Two Orphan Vampires

Two Orphan Vampires
Original Title: Les deux orphelines vampires
Directed by: Jean Rollin
France, 1997
EuroGoth / Horror / Drama, 104min
Distributed by: Njuta Films

In my continuing rediscovery of the great movies of Jean Rollin, I felt that the natural step to go after the fascinating wonder Perdues dans New York (Lost in New York) 1989 was forward - to the stuff that was made after I initially saw those old Redemption videos. I’m certain that the themes and motifs in his catalogue of work all culminate in that splendid movie, and as I consider it somewhat of a bookend which marks an end to Rollin’s exploration of themes and motifs he had used since his 1968 debut Le viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) I was curious to see where he went with these elements when he returned to filmmaking a few years further down the road.

Two young women Louise [Alexandra Pic] and Henriette [Isabelle Teboul], partially blinded reside at an orphanage run by nuns – of course - who know nothing of the two girls background as they where abandoned as children, and Sister Martha [Nathalie Perry] looks at the two women as her little angels. Doctor Dennary [Bernard Charnacé] takes an interest in them and decides that he can help them to regain their sight. Later that night the two girls reveal that they actually only are blind (or colour blind actually) at day, whilst they at night can see and are in fact vampires as they feed on a stray dog in the nocturnal cemetery.

Dr Dennary takes the two girls into his care, but they take off again and at a near by circus a lost woman [Brigitte Lahaie], fails to believe that they are real vampires and provides the two girls with that precious blood the thirst for. Dennary goes away for the weekend leaving the two girls alone, and they obviously hit the town again where their bloodlust get’s the better of them. This childlike night of adventure ends with them being chased by an elderly couple that they scare in the cemetery, forcing them to hide out in a crypt with Venus [Véronique Dajouti] the second of three other night dwellers that they encounter on their way.

A final series of events see the girls taking to hiding back in the orphanage where Sister Martha’s heart is broken as she makes a shocking discovery. Running from the orphanage the farmer they scared at the cemetery earlier returns, and the movie gently moves into a traditional and poetic Jean Rollin climax.

Returning to the Vampire genre after taking a twelve-year absence from it - Fascination 1979 being the last one - there certainly are many things that Rollin could have done here to make Two Orphan Vampires feel like a rehash of vampire clichés. But instead he avoids them and actually takes a complete different path. Normal vampire lore and the rules associated with it are discarded in favour of other strenghts and weaknesses. Where the girls are completely unaffected by the crucifix – they actually start off by living in that catholic orphanage surrounded by nuns, and hide out there when the real world proves to fearsome – they can also wander in the otherwise deadly ultraviolet rays cast down by the sun. But they do have one trait that keeps them somewhat restraint, they cannot see in the sunlight, which has them blind at day and in search of blood at night.

There’s plenty of religious imagery throughout the movie, and the way it holds no power over the girls, along with their disregard for their otherwise traditional values these symbols hold is shown in a neat little scene where Sister Martha kneels before a cross and prays for the two girls who she has just put to bed, then Rollin cuts to the two girls giggling, engaging in a brief pillow fight before they take to the night wandering into a nearby cemetery and feeding off a stray dog. Keep your eyes open for Rollin in a cameo as the cemetery caretaker who later buries the dog.

During the first scene in the cemetery – after we realise that they are vampires – the two girls hold a somewhat philosophical conversation about how they where killed at one point in time, but have come back in their current state. This works as a connection to the earlier vampire flicks of Rollin, linking it with that space created pre Lost in New York - or Fascination if you like, as that was his last vampire film. The two girls hear music playing and dance a waltz on top of a tomb; the music is Phillipe d’Aram’s La Valse Fascinante from the Fascination soundtrack. This is followed by a flashback where the two girls walk across Brooklyn Bridge followed by the first feed of the movie. They also run through the New York locations that the two women in Lost in New York ran though in a montage which att the same time mimics scenes seen in that movie. It's an intelligent montage obviously crafted to bond the movies, hence making them hold a colective place in the Jean Rollin universe. It's not to far fetched to asume that this is what happened to the two girs following the enigmatic climax of Lost in New York. As most of Rollin's movies are contextually linked in several ways, answers to questions posed in earliers films are answered in later entries.

