Die Vergewaltigung des Vampirs

A psychoanalyst and his wife go to a château in the country, which is inhabited by four vampire sisters. Rollin's first feature is distinguished by good photography and score, which manage to overcome the bizarreness of the plot and the deliberate pacing. An atmospheric horror classic, but decidedly not for all tastes.

Jean Rollin's film was not quite like some of his great ones that will be later. For a start, the film is black&white, which has some of the great photography but not quite the wonderful colours that will follow, and also this it is only a short film. For some reason Rollin must have decided he could make it another longer one but there it is a rather odd one. Much of the later is partly excellent but some of it isn't and there are far too many people, with to much dialogue that the story, or what it is, gets lost. It is not much of a good film and it shows that what so much will follow will be wonderful.

Popular French art/cult director Jean Rollin's first foray into the horror genre calls itself a two-part melodrama and is divided into two segments that overlap; "Part One: The Rape of the Vampire" and "Part Two: The Vampire Women." In the first portion (which is the shorter of the two), psychoanalyst Thomas, his friend Marc and Marc's girlfriend Brigitte go to a mansion to investigate claims of vampirism. Living at the large country home are four psychologically troubled young women who are rumored to be ageless vampires by the superstitious townspeople. The villagers try to keep the women inside at all times by staking crosses everywhere and using a weird-looking, hairy-faced scarecrow that an old man provides the voice for. Thomas suspects the women have been brainwashed into believing they're actually vampires when it fact they're not, and sets out to get to the bottom of things. Even though the acting's not great, the dialogue is terrible and the editing is horrible, this segment is visually very beautiful. The images, the camera set-ups, the framing of shots and the clarity of the black-and-white photography are all done well. The director also proves to have a nice eye for detail, outdoor scenery, light and shadow. The art direction is also good, and though the storyline is a bit muddled it's still not too difficult to follow. Unfortunately, immediately after this shorter portion concludes, the film basically falls apart and it never recovers.

With several of the principals either dead or turned into vampires at the end of "Rape," we now enter the second segment "The Queen of the Vampires." The "Queen" is an arrogant short-haired woman who is carried around on a bed by two of her goons and has a bunch of hipster followers at her side to do her bidding. No clue what she really wants or what's driving her, but it seems like she's power mad and wants to put on some kind of theatrical wedding where two people will have sex in a coffin that's nailed shut. She and her minions have also blackmailed a doctor into trying to come up with a cure for vampirism. They have turned the doctor's girlfriend into a vampire to edge him along. Several characters from the first segment wander in and out every once in awhile. It's all extremely confusing to watch and hard to keep track of what's going on, who is who and what it is whoever is trying to accomplish. This second and much longer portion also seems more rushed and less stylish than the first. It's also full of continuity errors and hacky editing splices that make it even more confusing. Both segments feature plenty of T&A shots, which were quite risqué for 1967 I'm sure.

Discounting Rollin's super-cheesy living dead disaster ZOMBIE LAKE (which even his most devoted fans have a hard time defending), this is my first real look at the work of this director. I see a fantastic visual stylist with a lot of potential who needs a little help on his narrative structure and pacing. A happy medium can be met. Throwing a little clarity in every once in awhile never hurt a film. Of course, some people can and will defend the most senseless films ever made as long as they look good, calling them "poetic" or "dream-like" or "experimental." That's perfectly fine if this is a masterpiece in some people's eyes, but to me a movie this illogical really needs to sustain that other-worldly feel throughout to keep me interested. The first segment almost seemed to hit the right note, but the second didn't even come close. I'll certainly still check out more films from Rollin based on the positives here even though I was less than enthusiastic about this effort.

