Jean Rollin

  • Jean Rollin – Les Pays Loin AKA The Far Country (1965)

    1961-1970ArthouseFranceJean RollinShort Film

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    LES PAYS LOIN was Jean Rollin’s second short film. It was never screened in the cinema-or even film festivals- until years after it was made and, even then, on extremely rare occasions. This Encore release is the first opportunity that almost anyone has had to see this early work. The film is a science fiction piece in which a man and a woman are lost in a maze of streets and can’t remember how they got there. When they do make it out onto the busy, populated streets, things are no better. The landmarks are unfamiliar and the people speak a strange language. Even at this very early stage, one can already see the themes of loneliness and melancholy, and a yearning for release that are trademarks of Rollin characters throughout his entire body of work.Read More »

  • Jean Rollin – Les Amours Jaunes (1958)

    1951-1960DramaFranceJean RollinShort Film

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    Synopsis:

    Cult director Jean Rollin’s first film was this 12-minute, black-and-white short inspired by a poem by Tristan Corbiere. Filmed on weekends in 35mm on an old Maurigraphe camera borrowed from Rollin’s job at a newsreel company, the short contains footage of Rollin’s friends at the cliffs of Dieppe, readings of Corbiere’s poem, and some Fabien Loris drawings. Rollin made a few more shorts and false starts over the next decade before completing his first narrative feature, Le Viol du Vampire, in 1968. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Jean Rollin & Julian de Laserna – Le lac des morts vivants AKA Zombie Lake (1981)

    1981-1990CultFranceHorrorJean Rollin

    In a small lakeside town in the French countryside, young women are disappearing without a trace. The superstitious locals blame “The Lake of Ghosts,” but the town’s mayor (Howard Vernon) seems reluctant, or powerless, to take any action. When another girl is found with her throat ripped out, a Paris reporter begins to uncover the deadly secrets of the lake and the dead, green-faced Nazis who are aroused to action!
    Read More »

  • Jean Rollin – La comtesse Ixe AKA The Countess X (1976)

    1971-1980EroticaFranceJean Rollin

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    Rollin creates a scenery in an aristocratic atmosphere where a group of friends come together to have a party. However in the woods surrounding the castle a kleptomaniac is hiding and waiting to take advance of the partygoers. She introduces herself as countess Ixe a lady that nobody knows but with a legendary life. Legendary because she often dances naked in front of her guests. The thief however wants to go a bit further and poisons the champagne with an aphrodisiac so that in no time all partygoers are deeply involved in a big orgy. Meanwhile the real countess Ixe arrives on the scene… A masked burglar (Rachel Mhas) roams the house in search of papers. She finds the papers, but is discovered and flees into the woods. Later the burglar gatecrashes a cocktail party at the house, drugs the drinks, and turns it into an orgy so that she can steal from the guests. But she is spotted in the act of spiking the drinks by one of the guests, who keeps his mouth shut until later.
    The Countess X” is one of the finest classics from the golden age of French porn. Beautifully shot on 35mm film, it and features some of the best actors and actresses from the period. This release of ”Countess X” was restored from the original negatives in HD-quality, making this the best possible version of the film.Read More »

  • Jean Rollin – Vierges et vampires aka Requiem for a Vampire aka Caged Virgins (1971)

    1971-1980CultEroticaFranceJean Rollin

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    Quote:
    Eloquent, expressive and altogether haunting, Jean Rollin’s fourth feature film,
    1971’s Vierges et Vampires (Requiem for a Vampire) shows him as an artist totally in control of his own art and totally separate from anyone else in cinema before or since.Read More »

  • Jean Rollin – Le frisson des vampires aka Shiver of the Vampires (1971)

    1971-1980CultEroticaFranceJean RollinQueer Cinema(s)

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    Quote:
    Jean Rollin’s third feature film Le Frisson des Vampires, alternately known as Thrill of the Vampires, Shiver of the Vampires and Sex and the Vampire, is one of the key works in his impressive filmography. A perfect melding of all of Rollin’s thematic obsessions, Le Frisson des Vampires is the director’s first masterpiece and one of his greatest achievements.Read More »

  • Jean Rollin – Le viol du vampire aka The Rape of the Vampire (1968)

    1961-1970ArthouseCultFranceJean Rollin

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    Quote:
    Three strangers arrive at a chateau inhabited by four women believed to be vampires. But are they vampires or are they under the hypnotic machinations of an old man? Rollin shot the first part of this film as a short subject to be billed with an American vampire film bought by a distributor that just over an hour (it too was designed for double billing). His producers were impressed with what he accomplished with next to nothing and asked him to expand the film to feature length. Thus, the first half hour (part one) is an intriguing short that makes the most of its found locations, make-shift production design, and available lighting (and a very early example of a turntable effect around two arguing actors to heighten the intensity of the scene). The second half (which necessitates resurrecting several of the characters that were killed at the end of the first and introduces the Queen of the Vampires played by Jacqueline Seiger (who was an instructor at Felix Guattari’s anti-psychology clinic at the time). Lacking the structure of the first part, the near-plotless remaining hour allows Rollin to cram in an entire serial’s worth of car chases, mad doctors, vampires, fist fights, and gun fire as well as several more arresting – and iconic in the Rollin oeuvre – images to bring the short to feature length. Part 2 features also Olivier Martin (the protagonist of Rollin’s LE VAMPIRE NUE – forthcoming from Redemption USA) and, despite his large role in the part, an uncredited Jean-Loup Philippe (co-writer and star of Rollin’s LEVRES DE SANG).Read More »

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