Jean Rollin Movies
Ever since his feature debut with the controversial Rape of the Vampire (1967), French horror auteur Jean Rollin has gained a loyal cult following for his stylishly gothic exercises in erotic horror.Born into an artistically inclined family on November 3, 1938, in Neuilly-sur-Siene, France, Rollin's father was an actor and theater director, inspiring both Rollin and his brother to pursue careers in show business. Editing recruitment films during World War II provided Rollin with an entry into film, with the future director finding subsequent work in an animation studio before stepping behind the camera. A scant few years after working as an assistant director in the early '60s, Rollin made his feature directorial debut with Rape of the Vampire. Greeted with outrage and violent protest upon release, the film nevertheless established Rollin's continuing themes of eroticism and vampiric fetish while at the same time finding his visual style developing an atmosphere of otherworldly beauty. Perfecting his unique brand of surreal eroticism and bloodletting with such releases as Requiem for a Vampire (1971), Demoniacs (1973), The Grapes of Death (1978), and The Living Dead Girl (1982), many consider the era of the '70s and the early '80s the period in which Rollin was in his prime as a filmmaker. His films generally relying more on stylized sensuality than coherent plotting, Rollin acknowledges that although the story frequently comes second, it always serves as a critical means of bringing out the visual flourishes that have become his calling card. An innovator who can draw strikingly poetic images from a shoestring budget, Rollin's resourcefulness and minimalist direction of actors has been complimented by frequent collaborations with such actresses as Brigitte Lahie, Marina Pierro, and Francoise Pascal.
Despite his frequent forays into the realm of straight hardcore and softcore pornography in the 1970s, Rollin continued forward into the new millennium with such traditional and less overtly pornographic efforts as Two Orphan Vampires (1997) and La Fiancee de Dracula (1999). Though for years his films remained seldom seen outside of his native France (and generally in truncated forms if fans were tenacious enough to track them down), the advent of DVD found Image Entertainment and Redemption Video teaming to make uncut and high-quality releases of Rollin films available to fans in both the U.S. and the U.K. in the late '90s. In addition to his work as a director, Rollin has also established himself as an author of erotic novellas. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Jean Rollin, the French master of erotic horror, directed this gothic thriller. A professor (Jacques Regis) who is studying vampires has set out to find the remains of Count Dracula (Thomas Desfosse), but as he and his assistant travel deeper into the land of the undead, they are confronted by a bizarre variety of vampires, werewolves, ogres, and wizards. Eventually, the professor is confronted by Isabelle (Cyrille Iste), a woman of great supernatural powers who holds his fate in her hands. La Fiancee de Dracula also features Brigitte Lahaie, Sandrine Thoquet, and Magalie Aguado. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
France's master of erotic horror, Jean Rollin, directed this sexy and atmospheric story of Louise (Alexandra Pic) and Henriette (Isabelle Teboul), a pair of orphaned sisters whose tragic fate is compounded by the fact they have no sight. But the truth is, the sisters are not really blind -- they are, in fact, vampires, and due to their nocturnal habits, they can only see after the sun goes down, as they search for victims to provide them with fresh blood. Originally released as Les Deux Orphelines Vampires, Two Orphan Vampires was based on a novel, which was written by director and screenwriter Rollin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alexandra Pic, Isabelle Teboul, (more)
- 1989
Directed by French cult hero Jean Rollin, Perdues Dans New York/Lost In New York concerns two women who find themselves mysteriously transported from a seaside in France to the streets of New York City. Separated and lost, they must find each other and figure out how to get back home. The DVD release of Perdues Dans New York also includes two early short subjects by Rollin, The Yellow Lovers and The Far Country. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Horror director Jean Rollin tries his hand at melodrama in Les Trottoirs De Bangkok, which chronicles the discovery and concurrent investigation of an ultra-secret biochemical factory in Thailand. Though evidence of the factory's existence was captured in photograph by French intelligence agents, complications ensue when the footage is intercepted by a criminal group whose plans include bribing the French government. The agents send an exotic dancer to retrieve the footage in a risky undercover mission. The film stars Francoise Blanchard, Andre Richard Volnievy, and Jean Pierre Bouyxou.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yoko, Francoise Blanchard, (more)
Cult director Jean Rollin takes the helm for this bizarre tale of a mysterious Asian beauty (Tiki Tsang) steals a Buick and embarks on a vicious shooting spree. While she isn't fleeing from a pair of dogged detectives, the unnamed murderess spends her spare time taking a boat trip and gyrating at a local nightclub. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tiki Tsang, Frederique Hayman, (more)
