Requiem for a Vampire (1973) *** (out of 4) Erotic-horror from French master Jean Rollin about two fugitive girls (Marie-Pierre Castel, Mireille Dargent) who are on the run from the law and end up in a creepy castle where many young women are chained in the basement. The girl's learn that vampires run the castle and they want the two ladies to join the undead since they are virgins. With countless horror and porn titles under his belt, to me this is the best that Rollin has to offer as his art-house style perfectly blends in with the erotic nature of the subject matter and best of all is that the film never once feels too long nor does the pacing have any issues. One might say THE LIVING DEAD GIRL is the best the director has to offer due to how violent and gory it is but I think on the whole this here is the best. I think what works so well is once again that beautiful atmosphere that the director is able to bring. The movie really does feel as if you're watching a nightmare as there's this quiet, still atmosphere that really makes you feel as if you're in the land of the dead. I thought the opening fifteen or twenty-minutes is where the director really works his magic because we see the girls on the run, going through the county side and eventually arriving at this castle. I thought Rollin did a very good job at building up this atmosphere and things just turn downright crazy once the vampire enter the picture. The highlight of the film is a rather long sequence where several of the male vampires go into the basement and attack the women that are chained up. Full nudity galore as this sequence clocks in at nearly ten-minutes and it's nothing more than the men groping the woman and I'm certain this was done so that the male viewers could get more than just a eye-full. This sequence is tinted in this strange pink/rose color and it really adds to the film and the downright surreal nature is just untouched by anything else in the film. The rest of the movie deals with the women trying to decide if they should give in or not and of course there's more violence and nudity. I thought both Castel and Dargent were very good in their roles and the supporting cast isn't too bad either. They're all certainly a lot better than you'd normally see in a film like this. Those unfamiliar with the work of Rollin will probably find this one of the easiest of his films to get into and those just wanting to see some nudity and erotic stuff will find plenty here.

Two "teenage virgins", Marie & Michelle(Marie-Pierre Castel & Mireille Dargent)have escaped from I'm guessing a reform school. Their driver was killed as another car's inhabitants(I'm guessing the police)blast out their vehicle's back window with gunfire. Hiding away from those hunting them and burning the car(..and dead driver), Marie and Michelle hide out temporarily in a cemetery(..in one weird scene, Michelle trips into a freshly dug grave knocking herself out on the casket while a member of the grounds almost buries her alive!)until their safety is assured. There's seemingly abandoned greystone ruins of a château near the cemetery surrounded by massive trees and an idyllic countryside for which Marie and Michelle decide to hopefully inhabit for the time being. What they don't expect is a female vampiress, Erica(Dominique Toussaint)who has a barbaric entourage of hunters as servants who rush them. When the girls try to flee, bats hanging from tree branches "hypnotise" them enabling Erica to capture them as she plans for Michelle and Marie to meet her master, the last full male vampire whose powers have weakened over the ages. Erica isn't completely a vampire despite her fangs and blood-drinking..she can still tolerate sunlight and isn't a true member of the undead. Her blood sister Louise(Louise Dhour)is even less a vampiress for she doesn't have the luxury of fangs. Louise is the type of vampire sister who hands down the orders from her lord and plays the piano; she's also the one who watches her master's casket. Michelle and Marie are introduced to the last male vampire as he bites them from behind. Michelle and Marie try to escape the next day but run around in circles it seems..despite following different paths hoping to escape, they always return to the château with a skull at the door. Louise informs Michelle and Marie that they are to be initiated into the vampire fraternity having received the "divine bite of the vampire", but first must lose their virginity to him. Louise points out that you can not be a virginal vampire. They wish for Michelle and Marie, before their initiation, to lure male prey to the château by nightfall. Marie meets, falls in love with, and loses her virginity to a man walking the cemetery one day named Frederick. She later tries to save him from being a victim of Erica's. The older man who Michelle lures(thanks to a striptease & drawing him by giving chase)isn't so lucky. Michelle must find out where Marie has hidden Frederick for he threatens the vampire whereabouts and identity(..this leads to a whipping torture as Marie hangs with stripes down her back and Michelle, devastated for what she has done, with tears staining her cheeks). Will Marie be seduced into the way of the vampires? Will Marie give up her love's hiding place(where he is hidden is certainly an interesting place)? Will the last male vampire's legacy live on through his blood daughters?If you are familiar with Rollin, this film carries his various signatures..beautiful french countryside, atmospheric cemetery, Gothic greystoned ruins of a castle where rows of steps are endless and halls echo, skulls make their mark throughout showing up near tombstones, places marking the vampires' lair, etc., limited dialogue and back story, fluid camera-work capturing the entire landscape squeezing every bit of ambiance available, an abundance of nudity and sex, and a jazzy organ score in the background. The version I watched had gratuitous extended scenes of sexual molestation as Erica's barbaric servants rape and abuse various enslaved nubile females, chained within a pit, as she takes a few bites for good measure. This might serve as titillation for many(there's also a scene where Marie and Michelle grope each other), but I yawned through most of this. I thought Dominique Toussaint was striking(she seemed to have such a presence that leaps from the screen)as Erica, wearing a clinging gold dress and purple cape that swings open..the way she opens her cape might be theatrical to many, but I lapped it up(..*woof*..*woof*). She really looks like something out of a comic book..now I do not mean this as an insult, far from it. I think Erica just looks incredible and Dominique just runs with it, easily overshadowing the weary last male vampire who is in the film mere minutes and looks as if his powers were weakened. This film's strength is some truly stunning uses of the château(the way Rollin shoots overhead as Marie and Michelle try to flee Erika, and when Michelle leads the horny old man on a wild goose chase through halls & up steps, are really thrilling set-pieces), the vibrant green and red colors Rollin uses in the last male vampire's mausoleum, the cemetery bright blue skyline at dawn as Marie(believing she had lost her love to the last male vampire forever)woefully walks across with various crosses in the distance, and the windy green covering the cemetery grounds as Marie and Michelle comb the area in search of refuge from a shady past. My favorite scene(other than when Erica appears)is when Marie and Michelle hear organ play from within the château cathedral believing cloaked monks await inside..only to find skeletons behind those very cloaks and Louise, the vampiress playing the tune they heard. Don't expect a satisfying story or a quickened pace..Rollin isn't the type of filmmaker that worries about moving anything too fast. I don't even think we see the first vampire until thirty minutes into the film and the sexual sequences in the bondage chamber go on forever it seems.

