from a few passages, Lips of Blood contains very little dialogue and maintains a surreal, dreamlike stance throughout its running time. The final half hour is Rollin at his best, with an unbearably poignant beachside finale that perfectly sums up his themes as a director. The bizarre locations, ranging from modern day offices to an abandoned nocturnal aquarium, mark the film as a transition piece from his dislocated vampire fantasies to his more realistic later horrors like Raisins de la Mort. The familiar Castel twins make another appearance but have little to do besides licking blood off their lips in striking surgical outfits and transparent gowns, and most of the actors perform in a deliberately somnambulist fashion reminiscent of Werner Herzog. A difficult, often enchanting film, Lips of Blood will most likely reward viewers already well versed in Rollin's powerful alternate universe.
The first special edition arrived in 2005 as a whopping three-disc European limited release from Encore, carrying a rather steep price tag but worth the investment for Rollin fans. The subsequent American release from Redemption carries over the same superb anamorphic makeover, resulting in a sharp and colorful transfer up there with the best Rollin releases on the market. The Redemption one also condenses the lion's share of the extras onto one disc, making it a preferable option for those concerned about their budget and shelf space. So, here's what's on the U.S. disc: an audio commentary by Jean Rollin (in his usualy heavy French accent, but he offers some nice recollections about the Parisian locales and working with the actors, particularly Philippe who went on to infamy in Pussy Talk), a stills gallery, video interviews with Philippe and Perrey (both English-subtitled and covering their careers as much as this particular film), a video intro by Rollin, and a batch of Redemption cross-trailers. (No theatrical trailer for this film has yet to surface, alas.) Should you choose to seek out the three-disc version, it also adds on additional interviews with Serge Rollin and Cathy Tricot (one of the Castel twins) as well Rollin's short film "Les Amours Jaunes" and a video trip back to the climactic beach locale. In any incarnation, it's a film well worth discovering.
Color, 1982, 89 mins. Directed by Jean Rollin
Starring Francoise Blanchard, Marina Pierro, Carina Barone, Mike Marshall, Fanny Magier, Veronique Pinson / Cinematography by Max Monteillet / Music by Philippe d'Aram
Format: DVD - Image / Redemption (MSRP $24.99) Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
For anyone daunted by the prospect of diving into the films of Jean Rollin, La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl) is an excellent place to start. Boasting a stronger and more linear narrative than usual, not to mention solid performances from most of the cast, this film confirms Rollin's firm grasp of cinematic technique regardless of budgetary constraints.
A minor earthquake causes a chemical spill in a cave/mausoleum; as a result, a deceased young woman, Catherine (Francoise Blanchard), suddenly rises from her coffin, bloodily dispatches two men, and returns to her ancestral home. Equipped with only vague memories of her existence among the living, she mournfully devours flesh and blood to survive, including two teenagers who happen Rollin is simply at his lyrical and haunting best with The Living Dead Girl. Aside from the unconvincing opening sequence, the film never releases its grasp on the viewer's imagination, conjuring up a strange fairy tale ambience in which nudity and violence are presented as natural, integral elements of life. Blanchard makes for a gorgeous, morose flesheater, and Pierro, most famous for her roles in Walerian Borowczyk's cinematic erotica, turns in a splendid, compelling performance. Regular Rollin composer Philippe d'Aram contributes one of his best scores, a nostalgic and often sad chamber work tinged with a simple music box melody. The only storytelling quibble is a lengthy, barely relevant Demons-like subplot about two American tourists whose paths eventually lead straight to the deadly girls. The first subtitled prints of Living Dead Girl appeared courtesy of Redemption in the U.K. Sadly, this edition lost several minutes of gory footage (most notably during the climax and a lengthy torture sequence). The same transfer, albeit uncut, appeared on Dutch laserdisc from Copper Sky, complete with Rollin commentary, the French trailer, an alternate German track with different music, and the trailer for Rollin's Rose de Fer (The Crystal Rose). For its DVD premiere, Image and Redemption have supplied the best-looking version to date, several generations in quality above the others. The slight letterboxing appears accurate, and the muted colors and shadowy lighting appear undiluted and distortion-free (apart from an occasional flicker of grain in the original film negative). The optional yellow subtitles also improve dramatically over the gray-stripped subs on the other versions, and once again the French trailer is included. Completists may still want the laserdisc for the extras, but as far as the film itself is concered, the DVD is really the only way to go.
