The Rape of the Vampire

A French filmmaker of experimental but tasteful sleaze, Jean Rollin made his directorial debut with 'The Rape of the Vampire,' a micro-budgeted movie which originally began as a short for another similarly-themed feature. It shows many of the gaffes and missteps of an amateur production, from the stilted performances to the unintentionally hilarious dialogue. But this shouldn't come as much of a surprise since a majority of the crew, including the actors, had never worked on a movie before. And in spite of the several glaring faults, 'Rape' still makes for an intriguing watch — a bit out of curiosity's sake, another for understanding the controversy it ignited when it originally premiered, but mostly to witness the beginning of a filmmaker who had yet to reach his stride.

Objectively, there's little to appreciate in the film and can be easily dismissed as a confusing mess of melodrama. Seen from an understanding of Rollin's history, 'The Rape of the Vampire' is an important entry in his canon, displaying many of the themes he would later explore and perfect in future projects. Already coming from some experience as a director of short films, Rollin tries to work within a typical narrative structure, something which he ends up abandoning or minimizing in several of his later films. It's a bizarre fantasy fable told in two parts, the second half being the longer of the two, about a psychoanalyst and his two friends (Bernard Letrou, Solange Pradle and Marquis Polho) visiting a dilapidated château where four sisters live and believe they are vampires.

As the story progresses, filled with a variety of corny clichés which apparently have the trio questioning the possible existence of the undead, it becomes clear Rollin struggles to maintain coherence and logic as his desire to be more visually expressive takes greater demand. There are many curiously illusory images that often seem unconnected but manage to make the film all the more fascinating. We can see the director developing his craft, touching on themes about vampires as lonely souls, and hinting at a style that would become uniquely his. By the end of the first part, Rollin is also able to have us start questioning the four sisters as sad delusional women in need of treatment but turned into outcasts by the nearby village. And he does this beter through the visuals than in the dialogue.

Part two, subtitled "Queen of the Vampires," explores another of Rollin's ideas, one of a secret underground society of vampires. The group is led by a vampire queen (Jacqueline Sieger) with an agenda that's humorously never explained. As in part one, Rollin attempts at a coherent narrative involving the three friends from the first half learning more about the bloodsuckers, but it sadly falls apart and turns into somewhat of a distraction from where Rollin real talents lies. And again, we see the director's interest in erotic horror fantasy as the vampires reveal their thirst for blood equals their lust for physical satisfaction. It's not quite as graphic and explicit as in his other films, but the makings of his artful approach to the genre are fairly clear. They're also not meant as insightful images like typical art; they are simply pretty and fascinating to look at.

Similarly interesting in the second half of 'Rape' is Rollin sharing his love of classic American movie serials. In the friends' dealings with the vampire queen, the story carries a strange sense of mystery and adventure, with car chases, secret experiments, a fight of good versus evil and the villain's strive for world domination. The narrative, too, generally feels episodic as the good guys win one small part and the bad guys win another, going back and forth until the very end. Of course, this is all disguised beneath a collection of odd gothic imagery mixed with pop art enthusiasm and avant-garde cinema. 'The Rape of the Vampire' ultimately shows the makings, however amateurish it may appear, of a filmmaker who improves with time, especially when he comes to the realization that he doesn't really need a set-in-stone script to be wildly interesting. Experimentation is really his forte.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

Kino Lorber brings 'The Rape of the Vampire' to Blu-ray under the distributor's "Redemption" label. Housed inside a normal blue keepcase, the Region Free, BD50 disc goes straight to the main menu with a still photo and music.

The package also includes a glossy 16-page booklet with a lengthy essay on the films of Jean Rollin by Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog entitled "The Bizarre Melodrama of Jean Rollin" with a variety of photos.