This was my first Jean Rollin movie, having come across his name on related searches on Amazon and seen his name mentioned in conjunction with Jess Franco, I thought I'd take the plunge. Firstly, this is really low budget stuff, not quite z-grade, but sub b-grade. However, even with obvious limitations Rollin seems to be able to produce one atmospheric, visually engaging shot after another, his use of color reminds me a little bit of Ken Russell. Any notion of plot goes out the window fairly quickly, we're treated to some preliminaries concerning a couple on their honeymoon, but this rapidly degenerates (evolves) into random shots of women in various states of undress wandering though smokey castles and graveyards, in one famous scene, a woman emerges from a Grandfather Clock. On the downside, Rollin seems to have a thing for over-loud, annoying and repetitive sound effects, he often uses these to ruin a perfectly good scene right at the end. Overall there is more to like than dislike here, it's no 'Vampyros Lesbos', but definitely worth seeking out if you're a fan of the whole 70s Lesbian Vampire sub-genre.

Shiver of the Vampires, The (1971)** 1/2 (out of 4) Jean Rollin's third vampire film follows a honeymooning couple, Isa (Sandra Julien) and Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand), as they travel to the castle of her cousins. Once they arrive they only find a couple female servants and they are told that the cousins died the night before. It doesn't take long for strange things to start happening including the so-called dead cousins coming back. Following THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE and THE NUDE VAMPIRE, I think most people would agree that this is the film where director Rollin started to show what good things he was working up to. This film here is certainly far from a good movie but there are several interesting aspects that make it worth viewing and there many elements that you can see the director working with and he would eventually perfect these in upcoming films. The most impressive thing here is the style in the film. One certainly isn't going to mistake the style of Rollin with someone like Mario Bava or Dario Argento but what's so unique is that this French director was able to do something rather original and all his own. What's so impressive about Rollin's style is that it almost seems so lifeless but when you consider that he's dealing with the undead, this perfectly fits the films. Just look at the way he shoots all the stuff with the living. The majority of the interior shots all look as if they were filmed on faded film stock as the walls seem as if they were bleached and the skin tones are also very light. Compare these to the scenes when the dead are ruling things and you'll see Rollin using beautiful, haunting colors and there's some terrific stuff in the cemetery with some vivid reds that really jump out. Of course, this being a Rollin picture, the nudity levels were starting to rise at this point, which I'm sure is going to sit very well with the male viewers. Not only is Julien extremely beautiful but she gives a pretty good performance as well. Marie-Pierre Castel and Kuelan Herce play the seductive maids and, as you'd expect, they're certainly easy on the eyes but they too offer up fine performances. The nudity here on full display from start to finish and the director also manages to make quite a bit of it very erotic. The one major flaw with the picture is that it runs 96-minutes and it almost feels as long as Abel Gance's NAPOLEON. The pacing of the picture is a very big flaw because it moves so slow that there will be times where you think the thing is almost over and then you realize that you've only been watching for a matter of minutes. You'll then feel as if it's almost over, check the time and then realize it's only been a few minutes since you last checked. The pacing issues aside, overall this is a rather impressive mix of horror and eroticism that fans of Rollin will certainly want to check out.

Perhaps it's a matter of personal taste, or the lack thereof; I love Jean Rollin movies, and this Rollin film in particular I've seen several times. Of all the European erotic horror of the sixties and seventies, Rollin's movies most effectively maintain a certain morbid psychedelic vibe, a genuinely Gothic atmosphere, which most of his peers' work only captures fitfully, at best. "Shiver of the Vampires" was the movie that firmly established my fondness for this entire genre; and if it sounds interesting to you, do yourself a favor and seek it out, especially the Redemption DVD, which is gorgeously mastered from (according to the liner notes) the director's own print.

It seems axiomatic that the more cruddy a movie is, the more variant titles it will collect along its merry way, and this pretentious, self-conscious mix of "horror" and "sex" is tedious, dreary and almost embarrassing in its desperate attempt to appear "meaningful". With hammy acting and posturing substituting for emotional expression, what little plot development there is, gets padded by longeurs which, whilst evidently intended to convey some kind of "significance", merely provoke a yawn and a glance at the clock. What this film seemed to be aiming for, and so miserably failed to achieve, was so much more successfully captured in DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, so, give this one a miss, and fast-forward to that title instead if you want a vampiric theme pregnant with dark sensuality and sexual energy.