The Rape of the Vampire
(Le Viol du vampire, 1968)

Jean Rollin

France

91 min, B&W, French (English subtitles)

Review © 2005 Branislav L. Slantchev

A bewildering fantastique film that showcases all of Rollin's peculiarities that make some viewers hate his work and others swear by it. In the good corner, we can marvel at his superb eye for composition, his ability to invoke a strange, semi-delirious gothic feel, his choppy editing that makes the logical discontinuity in the narrative work, his strange taste in music that somehow manages to carry even the oddest scenes. In the bad corner, we have hammy acting, over-the-top dialogue, inane sensibilities, and an adolescent penchant for undressing women under just about any circumstances one can imagine. Oh wait, move that last one to the good corner.

The vampire afraid of light	Brigitte, the sophisticated Parisian

The Rape of the Vampire is Rollin's first full-length feature and it was based on his short film which now appears as the first segment in this self-conscious melodrama. The story goes that the producer was so impressed with that short that Rollin apparently filmed on lunch money that he financed expanding it into a real film. The result still carries the stigmata origins although I am not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. As it is, the first segment is by far the stronger one both because it does not attempt to make much sense of what's going on, and because it succeeds in creating this dream-like mood that works best with the subject matter.

The four sisters on the knoll	Violence is an ever-close potential

And what is this subject matter? Well, there are four sisters who live together in a ruined château. They may or may not be vampires although they certainly think they are. One of them thinks she was raped by villagers decades ago (and we see what could be interpreted as either flashbacks or extemporaneous visualization of their alleged past) and she is blind. Another is afraid of sunlight, and all react violently to crucifixions. They are all manipulated by a sinister old man who alternates between admonishing them to kill newcomers that threaten their exposure and groping their naked breasts. In addition, the four seem to worship a bestial idol in the forest who speaks to them with a disembodied voice.

The sister loyal to their unseen master	Thomas discussing his insanity theory

The newcomers are three Parisians who have come to the countryside to investigate the four sisters. They do not believe in vampires. Thomas is a psychoanalyst who is determined to free the poor creatures from their madness which he believes has been induced by the superstition of the villagers who have essentially driven the confused women insane with their religious symbols and persecution. He is quick to demonstrate to the women that crosses do nothing to them, that sunlight does not harm them, and that even the blind one can actually see. He takes all of this to be the rational proof that their vampirism is nothing but a fantasy. When one of the women succumbs to his charms, the old man orders another one to kill the Parisians, and when that fails, he unleashes the peasants who brutally murder all the women they can find, which unfortunately includes Brigitte (one of the newcomers).

The source of the disembodied voice revealed	Brigitte, killed by the peasants

In the ensuing melee, Thomas asks his lady friend to bit him as if she were a real vampire and when she does, he discovers to his amazement that she is indeed one. All his ratiocination, all his logic, all of his smug self-assurance that had driven him to pity them, all of this evaporates in an instant as he stands in the middle of the room, swinging slightly, with two punctures in his neck. It would seem that he had been misled by his own preconceptions---by the notions that society has for the vampire, notions as unreal and incorrect as anything scared people would come up with to protect their cherished beliefs. Ironically, in his attempt to free the women from what he believed to be society-imposed insanity, his cure was based on society-imposed blindness, and so little wonder that it fails.

Exposing what he thinks are false memories	The Vampire Queen and the unhappy subject

The two manage to elude their persecutors and flee to the beach but are shot in the back by Thomas's friend who is distraught by Brigitte's death. This ends the first segment and the first 30 minutes of the film. What follows descends into gratuitous exhibitionism, ill-advised sadism, and a somewhat mystifying attempt to provide a backstory to the entire thing. What used to be an elegy to ancient powers misunderstood both by peasants and by those who wield them now turns into pedestrian schlock, complete with medical experiments, a lesbian Vampire Queen, an attempt to save the vampiric race by procreating with some women specifically prepared for that purpose, and two idiotic minions (the brunette dressed all in black, and the blonde dressed all in white) whose incompetence is only rivaled by their perpetual horniness.