Color, 1973, 95 mins. Directed by Jean Rollin
Starring Joelle Coeur, Lieva Lone, Patricia Hermenier, John Rico, Willy Braque, Paul Bisciglia, Louise Dhour, Monika, Jacqueline Priest / Cinematography by Jean-Jacques Renon / Music by Pierre Raph
Format: DVD - Image / Redemption (MSRP $24.99) Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
Director Rollin's first serious attempt to venture outside the parameters of his famous erotic vampire tableaux, The Demoniacs (Les Demoniaques) finds him working with a stronger plot and assortment of characters than usual. In the memorable opening, a quartet of pirates led by the evil, hysterical Tina lure a ship onto the rocks and molest two young girls who managed to flee from the wreckage. The young blonde girls are left for dead, but during a heavy night at the local tavern, one of the pirates experiences Macbeth-style visions of the beautiful victims, their hands and eyes stigmatized with blood. He flees to Tina, who leads the wreckers back to the scene of their crime. The two girls are still there, barely alive, and escape to the haunted ruins of a church where a powerful spirit resides inside a cell. After meeting the spirit's handmaiden (a woman dressed as a clown, which makes no sense but looks very striking), the girls release him and engage in some sins of the flesh. Rarely seen in English but briefly released in a shortened version by Something Weird Video as Curse of the Living Dead, Demoniaques found most of its audience through blurry, bootleg SECAM-converted tapes. Like all of Rollin's films, the formal visual design plays an important role, and here he plays with the conventions of serials and pirate dramas (Fritz Lang's Moonfleet is an acknowledged influence, but traces of Jamaica Inn show up as well). The delightful opening features a voiceover introducing the characters over superimposed shots of the actors, a device indicating that Rollin will be venturing into slightly different territory. However, the expected nudity, violence, and bizarre imagery are still in rich supply, with Rollin crafting some highly memorable sequences thanks to the eerie ruins and the strange beach scenery, punctured with the torn and ragged wooden remains of crashed ships. The performers are also allowed opportunities to exhibit more personality than usual, with the villains making a memorable bunch, especially Tina's scene-stealing "kill them!" rants. Rollin's trademark visual fetish motifs are all present, including the mute blonde twins who were later turned up in various performer guises in Requiem for a Vampire, Phantasmes, and Two Orphan Vampires. A few moments are slightly spoiled by the rushed production, such as one strangely edited death in which a character's throat is slashed by falling on a ridiculously huge liquor bottle, but for the most part, this is a solid introduction to Rollin's style and a satisfying demonstration of his strengths as a director. The optional subtitles are always legible and well chosen, though for some reason the use of "merde" receives some amusing British euphemisms (e.g., "bloody hell!"). The original French trailer is also included.
Color, 1970, 95 mins. Directed by Jean Rollin
Starring Sandra Julien, Michel Delahaye, Dominique, Jean-Marie Durand, Nicole Nancel, Marie-Pierre Tricot, Kuelan Herce, Jacques Roboilles / Cinematography by Jean-Jacques Renon / Music by Acanthus
Format: DVD - Image / Redemption (MSRP $24.99) Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
While Jean Rollin directed two experimental vampire films before this one, Le Frisson des Vampires (Shiver of the Vampires) fully established the visual motifs and overall stylistic approach to which he would return for most of his subsequent horror efforts. A blatant homage to the erotic/horrific comics and serials of which Rollin is so fond, Shiver played more widely than prior Rollin titles in various countries under so many alternate versions that trying to assemble a genuine, complete cut has become virtually impossible. The plot, to use the term loosely, finds a newlywed couple arriving at a castle populated by mysterious lovely women and two hippie hosts. Their odd but uneventful stay is interrupted when a strange, amazonian vampire (Dominique) steps out of a tall grandfather clock at midnight and exerts her bloodthirsty influence on the other vampiric inhabitants. Like most Rollin films, this winds up on a beach for one of his traditional visually striking, melancholy finales that linger in the mind long after the film is over.