Several of the familiar faces are back once again, and the typical Rollin imagery is here, the cemeteries, chateau's, New York, abandoned railway stations, the looming camerawork and several of his familiar themes. There may not be the persistent theme of “Longing” and “Searching” so commonly found in his work, but there is a strong element of not belonging, which also can be found in the earlier works.

Two Orphan Vampires undoubtedly deals with the theme of not belonging, or not having a place in what may be a reflection on a modern world. This is a theme in addition to "longing" and "searching" which I now see to be of importance in Rollin’s movies, as it reoccurs in several of his pieces. Lèvres du sang (Lips of Blood) 1975, Lost in New York and it’s definitely a core theme to La morte vivante (The Living Dead Girl) 1982 where Françoise Blanchard has serious issues finding her place in the world after returning from the dead as a bloodthirsty ghoul. During their nocturnal endeavours the two girls meet several other creatures of the night which interact with the girls and all make the same claims – they have no place in this world. There’s the She Wolf [Nathalie Karsenty], the Batwoman [Vèronique Djaouti] and finally the Ghoul [Tina Aumont], which you know is the original word for zombie. All of them are anguished characters that have their own stones to bear as they roam the nightly world looking for a peaceful place to be part of.

With the theme of not belonging or alienation in mind there’s an interesting recurrent of discussion whether the girls are in fact live or dead, life versus death that flows through the piece, as they talk several times about their last deaths in their last lives. They are also convinced that they are incarnations of Inca gods, which with a little ethnology understanding could be seen as a form or “not belonging” as the Inca culture only lasted some two hundred years where as the Mayan culture lasted for almost seven hundred years. Despite most of the cover art you will find for the movie, Two Orphan Vampires actually holds a more restrained approach to the nudity at times found in Rollin’s movies. Here he goes more for an emotion of the girls being childlike and naïve, which is noted in the scenes where they look at the book on Inca culture and decide which images in that book represent them. Later they change from claiming that they are goddesses and argue that they are magicians referring to a book of old magic show posters instead. They change their minds, just like children searching for a point of identification in their games.

Finally, Philipe d’Aram’s soundtrack. Like many of the earlier movies he composed scores to for Rollin this definitely has some splendid dreamy and suggestive parts – but at times it get’s very perky and almost too electronic to match the mood and feeling of some scenes, which unfortunately has parts of the score feeling somewhat dated. Although some parts are pure bliss, and it get's the job done.

Based on Rollin’s own pulp novellas – five of them all in all, (one, which I seem to recall being released by Redemption Books back in the nineties) - Two Orphan Vampires at times the films oozes classic Jean Rollin. There are moments evoking those superb movies that make up the wonderful Rollin universe, but at the same time there are parts that are very tedious and drag down the overall feeling of the movie – well at least the parts that get monotonous. This is a shame, as the movie with its whopping 103minute runtime also is the longest of any Rollin movie made and it could have done with a decent trim here and there. The only other movie close is his 1968 debut Le viol du vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) with its 100 min. Perhaps Rollin found the return to vampiric horror such a pleasure that he felt compelled to stay with the material.

Two Orphan Vampires is indeed a qualified entry into the Rollin universe, and despite lacking some of the traits of previous works, its still an entertaining piece that at times evokes the poetry and emotions from his previous works. Two Orphan Vampires is a meditative, tender and delicate piece of film which firmly finds it's place amongst Rollin's cannon, and is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy the older films of the great Jean Rollin.

Two Orphan Vampires is due for release on the 6th of October from Njuta Films.