The Rape of the Vampire marks the directorial debut of French erotic vampire enthusiast Jean Rollin. The film was originally intended to be a thirty minute short; but someone had the bright idea of making it a feature film, so Jean Rollin went ahead, filmed another hour of dubious vampire nonsense and released the combined parts as a feature film. It sounds like a recipe for disaster; and since a disaster resulted from it, I guess that's exactly what it was. I really don't know how someone could have shot this movie and put it together like this without realising that it doesn't make an ounce of sense! This is almost to be expected from the second story, which is basically just an hour of filler - but even the first tale doesn't adhere to any kind of logic (except maybe Jean Rollin's!). There is a plot here somewhere, though, and to start off with it follows four vampire sisters. We then move into the second part, which follows the vampire queen; played by a skinhead who looks a bit like Grace Jones. Exactly what's going on is anyone's guess - but those are the basic story backbones.

In terms of plotting and substance, this film is a joke. However; in terms of style, it's a little more credible. The black and white cinematography looks almost like Jean Rollin was going for a French nouvelle vogue style, and it is nice to look at. It's not nice enough for you to forget that you're watching a really boring film, but at least the film has plus points. Rape of the Vampire does look low budget - but good plots don't cost anything if you're writing them yourself, and so this film's main problems can't be blamed on the budget. Rollin has got together a wealth of hot young French girls to star in the film, and while it doesn't compensate for the plot; at least the casting might stop you from falling asleep. Considering it was made in 1967, the film is fairly graphic; we've got a scene that sees a girl have her eyes poked out (although we don't actually see it) and there's plenty of nudity, of course. I'm not really sure what kind of person this film will appeal to. Pretentious film fans may find something to like about it; but if you're not a Jean Rollin completist, I really can't think of a reason to bother with this.

I must begin this review by being honest. This film baffled me. Completely. I didn't understand it. At all. So why the devil am I writing this, you may ask? To urge you to see it. Rollin does for horror films what Suzuki Seijun does for the gangster film, or Leone for the Western - he blows it to pieces to create something otherworldly and new. Although not nearly as well - from what I can make out, Rollin's sensiblity is facile, reactionary, inane and exploitative. But he does have an eye. And what an eye.

I think the film's 'failure' to lucidly communicate is actually the point. I mean, under all the visual verbiage, there is a plot of sorts. Not that I even got this part right. There's this gorgeous French chateau. There are sisters, maybe two, maybe four, who are being controlled by this disembodied voice, who turns out to be an crusty old landowner with a foreign accent. They are being told they are vampires, and one of them keeps remembering the time she was raped by villagers. We are shown images of this event, although neither their temporal status nor reliability is signalled.

Three young, modern, attractive Parisian types arrive for no stated reason at the chateau, spouting psychobabble, convinced that the girls are delusional and mad, needing help. It turns out that the landowner is not in charge at all, but a lesbian vampire queen add her predictably nubile cohorts, and madness ensues as the forces of science and the modern do battle with the undead. The film may be a satire on de Gaullism, conservatism, radicalism, or feminism; or maybe it's just the visual ramblings of a very talented Poe-obsessed teenager. Who knows?

The whole thing is addled, pretentious nonsense. Fragments of this plot get lost in a mass of possibly meaningless symbolism (although I actually know someone who can make everything in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME fit coherently, so I'll suspend judgement). But we must remember that horror films traditionally involve a force of meaning eventually triumphing and explaining the forces of evil who would destroy meaning. After PSYCHO, the validity of this was called into question, and the horrors of films like REPULSION and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD became terrifying precisely because it was not possible to explain them away.

This is presumably Rollin's intention, to destroy the arrogant assumptions of all systems of meaning. The inevitable result of this is chaos, but it's a chaos gorgeous to behold. Rollin has the cherishable flaw of wanting to stick his camera in the most awkward places just to astound us. And he does - there are images here no mainstream director would dare attempt.

The mixture of Gothic, Gallic atmosphere, and a sublime clarity of imagery is stunning. The climactic shoot out also shows how French gangster films, with their concentration on the disintegration of the individual, unlike their US counterparts, have their roots in horror, the mighty FANTOMAS.

Rollin divides his two part melodrama in the middle of the action. The whole film has the feel of a project taken away from its wayward director, and re-edited by blind minions. It is a silly, delirious, wonderful thing, a true 'melodrame' as the subtitle suggests, showing us in a hideous mirror the repetitious cycle of living death we are caught in our everyday lives.