Jean Rollin, the French filmmaker who has earned a potent cult following for his unique blend of eroticism and horror, directed this disturbing tale of a woman who has come back from the dead. When the grave of Catherine (Francoise Blanchard) is disturbed by an earthquake and fouled by a chemical spill, the young woman, not long deceased, rises from her tomb with a taste for blood and a desire to return to the home where she grew up. Catherine finds herself drawn to Helene (Marina Pierro), who became her "blood sister" as a child. Similarly, Helene feels compelled to help her old friend, and as they are drawn closer together, Helene finds young women to satisfy Catherine's ever-increasing lust for blood and flesh. La Morte Vivante was released in English-speaking countries as The Living Dead Girl. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marina Pierro, Francoise Blanchard, (more)
One of cult-film director Jean Rollin's most rare and obscure features, The Escapees follows the adventures of two beautiful mental institution escapees who discover that life on the outside can be just as strange and surreal as life on the inside. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
This offbeat mixture of eroticism and dystopian science fiction was directed by French cult figure Jean Rollin. While driving along a lonely road in the middle of the night, a man (Vincent Gardnere) sees Elizabeth (Brigette Lahaie), a beautiful woman, wandering by the side of the road, obviously disoriented and wearing only a flimsy white nightgown. Another woman, Veronique (Dominique Journet), equally dazed and entirely nude, looks on. When Elizabeth collapses, the man takes her back to his home, where she confesses that she has amnesia and isn't sure what's happening to her. The two feel drawn to each other and spend the night making love, but the man's home is invaded, and Elizabeth is taken away. Trying to find her, he discovers that Elizabeth and Veronique have been taken back to a mysterious asylum from which they escaped, where a variety of surreal and sexually-oriented tortures await them. Shot on a low budget in a mere two weeks, La Nuit des Traquees was heavily cut in most of its video releases prior to its appearance on DVD; it was released in English-speaking countries as The Night of the Hunted. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Cult filmmaker Jean Rollin hit rock bottom with this soggy horror tale of drowned Nazis rising from their watery graves as hungry zombies. Howard Vernon leads a cast familiar to any fans of the prolific Jesus Franco, who was slated to direct this film before his bosses at Eurocine gave the assignment to Rollin. It mattered not, because Franco was able to take his own crack at the Nazi-zombie subgenre with the equally wretched Oasis of the Zombies. Bad cinema buffs are free to take their pick, while those looking for a better treatment of the same plot should consider Ken Wiederhorn's Shock Waves instead. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Howard Vernon, Pierre Escourrou, (more)
This erotic horror film from controversial cult director Jean Rollin is among his best. Set in 1916, it tells the story of a thief who seeks refuge in a castle owned by two women, Eva (Brigitte Lahaie) and Elizabeth (Franca Mai). The women are seductive and teasing, but turn out to be part of a vampiric cult of blood-drinking aristocrats. The film's most striking sequence has Eva slashing her way through a group of armed peasants with a large scythe. Filled with Rollin's typically heady mix of sex, violence, and hallucinatory visuals, Fascination may be the most accessible introduction to his unique body of work. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
This gory zombie film was directed by cult filmmaker Jean Rollin. The plot concerns a dangerous pesticide which is applied to grapes in a wine-producing region, turning the inhabitants into insane zombie killers. There is plentiful nudity and violence for the exploitation crowd, as well as crucifixion and a topless woman being impaled with a pitchfork by her own father. Horror fans will note the numerous similarities to Jorge Grau's hit Breakfast at Manchester Morgue, while mainstream viewers...well, they probably won't be watching in the first place. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie-Georges Pascal, Serge Marquand, (more)
Cult director Jean Rollin's most unusual and haunting film was this poetic tale of two young lovers (Francoise Pascal, Hugues Quester) lost in a cemetery overnight. With only one set, two characters, and a hallucinatory style which could provoke unintentional laughter in some audiences, the film was a commercial disaster. Quester was so embarrassed that he had his name taken off the credits, where he is now listed as "Pierre Dupont." Still, as time passed and audiences grew more sophisticated, the film's uniquely peculiar atmospherics have gained it a cult following, and some even consider it on a par with the original Carnival of Souls as among the simplest and creepiest of macabre films. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Francoise Pascal, Hugues Quester, (more)
- 1973
Cult director Jean Rollin's most unusual and haunting film was this poetic tale of two young lovers (Francoise Pascal, Hugues Quester) lost in a cemetery overnight. With only one set, two characters, and a hallucinatory style which could provoke unintentional laughter in some audiences, the film was a commercial disaster. Quester was so embarrassed that he had his name taken off the credits, where he is now listed as "Pierre Dupont." Still, as time passed and audiences grew more sophisticated, the film's uniquely peculiar atmospherics have gained it a cult following, and some even consider it on a par with the original Carnival of Souls as among the simplest and creepiest of macabre films. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Two girls fall into the hands of sadistic ship-wrecking pirates, then make a deal with the Devil to get revenge in this bloody horror film from cult director Jean Rollin. Filmed in a strange, expressionistic manner, the film once again solidifies Rollin's place as France's master horror stylist, even if his storylines leave much to be desired. It appears to move in a sort of convoluted dream-logic, with artifice taking precedence over coherence for much of the running time. The final revenge sequences are hauntingly effective, and those viewers who can forget traditional expository technique and just go with the flow are likely to find it chilling and memorable. Those simply looking for perversity will find it here too, as Joelle Coeur pleasures herself to the sounds of torture on a deserted beach. Though not for all tastes, Rollin's films certainly offer something different to jaded horror fans. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
