October Horror Movie Challenge: The Demoniacs (1974) and Red Scream Vampyres (2009)

Every year I try to work in at least one Jean Rollin film. They are usually not great but usually fairly fun. Tonight's choice is one that has also been on my list for a bit and thanks to fine folks at Redemption, I now have my own copy.

The Demoniacs (1974)

We begin the movie with an introduction to a group of "Wreckers" I guess these were people that would shine lights out into the sea at night to "wreck" ships on the rocks and steal their cargo.  The Captain, Le Bosco, Paul, and the "beautiful but perverted" Tina.

After a recent wrecking, two young women survive and come to shore where they are brutalized by the Wreckers.  

The crew heads to the village brothel to drink, and the Captain gets all weird and paranoid.  They decide to go back to the wreck and kill the women.  They set fire to ship but never find the bodies.

The girls, believed to be dead, make a deal with the Devil, who is locked in an old castle for some reason, to have the power they need to get revenge.   Of course to give them the power he has to have sex with them.

Though I am not exactly what power he gives them.  They find the Wreckers, but it seems they are brutalized some more and all six die in the end.

Well.  I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been Jeunes filles impudiques, aka Schoolgirl Hitchhikers, which was just dreadful.

Red Scream Vampyres (2009)

Caught this one streaming after I was done with the Demoniacs BluRay.  Needed something a little newer. Well. I am really disappointed and should have gone to bed instead. 

Earlier I was complaining about the "Daughters of the Craft" movies. Well, I'd take the worst Craft remake here over this bottom basement "Vampyres" remake. I have seen terrible remakes of Vampyers before, this one is unwatchable.

October 2021
Viewed: 38
First Time Views: 25

October Movie: Les deux orphelines vampires (1997)

You would think I had nothing left to say about Jean Rollin or he would have nothing left to say about vampires.
You would be wrong on both counts!

Les deux orphelines vampires or The Two Orphan Vampires surprised me on a number of levels.

For starters it was much newer that I thought it was.  It was also bigger budget, though not by much.  It also gave us another twist on the vampire story.
In this one two girls, Henriette and Louise, are blind orphans living in a Catholic orphanage.  But these girls have a secret, they are only blind during the day.  But at night they can see and they hunt for food.

The girls seem to recall past lives, of being in New York and other places, and they are the same; blind vampires.

They get adopted. They meet what we suppose is a werewolf woman and later another, but different sort of vampire.  The girls imply, but never really confirm, that they are Aztec Goddess that remember great blood sacrifice.

I like the link to the Aztecs and being blind during the day, really neat touch.

Rollin regular Brigette Lahaie makes a cameo appearance which is cool.
All in all I rather liked this one.

Tally: Watched 24,  New 20

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October Movie: Requiem pour un Vampire (1971)

Still on my Jean Rollin kick.  I have one more after this.  Requiem pour un Vampire or
Requiem for a Vampire is an interesting flick.  It features Marie-Pierre Castel without her sister as a thief that hides out in an old castle with her accomplice  Mireille Dargent.  Her they discover a bunch of degenerate men, a couple of vampire women and an old vampire.
The vampires try to bring them into their vampire cult saying that the old vampire is the last true vampire and he is changing the women.
Lots of scenes of near pornographic content makes this one of the more hard core of Rollin's movies I have seen so far (though I do know there are others that cross that line).

The idea of the last vampire in interesting and I'll give Rollin credit, he goes down this vampire road many times, but it is always a little different each time.

Again, not a particularly scary movie but it does have a cool art-house vibe to it.

Tally: Watched 23,  New 19

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October Movie: Lèvres de Sang (1975)

Lèvres de Sang or Lips of Blood is another Jean Rollin Vampire movie.  Like his previous works this one features a lot vampires, lots of nudity, the Castel twins and like La Vampire Nue, a story that doesn't get interesting till the end.