Grapes of Death

Grapes of Death

Aka: Pestilence

Original Title: La Raisins de la mort

Directed by: Jean Rollin

France, 1978

Horror / Zombies / Psychosis, 85min

Distributed by: Njuta Films / Another World Entertainment.

Often referred to as one of Jean Rollin’s few Zombie movies together with Zombie Lake 1981, and The Living Dead Girl 1982, it's fair to say that Grapes of Death is by far the best of the three movies. Although I feel that Grapes of Death has more in common with Romero’s psychological horror The Crazies 1973, than his zombie classic Night of the Living Dead 1968, because there are really no zombies in the movie! There are buss loads (well a dozen at least) of degenerated psychos that want to kill everyone that they lay eyes on dragging themselves slowly through the movie, with the intent to kill people, but they don’t eat them and they turn before they die.

Grapes of Death has a rather straightforward narrative without any specific complications making it an enjoyable film to wind down to. After a title sequence where we see farmhands spraying the crops at the Roublés vineyard, we are set upon a train where Élisabeth [Marie-Georges Pascal] is on her way to the vineyard run by her boyfriend Michel. The same guy who just told the workers of the title sequence to get back out in the fields as one of them returns to the farm complaining that the pesticide is making him ill. Élisabeth and her travelling companion soon encounter the same worker on the train and he now transforming into a murdering beast due to the insecticide. From this initial kill, Élisabeth’s friend, it’s all about survival, reaching the destination the farmyard and Michel. For as you will realise after the climax, this movie is in a sinister way all about the things you will do for love.

Smaller and larger obstacles are encountered and overcome, with a, for Rollin measures quite small amount of nudity thrown in to keep the audience happy. Élisabeth is constantly surrounded by death and carnage as she sweeps through the wonderful landscapes of Southern France, trying to stay one foot ahead of the infected. She arrives at a farm only to be confronted by the manic farmer, she finds a car and is attacked once again. Up on the woodlands, Élisabeth runs into the blind Lucie [Mirella Rancelot] who is trying to make her way back to the village she comes from. Together they find their way to the village… …only to be learn that the entire village is infected by the strange virus and death comes knocking big time in a really violent sequence which possibly makes this movie the first French splatter flick.

As the infected close in on Élisabeth, she’s saved in the nick of time by a strange ally; Brigitte Lahaie. French adult film star Brigitte Lahaie makes her debut as part of Rollin’s stable of actors with Grapes of Death, and you could consider this movie the breaking point where Lahaie started to shift into movies outside the pornographic sphere. But ironically most parts she ever played after her career in the adult industry where still heavily dependent on her erotic image and saw her on more than one occasion acting in the nude. (Even Fabrice Du Welz has her play on her eroticism in his evocative and disturbing psychological thriller The Ordeal 2004) Jean Rollin at least tried to motivate why she needs to get her clothes of in Grapes of Death as she does it in a semi-seductive manner to prove that she is not infected and has no marks of the disease. Well in reality she has the infection, but no visual scars or gooey boils. But just wait, as she will be hideously disfigured before the scene is over.

After making and loosing new allies along the way, Élisabeth finally reaches the farm, and is reunited with her lover Michel, but in a last twist of fate, tables are turned friends turn into foes, and after the violent climax you find yourself wondering which monster/killer is the most vicious, the ones who do it due to the infection, or the ones who kill for revenge?

With today’s infectious outbreak/zombie flicks, think Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead 2004, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later 2002, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillio’s 28 Weeks Later 2007, the movie is rather slow, but that’s what you would expect from a Jean Rollin movie, a slow pace that relies more on the hypnotic imagery and atmosphere than dark, menacing urban locations with speedy monsters chasing protagonists down narrow hallways.