A man discovers that his dreams have become reality, only to learn that they have a deadly undercurrent, in this horror story for adults. Pierre (Jean-Lou Philippe) is haunted by a persistent dream in which he spends the night with a beautiful women in a white gown who lives in an ancient mansion, though she invariably awakes with no memory of him. Pierre is convinced that his dream has some basis in his past, but his mother scoffs at the notion. One day, Pierre sees a photograph in a perfume advertisement that looks just like the mansion he's seen in his dreams, and he arranges to meet the woman who took the pictures at a movie theater. While he waits for her, he encounters the mysterious woman in white, and as he follows her, he discovers a strange coven of the living dead -- a band of beautiful women who need to drink human blood to survive. Lips of Blood was directed by the French master of erotic terror, Jean Rollin. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
This fourth feature from cult horror director Jean Rollin begins with two girls dressed as clowns making a mad getaway from a reform school. The girls end up in the clutches of "The Last Vampire," a somewhat pathetic creature seeking to reproduce his race. Marie-Pierre Castel and Mireille d'Argent are the damsels in distress. Tthis film is probably the closest Rollin came to straight horror. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
French cult director Jean Rollin had his roots in the avant-garde film movement, so it's no surprise that many of his early films are nearly unwatchable. This vexing piece of psychedelic nonsense concerns newlyweds Antonio and Ise, who visit an old castle owned by the bride's dead cousins. When Ise is too grief-stricken to consummate her marriage, a vampire named Isolde pops out of a grandfather clock and plays with Ise's breasts then takes her to the cemetery and bites her neck. Isolde is joined by two lesbian servants and Ise's undead cousins -- a pair of bourgeois male vampires who wear hippie clothes and spout incomprehensible philosophy. A subplot involves a village woman named Isabelle, who slept with both of the cousins when they were living vampire-hunters. Isolde ends up killing her while wearing ten-inch spiked pasties. It is up to dull Antonio to get his wife out of the castle before she becomes a vampire, but he fails, so he ends up crying on a beach after Ise, and her cousins are disintegrated by the morning sun. Every other scene seems to use a different colored gel -- from red and blue to a sickly orangish-purple -- and Rollin includes a great deal of mist and wind to add "atmosphere," -- as well as a dreadful score by a teen-rock group called Acanthus, which mercifully disbanded shortly afterward. Rollin eventually improved, becoming a master of erotic horror, but this film shows no evidence of such talent. Sandra Julien co-stars with Jean-Marie Durand, Jacques Robiolles, and Michel Delahaye. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1969
Horror director Jean Rollin followed up Le Viol du Vampire with this equally strange excursion into vampiric eroticism. The plot concerns a suicide cult led by a mysterious figure known as The Master. Oliver Martin is the hero, who tries to rescue pretty Caroline Cartier from the cult, only to find out that yet another group of vampires wants to save her too. There's people with reindeer heads, the usual artsy sex and violence, and a science-fiction subplot about a doorway to another dimension (as in the later Phantasm). Maurice Lemaitre and Bernard Musson co-star in this pretentious but enjoyable shocker. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olivier Martin, Maurice Lemaitre, (more)
- 1968
This bizarre, surrealistic erotic-horror film was the first feature by cult director Jean Rollin. There's a great deal of sex, blood, and arty imagery but very little plot to speak of. What plot there is primarily focuses on a pair of insane vampiric sisters who believe that they are cursed by a black Queen Vampire who wears a salamander headband and carries a broadsword. The film got dreadful reviews for its well-nigh incomprehensible mix of densely graphic imagery, Gaston Leroux poetry, and dialogue which was more than half improvised. The results were mostly regrettable, but Rollin completists will find enough unique touches to make it worth watching. Rollin returned with the even stranger La Vampire Nue. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Solange Pradel
- 1958
Cult director Jean Rollin's first film was this 12-minute, black-and-white short inspired by a poem by Tristan Corbiere. Filmed on weekends in 35mm on an old Maurigraphe camera borrowed from Rollin's job at a newsreel company, the short contains footage of Rollin's friends at the cliffs of Dieppe, readings of Corbiere's poem, and some Fabien Loris drawings. Rollin made a few more shorts and false starts over the next decade before completing his first narrative feature, Le Viol du Vampire, in 1968. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
A radiant vampire is held prisoner by a secret society of masked men in director Jean Rollin's highly erotic, gothic horror film. Surrealism, sex, and horror combine as they only can under the careful guidance of French auteur Rollin (A Virgin Among the Living Dead). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