Having just resurrected in resentment	The B&W minions torturing the blind vamp

Briefly, the Vampire Queen arrives on a boat and beaches on the rough sands where the dead couple lies. She commands her hooded cohort to grab the old man and pin him down to a slab of rock. She then proceeds to sacrifice him, or at least that's what it looks like, with her peering ominously at him, and then licking what we should presume is his blood from the blade. She instructs the leading minion woman to dismember the two corpses in order to ensure that they do not come back to life and leaves. The woman, however, fails to carry out her instructions because, as we shall later find out, she is in rebellion against the queen.

Pseudo-science to the rescue?	Just a moody shot of a dying vampire

Wouldn't you know it, the blood oozing from the dead old man finds its way onto the naked (why?) corpses of the couple and revives them. He is somewhat unhappy with the turn of events: whereas resurrection is good, having to exist by drinking blood does not seem that appealing. He and his lady companion also decide to revolt although we are never quite told where they get the clothes. At any rate, we are now introduced to a doctor who runs a demented clinic under the supervision of the Vampire Queen. He does not appear to be undead himself although his trusted assistant certainly is: she happens to be the woman in revolt. Said doctor also resents the fate of eternal bloodsucking and has been secretly working on an antidote to the vampiric bacteria (yes, we are told in the film that it involves some bacterium).

Totally gratuitous sadism	Brigitte about to die of rationality

In the meantime, the vampires abduct Brigitte's body from the cenotaph and Thomas later discovers the apparently alive former girlfriend in his apartment. He, of course, does not buy her explanation (which amounts to claiming that he has imagined their entire trip) but instead follows her to the hospital where he finds her listening to an instructional tape while two (naturally, naked) women stand behind blood-coolers sucking on long straws (don't ask). He stops the tape and instantly kills Brigitte who is not yet undead so she needs the vocal sustenance of her mistress. Again, this guy is the instrument of destruction although this time around he did it unwittingly, simply not knowing what an attempt to free the unformed undead could do to her precarious existence.

Having realized what he's done	The odd marriage ceremony

Meanwhile, the doctors' plot is uncovered but nothing much comes out of it, with the Vampire Queen staging a touching ceremony to marry the renegade doctor to his assistant, although she first has her minions strip (naturally) that assistant and whip her mercilessly on the beach. Of course, the malcontents have not actually bowed to her rule, and so the revolution explodes in what looks like a shootout from a gangster film, which ends with lots of undead actually dead, and the Vampire Queen poisoned. However, when the doctor administers the antidote to his assistant, she dies too. Apparently, removing the vampire from the human is impossible without killing her in the process. Again we are told that the rational can only doom a soul that has been exposed to the fantastic. Not original by any means, but a nice touch nonetheless. In an ending worthy of Poe, Thomas and his lady friend wall themselves inside a cellar to await death: they do not wish to feed on the living but are afraid that if they stay free, their unquenchable thirst will eventually drive them to murder. So they sacrifice themselves instead, ending their freedom in each other's arms.

Perishing from killing the vampiric	The challenge to the fate of a vampire

The Redemption DVD is atrocious. The glorious black and white looks like it was made in the 1930s (and perhaps that was part of the intent if not the lack of money), but that's not really the problem. The scratches, the grain, and the noise, all contribute to an essentially flat presentation that does not do justice to a film that would have benefited from a luminous restoration. The 1.66:1 aspect ratio (non-anamorphic) is the only bright spot, so to speak. The French soundtrack itself is muffled with occasional drops but at least it is not that distracting. The barebones disc comes with an untranslated French trailer of subterranean quality, and a worthless gallery of stills. Unfortunately, since this is the only way to see this early Rollin film (and see it you must), this DVD is the way to go. Better than muddy nth-generation VHS copy, at least.

December 3, 2005