Considering that more than thirty years have passed since Rollin shot this flick, it’s fair to point out that this could possibly be the first movie with ”fast” zombies/infected, as there is no slow Romero-esque dragging of the legs here. The infection victims are plain people trying to cope with their new state of being. And this is one of the finer points of the movie, up till Élisabeth reaches the village; everyone she meets is torn between their polarised emotions. On one side the lust to kill, on the other a deep regret and frustration over loosing control. This reaches it’s peak as the infected Lucas, decapitates Lucie and crying begs for forgiveness as he snogs the head. It’s a wonderful little detail that isn’t too common in the genre, as you rarely encounter an antagonist with remorse and sorrow of being the monster.

If you boil this flick down to a concentrated form it is a brilliant idea that Jean Rollin with co-writers Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (yes the actor from several Rollin and Jesus Franco movies) and Christian Meunier (who did sod all after writing and shooting for second unit on this movie) have come up with. If you wanted an infection to spread rapidly and aggressively, how best to transport it but through wine, the national drink of France. At the same time there is a smart critique towards the use of toxins in modern agriculture, much like the themes used by Jorge Grau in the superb Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1974.

Just like the Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Grapes of Death has a very interesting and mezmerising score. This one composed by Philippe Sissman, who only ever scored one more film, much later in 1991, but his score to Grapes of Death is interesting because of its minimalistic use of electronica. The almost avant-garde keyboard beep and blips suit the movie perfectly and really bring a futuristic and eerie mood to the film.

Grapes of Death is unlike any other Jean Rollin film, mostly because of the storyline and narrative, that is zombies/infected instead of the usual sexy vampires, and it would be unfair to say that he temporarily shifted away from his usual slow pace and poetic imagery, because in all honesty Grapes of Death is still quite slow, almost meditatively slow, which I why I’m so fond of it. The imagery is still very Rollin-ish, over grown woodlands and castle ruins as the camera almost hovers through the landscapes that he so often returned to. The movie was shot in the Cevennes National Park in Southern France, witch had Rollin and cinematographer Claude Bécognée use the landscapes to the maximum. Shooting under severe cold is never an easy task, and I’m’ sure that you have heard the story of Lahaie being so cold during her nude scene that she couldn’t speak her lines.

You have to keep in mind when you watch Jean Rollin movies, that this is a director that was so terribly shy that he instead chose to focus on themes, imagery and atmosphere in his movies over the acting. Not to say that the actors are bad, but in some way I guess that's why most of his actors are seen in his film only and never again, and the ones he managed to work with, like Lahaie, the twins Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castel to name a few, where used repeatedly in his films. He spent ages researching his movies and drafting the best possible people around him. During the shoots was said to be so shy that he didn't dare direct the actors. Instead he preferred to hide behind the camera, sometimes leaving the set, and letting second unit step in during the adult sequences of his films. There's something in that fragile delicacy and I see a strange paradox to the casts and shyness that fascinates me, as many of Rollin's leading ladies where former adult movie actors whom he offered roles outside of their usual parts in pornography. You wouldn't expect shyness and tenderness from a director so strongly associated with erotic imagery.

The suspense elements are very well composed. Working with great balance Rollin frequently presents the threat, isolates the key characters and keeps the audience in anticipation as he builds the suspense ever so gently, before having it erupt in a gory, gooey and emotional finale in each case. Grapes of Death, is one of my favourite Rollin movies because of this, the threat-build-release schematic works wonders and he really never stays in them long enough for them to grow tiresome, there’s always a new twist or turn as Élisabeth makes new companions that may, or not, help her in her quest to reach her goal and live through it. A wonderful film that definitely should be checked out if you are into that brooding Eurohorror scene of the 70-80’s.

Image:

Anamorphic Widescreen 1.66:1

Audio:

French Dialogue, Dolby Digital Stereo. Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish subtitles optional.

Extras:

The original trailer for Grapes of Death, trailers for Rollin's The Living Dead Girl, Demoniacs, Requiem for a Vampire and the fantastic Lips of Blood, and a slideshow of stills from the movie and even a few scenes not featured in the movie.

