Review for Requiem for a Vampire

Dontcha just love horror movies from the early seventies? Having inched its way through genuine scare 'em tactics in the 40's to a gentle but inevitable exploration of the dark eroticism of vampirism, for example, in the sixties, the genre settled for a brief period of unapologetic tittilation, particularly in the hands of European directors like Jess Franco (The Female Vampire) and Jean Rollin. Indeed, Rollin virtually dispensed with plot altogether in his poetic and meditative appreciation of all things darkly erotic.


Which is why I was really looking forward to seeing 'Requiem for a Vampire'. Having enjoyed 'Lips of Blood' and 'Shiver of the Vampires', I had always assumed that 'Requiem' would be a cornerstone of the trilogy. To some degree it is. After all, there's plenty of studied and stylised vampiric lesbianism here. There is also the utterly brilliantly selected location (a large dilapidated castle somewhere in the wilds of a hilly French countryside). And plenty of blood-sucking too which is more an illustration of sexual ecstasy than it is frightening.


In 'Requiem' two seventies babes (in clown make up?) run away from unknown attackers who shoot and kill their driver. No point in ruminating on this - it's one of many mysteries that never get resolved, giving credence to the idea that Rollin just filmed sequences he liked and glued them together in almost random order in the edit.


The girls end up in woods that lead to an abandoned chateau, and they decide, despite its creepiness that it would make an ideal spot to go to sleep (together, naked …of course). However, the place is crawling with vampires who discover the virginal girls in their midst and are soon in something of a frenzy as a result.





Though the film has sub-titles, it really doesn't need them. The movie plays out with virtually no dialogue. With so slight a plot, it's pretty easy to follow the action without.


Though watching pretty girls in short skirts run up and down the stone steps of a chateau is a perfectly acceptable way of passing the first half of the movie, it is this repetition and singularity of vision that have given Rollin's detractors their greatest critique of the man. In their view, his films are slow and boring. If white knuckle ride action is what you're after then, true enough, this film is not for you. However, if, like me, you find the prospects of a dreamlike, soporific, almost poetically hypnotic vision of the vampire genre an attractive prospect then the film delivers in spades.


Eventually, they discover the vampire den and that's when things go from dark to darker. Taken as a slow motion drift through a darkly hypnotic dreamscape, the film works extremely well. However - Rollin fans be warned. This transfer looks as dreadful as my other Redemption releases, probably from about a decade ago. No remedial work has been done since earlier outings. Though anamorphic, the quality is wildly variable - which means the transfer was fine, though the print damaged, and quite badly in places.


There are trailers for other Redemption gems but little else worthy of note - unless stills, theatre posters and a video of 'The Nun's White Slaves' music video (featuring members of the Satanic Sluts) do it for you.