Need to close off this fun project on a high note.
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| The "maids" (the "vampires' servants") having a little "them time" |
I haven’t went into too much depth, but the gist of the plot
has a newly married couple passing through a decadent village, Isa (the
gorgeous red head, Sandra Julien, who could spend the whole movie naked and I
wouldn’t mind…although she does spend a good majority of it naked, so, yay for
me!) and Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand). Isa wants to visit her cousins, but she
soon learns from a woman in mourning, Isabelle (Nicole Nancel) that they’re
dead. At the castle in the village, the couple encounter two young women who
seem to live there, but their loyalty belongs to vampires they soon learn. Isa
is introduced to lesbian vampire, Isolde (Dominique), and she’s bitten on the
throat. The rest of the film has us following the couple, wondering if they are
doomed to be eventual members of the undead. You often see Marie-Pierre Castel
and Kuelan Herce mentioned as “maids” in the castle, but I just recognize them
as servants for the “masters of the castle”.
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| Yes, there is actually a library with a passage into it. |
Rollin’s film has the château and cemetery for proper
scenery, and as you might expect tragedy stops by to visit the characters in
the film, not just as a tourist but an active participant. Pretty much everyone
suffers by film’s end, including Antoine who just can’t rescue his damsel from
the “fury of the bite”.
I realize some will laugh heartily at the hippie garb the
cousins decide to rock for us, and when you are expected to be invested in the
welfare of Isa as they reach out, calling for her to “join them” as the sun
begins emerging from its rest, that might be a distraction. Additional hippie
scoring to the film perhaps doesn’t help the gravitas of the melodramatic
tragedy. Rollin returns to his favorite beach (near Dieppe) time and again, so the
fact that the film’s significant scene is featured there should be of no
surprise to those who have an affinity for the director. This beach, often so
important to Rollin as it serves as the tragic locale of melancholy so many of
his characters fatally find themselves, could be looked at as the ultimate
harbinger of doom…if the beach emerges in his films, death seems to follow.
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| A peek and a smile |
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| Vampire Cousins |
The conclusion is somewhat surprising considering usually
vampire slaves are seemingly unavailable emotionally to combat the power of
their masters, but the two slaves are able to do so, urged by Antoine who is
desperate to save his beloved wife from the grasp of her cousins and Isolde.
They realize with his comment of their freedom if initiating a rebellion (the
scourge of the crucifix and the ensuing sunlight’s danger to them, including
the burning of a coffin) that this could be the chance to escape. The
revelation that the vampires were once vampire hunters is rather a twist of
irony: Rollin uses a turning camera in a single “dinner room” to get the conversation
between the hippie vampires and Antoine (it is a technique that could perhaps
cause motion sickness, but I thought it was rather an amusing visual touch to
toy around with how two communicate to another without the typical shot of all
in the same frame; plus, there is movement of the hippie vampires about the
room, along with the finishing each other’s sentences).
I found Isa’s descent rather fascinating. I couldn’t decide
if her embracing the “family” was voluntary or caused by Isolde’s vampire lure
which might have been too powerful to resist. Yet, Antoine does resist and
never falls prey to the draw of the vampire. Isa even seems to accept her fate
willingly so she could always eternally be with her cousins forever (they are her
only family, although Antoine appeals to her that *he* is her family). There’s
a rather intriguing scene (I thought exceptionally shot) where Isa eyes
lustfully a dead, bloody pigeon (shot dead by Antoine, who mistook the bird for
an intruder). Instead of taking the bird’s blood completely, she gets a taste
and then takes the bird to Isolde’s casket, almost opening it…Isolde stops her
due to the sunlight’s danger to her. At the end, Isa allows her cousins to
totally undress her, bite from her, and fondle her: only the sun itself stops
this from going into a sexual encounter that Antoine was mortified but unable
to halt. Through it all, it seems Antoine had nothing (including his own love)
to persuade his bride against joining her family and Isolde. Running about the
beach near Dieppe, Antoine begs for Isa to not leave him (once the sun emerges,
the family disappears), totally lost to hysteria. The disappearance of the
vampires could be criticized for its cheap special effect, but I get that
Rollin was left with little alternative due to no money available (and it was
made in 1970, after all). It was probably his only viable option. Isolde’s fate
is rather romanticized: her casket burning, the tomb’s gate closed on her by
the slaves, with a crucifix placed at its opening, there was nowhere to turn.
Isolde takes her own life by biting the very hand they fed her!
Final Rating:***½ / *****
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