The Ordeal

The Ordeal
Original Title: Calvaire
Directed by: Fabrice Du Welz, Belgium/France/Luxembourg, 2004 Drama / Horror, 98min Distributed by: Tartan Video

Story:
A travelling cabaret singer, Marc Stevens [Laurent Lucas] travels France leaving a trail of heartbroken women behind him. One night he has the misfortune of having his car breakdown in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a snowy winter storm. He soon stumbles across Boris [Jean-Luc Couchard] a strange guy looking for his runaway dog. Boris leads Marc to inn-keeper M. Bartel [Jackie Berroyer] who kindly offers to give Marc a room for the night and help him fix his car the following morning. But when Bartel seems more interested in keeping him around for company and trashes his broke down van, Marc starts to realise that this friendly sole has no intention of helping him and his terrifying ordeal is just about to begin.

Me:
This is a really wild and surreal movie to say the least. The journey that Belgian director Du Welz takes us on just gets darker and grimmer the deeper into the plot we get. What starts off as a somewhat cheesy and laughable opening quickly turns full circle and almost has the viewer gasping for air. It's very interesting that Du Welz tries to keep us distanced from Lucas character Marc, who from the start of the movie is arrogant and obnoxious to all the people he performs for, an old woman at the nursing home, and Mademoiselle Vicky [Brigitte Lahaie] the proprietor of the home, who even gives Marc an envelope with nude Polaroid’s of herself to lure him into some carnal pleasures. Even when Bartel has put him up for the night, served him breakfast and praised his angelic singing, Marc is patronizing. Not even the severe warning to keep away from the villagers makes any difference to Marc, he keeps has haughty attitude towards everyone in his surrounding. So when the shit hits the fan and Marc finds himself victim to horrendous abuse and humiliation, we don't feel sorry for him. We almost feel sympathetic towards Bartel and even Boris instead, which makes it harder to watch the torture that falls upon Marc. It's a very exciting approach which Du Welz manages to pull off, and it emphasizes the distance that we put between Marc and his ordeal. The closeness and love that the characters in the first quarter of the movie crave for is eventually force upon Marc and he has no where to go but into submission. The idea of Bartel transforming Marc into his ex wife is strange enough as it is, but the addition of the surreal village consisting only of men, and Robert Orton's [Phillipe Nahon] jealousy because Bartel's wife came back to him, yes Bartel's wife, not even Orton sees Marc as Marc any more, only the guise of Bartel's ex-wife, just take's it over the top. There are small scale events and larger scale events reflecting upon each other all through the movie which I found very fascinating too, Boris always looking for his lost dog, takes one of the villager’s calf which in his eyes is his dog, and his disillusion satisfy his needs. Bartel sees Marc as his ex wife who once was unfaithful to him with Orton, who also sees Marc as Bartel's wife, it's the same again, their disillusions satisfy their wants. Even tough it is a violent film, Du Welz keeps most of it off-screen and utilises reliable ways to create disturbing scenes which remind me of movies like Straw Dogs 1971, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974, and Misery 1990, and at the same time there's a dark comedic undertow throughout the entire movie which adds to the uncomfortable feeling that the movie evokes when you watch it. It's so bizarre that you want to laugh, but at the same time it's so bizarre that it scares you. It's tricky but it works and it makes an amazingly twisted movie.

Image:
The presentation is an Anamorphic 2.35:1 version, and the colours are wonderful. Lots of dark darks, strong reds and a cold winter grey look to the movie. English subtitles are available.

Audio:
Three tracks available, dts Digital surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0.

Extras:
Very sparse with the extras, but here you get quality instead of quantity. There's a half-hour Junket/featurette interview with director Du Welz who talks about the movie, it's background, his influences and his reflections on the movie, the original trailer and then Du Welz equally twisted short movie Quand on est amoureux c'est merveilleux 1999 [A Wonderful Love] about Lara [Edith Lemerdy] a lonely woman who will stop at nothing to be loved. It’s a dark, comedic and grotesque tale of violence, love and desire, which plays in the manner of Jörg Buttgereits Nekromantik 1987. Great stuff.