Drenched in bizarre, candy-colored lighting which predates Dario Argento's Suspiria by at least six years, Frisson is still one of its creator's most visually intoxicating works. The extremely thin storyline only has the slightest relationship to the actions onscreen, which tend to involve various performers falling into sexual and vampiric poses. In an attempt to make this film as commercially viable as possible, distributors have inserted new scenes, thrown in outtakes, and hacked away entire sequences to create a number of wildly different variations. One English-language version, Sex and the Vampire, runs as short as 75 minutes, while a longer English cut, Thrill of the Vampires, contains some additional S&M footage thrown in for extra salacious value. Most European video collectors first became acquainted with this film on the gray market thanks to a Spanish-language release, which features some alternate dialogue and sex scene takes as well as a different (and quite good) music score. The original French score by the amateur group Acanthus is wild and consistently amusing progressive rock, as garish and outre as the irrational lighting schemes.
The DVD contains the original French language version with optional English subtitles. The film is slightly letterboxed, revealing the maximum amount of image available, and easily outclassses any other version available. The eye-popping colors look as good as the ridiculously cheap shooting conditions will allow, and the level of detail and sharpness is always impressive. Considering the film's age and condition, this is an impressively handled disc and looks much better than European film fans have any right to expect.
Color, 1979, 83 mins. Directed by Jean Rollin
Starring Brigitte Lahaie, Franca Mai, Jean-Marie Lemaire, Fanny Magier, Muriel Montosse, Sophie Noel / Produced by Joe De Lara / Cinematography by Georgie Fromentin / Music by Philippe D'Aram
Format: DVD - Image / Redemption (MSRP $24.99) Letterboxed (1.75:1) / Dolby Digital Mono
When is a Jean Rollin vampire film not a vampire film? The answer: Fascination, a riveting, highly unorthodox of the blood drinker mythos for which Rollin gained financing through a few adult film quickies. Though extremely low budget, the result is one of his finest, most elegent accomplishments and one of the safest introductions to Rollin's style.
After a haunting, cryptic opening in which several well-to-do French ladies gather at a farm where animals are being slaughtered and daintily sip glasses filled with blood, the story follows the misadventures of blond hoodlum Jean-Marie Lemaire, who holds up two young women (Brigitte Lahaie and Franca Mai) at an isolated chateau. The two women apparently have little to do during the day besides rolling around on the rug for an occasional lesbian dalliance, so this turn of events turns out quite unexpectedly for our antihero. Along with The Living Dead Girl (La Morte Vivante), this film remains the director's purest and most successful of the feminine mystique channeled directly through the gothic tradition. Coming right off her stint on Rollin's Raisins de la Mort, former adult film actress Lahaie makes a fine, memorable figure, tromping around semi-nude in her black cape and slashing open trespassers. The new Image DVD of Fascination presented by Redemption is by far the cleanest and most visually impressive rendition of this film, though the only real past competition is the prior edited tape released by Redemption in the U.K. and ragged, smudgy-looking SECAM prints released in France. Actually, the DVD is so clear that it reveals some flaws in the source material, indicating that Rollin's personal print has also suffered some slight ravages of time. Some slight, minor staining on the print flickers in and out for a few minutes, but it's not enough to detract from the beauty of the film or the clarity of its presentation. Of course, since this film was shot on an impoverished budget (most likely on substandard film stock as well), it will never have the crisp, ultrasharp clarity of other films from the period. The sound quality of the film has never been spectacular, but the audio here is pleasant and distortion-free, with Philippe D'Aram's beautiful score seeping over the decadent imagery like a bloody veil. Considering Fascination's history and the awful versions fans have had to settle for in the past, this DVD is a sight for sore eyes and should serve as a nice aid for introducing new viewers to Rollin's strange, wonderful cinematic world. Mercifully, like the other Rollin titles, the DVD omits those irritating Eileen Daly intros and focuses more on the extras: a photo gallery of production and promotional shots, as well as the original French trailer (which contains some alternate sexy close-up shots trimmed from the final cut of the film).
Color, 1973, 88 mins. Directed by Jean Rollin
Starring Marie-Pierre Castel, Mireille Dargent, Philiipe Gaste, Dominique, Louise Dhour, Paul Bisciglia / Written by Jean Rollin / Produced by Jean Rollin and Sam Selsky / Cinematography by Renan Pollès / Music by Pierre Raph
Format: DVD - Image / Redemption (MSRP $24.95) Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Mono
Jean Rollin's most mainstream effort at the time of its release, Requiem for a Vampire (Requiem for a Vampire) nevertheless displays his obsessions as clearly as his most experimental work. Devoid of any spoken dialogue for most of its running time, Requiem introduces for the first time the beguiling twin girl characters who would later appear in such films as Les Demoniaques and, most blatantly, Two Orphan Vampires. Originally conceived and occasionally screened under the title of Vierges et Vampires (Virgins and Vampires), the film has remained most strongly associated with the Requiem title due most likely to its slow, somber pace and palpable sense of enchanted, erotic dread. Unfortunately, this impression was pretty much blasted to pieces when Harry Novak trimmed it down for a U.S. grindhouse release as Caged Virgins, though it did sport a fairly nifty poster. Now American audiences can toss out those old SECAM transfers and cruddy bootlegs to finally savor what is by far the most complete and ravishing presentation of this film to date.