One of Rollin's best, although lacking the stylish gaudiness of his earlier masterpieces. However, considered as the work of an impressively productive director with about as many misses as hits, this film holds a high ranking in his oeuvre. He starts smash dab in the middle of obviously complicated unexplained criminal events, with the two female protagonists done up in ludicrous clown costumes. After the death of their fellow fugitive, they set fire to their car and wander off into the woods. Dark, young beauty Mireille Dargent stumbles into an open grave and ends up covered in opened dirt as nearby Marie-Pierre Castle watches, too scared to speak. Once unearthed, she and her friend find a seemingly abandoned castle with a decomposing body in the basement. Some uninspired vampires bring the girls to their dungeon of depravity. Dying vamp Philippe Gasté, the last of his kind in great need to make more with the help of vamp pal Anne-Dominique Toussaint, gives them a wee bite. They're somewhat uncertain about this idea of slowing turning into the blood-sucking undead, but things head in unexpected directions from here in typical Rollin style, if typical can be described as such. Although many of Rollin's women find themselves thrust unexpectedly into a world of evil, a close inspection of their characters from the beginning suggest a previous loss of innocence. Rollin's women do not succumb to these influences - indeed, they generally escape from their perilous situations - but it's important to remember that this sort of behavior may well not be old hat to them. Requiem uses extremely effective pacing, which many mistake as boring. Some extremely long takes contain little distinguishable action, denying the audience a passive film experience. This style of filmmaking instead demands total audience involvement, with only occasional instances of the glossy seduction suggested by the film's pretext. Rollin's decision to spend so much screen time on seemingly aimless wandering evokes a misguided spiritual quest, with obvious sexual connotations in the form of vampires. The experimental score by Pierre Raph, who worked with Rollin on the notorious Démoniaques, compliments this uncertain, possibly confused journey. In stark contrast to these rather profound elements stands the unnecessarily graphic sexual torture that goes on the castle's dungeon. This goes to an unnecessary extreme - I can't, for example, imagine anyone enjoying the image of a bat nestling in a woman's vagina. However, movies do need a target audience and Rollin could easily have chosen a worse genre into which to work his ideas. After this film, Toussaint began her career as a producer.. Dargent and Castle, prototypical Rollin girls, appeared in several other of his films.

This film was rated higher by others than I would have thought. Vampires usually do a lot of biting and blood sucking. There was more erotic virgin handling and molestation than biting and the like in this one. The use of silence in the film gave it a surreal quality. The whole movie was dream-like. The lure of the victims was not captured. The chase and seduction is the best thing about vampires but those subtleties were lost here. But, I must admit, the film did remind me of Vampyros Lesbos and, to a lesser extent, Suspiria. I must state that vampire films do not have to be bloody etc. But a little blood at the bite would have been welcomed. Not a bad watch if you seek those who walk at night.