The Rape of the Vampire

[lordofdance]

I don't know if there are consistent factors to look for that might give someone an idea of how weird a movie is going to be, but I'm going to submit these three: It's the director's first movie, it's French and it was made in the late 60's. Or maybe just that it was directed by Jean Rollin.

As I was watching The Rape of the Vampire, I became frustrated because I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. It's supposed to be a "melodrama in two parts" according to opening credits, with the first part clocking in at about half-an-hour. At about that point, I was so thouroughly perplexed at what I had seen thus far that I thought I had unwittingly gotten myself involved with some kind of experimental/surrealist movie. I didn't know a whole lot about the directer Jean Rollin, so I stopped the movie and looked him up just to make sure I wasn't going nuts. Sure enough, Jean Rollin turned out to be one of those directors that didn't have much use for conventional storytelling. All I had heard about him was that he directed erotic vampire movies. I had no clue that he directed, more specifically, erotic vampire movies that didn't make any sense.

From what I could tell, the first part had something to do with these three psychoanalysts trying to convince a group of vampire women that they weren't really vampires, but were just being fooled into thinking that they were vampires. They argue about it back and forth, and then everybody gets shot. The second part then gets rolling, which involves a vampire queen and her minions prowling around. There's some kind of clinic or something were this guy is trying to make an anti-vampirism serum, too. (I apologize for not explaining this better, but it's like trying to recall a dream that I only half remember.)

I don't know. I guess The Rape of the Vampire has some interesting images, but most of the time it seems like the high school drama club decided to get together for a weird extracurricular improv marathon with some drunk band members providing the musical score. True, there's lots of female nudity in The Rape of the Vampire, but those drama girls can get pretty wild at the cast parties. It probably wouldn't be too hard to talk a few of them into taking it all off under the right circumstances.

Cruelty ***
Grossness **1/2
Overall Disturbing Content *** (does incomprehensibleness count?)
Nudity ***
Film Quality **1/2