The Rape of the Vampire (1968)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

An Exercise In Nonsense

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Jean Rollin's first full length movie, "The Rape of the Vampire", doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it is visually interesting.It's shot in black and white, and has some interesting images:An old man is surrounded by female vampires in hooded cloaks. He tries to fight them off weakly with his walking stick, but fails.The queen of the vampires (I assume), a young black lady, has a string of blood run down her mouth in extreme close up travel in different directions, probably through running the footage backwards and forwards in alternate takes and then layering them.A guy who looks like one of the Oasis brothers driving his Triumph pick up truck up to another car, climbing out mid-drive and climbing onto the roof of the other car, gaining entrance for a little blood suckage.Not sure why it was called "The Rape of the Vampire". Couldn't remember any rape or even any sex. There are quite a few women walking around with breasts hanging out and wearing see through clothing, however.All up I would've preferred this movie to make sense. I like visually arresting images, but find it more powerful when these images are in service of a plot.

Jean Rollin is a director who certainly divides opinion. Even amongst the horror community his films are at most marginally appreciated. The reason for this is that his movies don't really follow conventions of that genre very much at all. They are usually more interested in capturing surreal imagery than scaring the audience. The atmosphere in these films is less sinister and more melancholic. His movies often owe more to experimental cinema than Hammer horror. That said, Rollin's movies certainly belong in the horror genre. It's just that he uses typical iconography of the genre – vampires, graveyards, crumbling Gothic buildings – in unusual ways. The Rape of the Vampire is his debut feature and while it is atypically filmed in black and white, it is essentially pure Rollin. It's basically a template film and he would rework its basic ideas time and again but mostly with better results.A psychoanalyst visits a château which is inhabited by four vampire sisters. He tries to convince them that they are not in fact vampires at all. An old charlatan seems to be manipulating these women into thinking thus and he eventually turns the local villagers against them. This ends in bloody vengeance. But just as events turn most tragic, in from nowhere enters the Queen of the Vampires. It turns out that these sisters were actually vampires after all.Are you confused? Yeah well, it doesn't entirely make a lot of sense it has to be said! It wouldn't be very unfair to say that it's a somewhat baffling movie overall. It doesn't really have a very coherent plot-line. Or rather it sort of does and then gets mighty confusing as it progresses. This is down to the fact that it was originally a thirty minute short film that Rollin extended to feature length by adding additional material. Part one is called 'The Rape of the Vampire' and part two 'The Vampire Women'. The first half is easily the best. It's much more cohesive with some excellent photography. The second part of the film introduces several new characters, including the Queen of the Vampires. The problem with it is that it feels like it's tagged on primarily to extend the running time, and there isn't enough ideas to do this effectively. It becomes confusing and lacks the overall style of the earlier part.The best way to appreciate the film – and Rollin movies in general – is to just take in the odd atmosphere and bizarre imagery. The plot is not ultimately very important to be honest. Like all of the director's films, this one has pretty bad dialogue and amateur acting. So really there's quite a lot the average viewer needs to overlook if they are going to enjoy one of Rollin's films. This one, like all his films, isn't accessible at all. It's extremely left-field and will understandably irritate many who watch it. But for those of you who have a fondness for the strange style of this horror auteur, well this is where it all started and there is plenty to appreciate. It's not one of his stronger efforts to be fair but it's certainly typical enough.

Rape of the Vampire, The (1968) * 1/2 (out of 4) When one thinks of Jean Rollin there's no doubt that nudity, vampires and lesbian vampires come to mind. This film here was the first of a long running series featuring undead ladies usually doing their evil deeds while naked. The film starts off with a psychologist trying to convince four sisters that there really aren't vampires who have been walking the Earth for two hundred years. After the four of them are killed by the local villagers an evil Queen brings them back to life. The first thirty-minutes of this film, leading up to the sisters being killed, was originally a short film but when Rollin got the extra money he decided to add another hour and turn it into the feature that would become known as THE RAPE OF A VAMPIRE. Anyone familiar with the work of Rollin will agree that there's certainly more style than substance but this early picture contains very little of either one. I will admit that by the time the movie was over I really didn't understand what I had just watched. The first portion of the film is somewhat easy to follow but once we get everything dealing with the Queen then things just get so twisted that you feel as if you've fallen asleep for an hour only to then wake up and not know what you're seeing. I'm going to guess that this thing was shot extremely quickly and perhaps that's why everything feels so rushed. Or, perhaps director Rollin was just scrambling trying to get anything on film to turn this into a feature. Whatever the reasonings, the end result is that there's very little to enjoy in this thing. I thought the second half of the film looked extremely rushed and not a bit of it contained any real style. The earlier section isn't all that much better but I thought some of the cinematography was very good and this helped add a little atmosphere. While there's some nudity in the film it's certainly not as graphic as later films. The performances are all mixed but then again who comes to a Rollin film for performances? THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE will probably have Rollin fans wanting to view it just so they can see where it all started but those new to the director would be best served by checking out on of his later pictures.

After a psychoanalyst unsuccessfully tries to convince four sisters that they are not 200 year old vampires, the Queen of the Vampires (Jacqueline Sieger) promulgates the cause of the Undead.Having watched Jean Rollin's "Nude Vampire" before this, I can say one thing: Rollin works better in black and white. His stark composition recalls some of Roman Polanski's better films (such as "Repulsion") and is just beautiful to look at. While the second half is completely incoherent if we focus on plot (which we should not do with Rollin), the film as a whole has images to show us that cannot be put down.A newspaper at the time of the film's release said "we can only remain puzzled by the intentions of the director, Jean Rollin." Even Rollin himself admitted that it was confusing. He would later say, "Le Viol was a terrible scandal... People were really mad when they saw it. In Pigalle, they threw things at the screen. The principal reason was that nobody could understand the story." But perhaps this is alright? When Luis Bunuel or Salvador Dali release nonsense, it is a work of art... when Rollin does it, we call it "nonsense". Where does one end and the other begin?