Two blonde, pigtailed girls (Castel and Dargent), escaping from a robbery they have just committed, are forced to flee through the countryside after their car breaks down. Decked in clown costumes (?), the girls wind up at a desolate castle presided over by a cult of vampires. Though essentially a reprise of the plot from Shiver of the Vampires, this film While the previous Image/Redemption Rollin film, Night of the Hunted, looked amazingly good, Requiem is nothing short of miraculous. Accurately letterboxed and razor sharp, this transfer from the negative reveals countless layers of color and visual texture completely invisible on all other editions. The craggy edges of stones in the castle walls, the delicate sheen of fabric and cloaks sliding over bare skin, and the warm glow of sunlight over a country field look so beguiling and realistic they could almost pass for 3-D. The DVD includes the original French soundtrack with optional English subtitles, as well as the U.S. dubbed track (it frankly doesn't matter, given the rarity of spoken words in the film). The European trailer (English and French language versions) is included as well, though alas, no Caged Virgins trailer...
[Note: Some readers have experienced compatibility problems between their systems and this disc, e.g., overly sensitive comb filter settings that cause extreme moire patterns. Some recalibration may be necessary, including adjustment of your sharpness controls.]
Color, 1980, 93 mins. Directed by Jean Rollin
Starring Brigitte Lahaie, Alain Duclos, Dominique Journet, Bernard Papineau, Rachel Mhas, Vincent Gardner / Written by Jean Rollin / Produced by Jacques Roitfeld / Cinematography by Jean-Claude Couty / Music by Philippe Brigeaud
Format: DVD - Image / Redemption (MSRP $24.95) Letterboxed (1.66:1) / Mono
A far cry from his familiar universe of luscious yet melancholy vampires, the vaguely futuristic thriller Night of the Hunted (La Nuit des Traquees) may seem an odd choice to kick off a long overdue series of Rollin titles in the U.S. However, many of his most familiar elements are well in place: poignant and doomed romanticism, vibrant comic book colors, and startling, graphic violence. The film has long been regarded as a lesser work, thanks in no small part to its availability only via unwatchable and edited bootleg tapes. With this sparkling new transfer, Rollin's much maligned low budget effort is much easier to appreciate.
Driving along a desolate road at night, Vincent Gardnere is startled to see a disoriented young woman (Rollin regular and former adult film actress Brigitte Lahaie) running through the woods. Another woman (Dominique Journet), nude and bordering on catatonia, watches in despair. Lahaie collapses in front of the car, and Gardnere takes her home where she reveals that she is suffering from amnesia. Much in the spirit of David Cronenberg, Rollin makes expert use of the stark office complex to mirror the characters' emptiness, with its vast windows opening up on chilly expanses of night and unexpected bursts of red neon appearing around corridors. The film moves very deliberately, a Rollin trademark, and retains a dark fairy tale quality despite the sci-fi trappings (exposure to a radiation leak is blamed for the outbreak). While the acting is mostly touch and go, not surprising considering the largely amateur cast and rushed production schedule, Lahaie does quite a fine job as the tragic heroine, and the central romance leads to an outstanding payoff during the haunting finale, set in a deserted train station. A difficult, somewhat challenging film, The Night of the Hunted is well worth checking out, particularly considering the fine presentation. While some grain is evident during the night scenes (mostly the opening credits), the film looks far better than could ever be expected; the bright colors and razor-sharp resolution lend this a dignity completely missing from all other versions. The optional English subtitles are generally accurate, and the DVD also includes the original, perplexing French trailer (which mostly contains shots of people wielding guns and walking down hallways).
(Lips of Blood) drags his familiar beautiful bloodsuckers into a modern day context, focusing more on the psychological underpinnings of the vampire mythos than the simple images of naked women chomping on victims' throats. Perhaps for these reasons, Lips of Blood quickly became one of the most difficult of Rollin's horror titles to see, a situation eventually corrected on DVD with a much overdue reappraisal of his work.
The photographer responsible for the shot 
arranges to meet him at midnight; when he waits for her in a local cinema (showing Shiver of the Vampires), he spies the same girl in white and pursues her to a basement, where he unintentionally unleashes a quartet of scantily clad vampires on the city. As the quest for the girl and her strange castle continues, he finds himself constantly thwarted by his family and the nubile vampires, who for some strange reason refuse to kill him. The truth, alas, is much stranger than he could have possibly imagined.
All of the three transfers of Lips of Blood available on DVD have been derived from original negatives and, naturally, look fantastic. The oldest release from Image (now discontinued) obviously suffers the most given its early placement in the development of DVD, though it was satisfactory for its time. (It also offers a hair more picture information on the top and bottom by presenting the 1.66:1 camera framing rather than the slightly tighter 1.78:1 presentation of its successors, bu the film works fine either way.)
to wander into the house for a little privacy. Catherine telephones her childhood friend, Helene (Marina Pierro), with whom she had made a devotional blood pact as a little girl. Helene immediately comes to Catherine's aid and, in an act of extreme friendship, procures girls from the local village to satisfy her soulmate's bloodlust.
In gratitude, the spirit grants them supernatural powers which, until dawn, will allow them to seek retribution against their attackers. The girls embark on their tragic quest, which culminates in a haunting and strangely poignant beach finale.
To say the least, the new edition from Image and Redemption is a complete revelation. The source materials used here are absolutely immaculate, without any noticeable dirt or print damage whatsoever, and the color and detail quality are never less than striking. The mild 1.66:1 framing exposes all available picture information and looks ideally placed.
However, this edition from Image and Redemption is purportedly Rollin's personal preferred cut, and at 95 minutes, it remains the longest and most purely "Rollin-esque" edition available.
Extremely long, non-dialogue passages provide some beautifully poetic moments seething with gothic malaise and decay, a treatment which would reach its zenith in Requiem for a Vampire. Though not his most polished effort by a long shot, Shiver is really where it all started and remains an important contribution to European vampire cinema.
When another group of ne'er-do-wells shows up, Lahaie takes a scythe to them, and as the prologue has already indicated, turn of the century French women were not quite as naive and innocent as most commonly believed. Like most Rollin films, the ending is both tragic and haunting, with a highly memorable final image and line of dialogue.
Not surprisingly, the actors have little opportunity to do more than serve as gorgeous set decoration; the subtitled dialogue is almost extraneous. The sex scenes are more intense and explicit than Rollin's previous horror outings but remain suffused with a heady surrealism that makes the encounters play like animated works of art. Surprisngly, the women are not technically vampires but, according to Rollin, were derived from a true anecdote concerning a small female blood cult among the rich and bored. Thus, the film plays more like a pastoral version of the blood-bathing Elizabeth Bathory saga with the eroticism aspects pushed up to full throttle (a la Borowczyk's Immoral Tales).
further removes the tethers of standard narrative as the girls undergo a serious of sensual, hallucinatory encounters, the most notorious of which features a vampire bat dining on menstrual blood. The free form pacing eventually disintegrates into a noctural horrific montage as the girls find themselves succumbing completely to the will of the bloodsuckers. Steadily paced and obviously personal, this "naive" film (to use Rollin's term) resembles an elegent jazz session played out in a twilight dreamworld, perhaps inspired to some degree by the Serge Gainsbourg song, "Requiem pour un Con," which was popular at the time. 
All of the actors function as visual elements, not recognizable human characters, though the girls make a fetching pair (Castel went on to do hardcore porn films with her twin sister.) While American horror fans unaccustomed to Rollin's recurring visual images and bizarre symbolism may find the entire brew offputting, followers of European film will be rejoicing at yet another fragile little masterpiece from Monsieur Rollin.
The two feel an immediate attraction and make love (for a long time); unfortunately, their momentary bliss is shattered when Lahaie is abducted and returned to an austere, postmodern asylum (actually a block of office buildings in which Rollin shot after hours). Gardnere plays detective and follows her back to the institute, where Journet has also been captured and returned. A series of bizarre events ensue: a nude woman is found with her eyes pierced by scissors (a memorably surreal image), two sexual encounters turn very nasty, and doctors apparently don't seem to care that the people around them are gradually deteriorating into lunatics or walking corpses.