The story focuses on Frédéric. He is at a party for a photographer and notices a castle in one of the photos. He flashes back to a time when he was 12 and was lost. He found this castle and a girl, Jennifer, helped him.   He complains to his mother that he can't remember anything from his childhood since his father died.
He seeks out the photographer (ie more excuses for Rollin to film young women nude. Mind you, I approve) and she says she can't tell him the castle, but if he comes to the aquarium she will tell him.
Meanwhile four mostly naked female vampires are roving about town and killing people.

Frédéric goes at the Aquarium, which turns out to be a movie theater; (bad translation maybe?) We do get a nice little 1975 version of the Easter Egg.

He sees what he thinks is Jennifer but he doesn't catch her.  Later he finds out she isn't Jennifer, only pretending to be (she is later killed by the vampires).  He is then chased by a man with a gun (whom the vampire girls kill), he finds the dead photographer and is even put into a psych ward by his own mother.  The Castel Twins (Vampires, nach) kill the psychiatrist and Frédéric gets away.  During all this time he sees visions of the real Jennifer.

We find out that Jennifer is a vampire and the other four are her vampire minions.   Frédéric's mother and father tried to kill them but only managed to seal them up. Fred's father is killed by Jennifer.

For what ever reason the villagers are now not afraid of the vampires and hunt down and kill the four girls.  Frédéric is the one that must kill Jennifer.  They throw the bodies in a fire and Frédéric tosses in Jennifer's head.   We soon discover the the head was from a statue and Jennifer is still in her coffin.  Many scenes of Jennifer telling Frédéric that they belong to each other now which I guess must be done while both of them are standing on a beach naked.

They climb into Jennifer's coffin and let the tide take them out to sea where they will live on an island and feed on rich sailors.

I thought the bit where Jennifer was trapped but projecting her astral self out to lead Fred to her was kind of cool.

Special shout out to Fascination: The Jean Rollin Experience for providing me a list of "must see" for this year.

Tally: Watched 22,  New 18

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October Movie: La Vampire Nue (1969)

An odd French movie.  Men is weird masks hunt down a nearly naked girl and shoot her.
We see another girl kill herself in front of the supposed dead girl who now gets up to drink her blood.

This movie has all the trappings of a horror film but I thin it might actually be more Sci-Fi.  The girl is believed to be a vampire (the "Nude Vampire" of the title) and is kept a prisoner by these scientists (the men in masks) who experiment on her and feed her blood from a suicide cult.

The lead scientist's son discovers all of this and falls in love with the girl.

For me the movie did not get interesting till the very end.  Turns out the girl, the son and some others (including Jean Rollin staples the Castel twins) are mutants and represent the next stage of human evolution.  They are immortal and time travelers it seems.   I liked the bit about the older couple sitting out in front welcoming Georges (the son), it was like they had seen this same exchange 1,000 of times.  Maybe the exact same exchange.

So as a vampire movie it was weak and I was ready to write it off.  It was slow, but the end redeemed it and made it far more enjoyable.

Tally: Watched 21,  New 17

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October Challenge: Le Frisson des Vampires (1971)

Le Frisson des Vampires (1971)

Oh. Jean Rollin, you tempt me so.  I enjoyed Fascination and was hoping for something similar here.

I did get something similar here, but this one was not quite as good as Fascination.
Also known as "The Shiver of the Vampires" or "Thrill of the Vampire" this movie features plenty of blood, nudity, lesbian overtones and implied incest. So everything you would expect from a Jean Rollin film.
The film follows the familiar ground of two young lovers coming upon a castle, in this case the castle of the young bride's cousins.  They hear the cousins are dead but go up to the castle anyway.  Here they encounter two servant girls that tell them their Masters will be along soon.  The cousins appear and oddly no one seems shocked.  But then again no one was shocked either at the supposed human sacrifice either.
Isla, the bride, is targeted by a vampire, Isolde that must have been the one that also converted her cousins (who were also former Vampire hunters).  The two servant girls spend most of their time naked or nearly so, oh and they are also lovers.

The movie itself has a lot of issues.  Consitent plot is only the minor one.  Frankly I found myself not really caring for these characters really at all.  Plus the story was a bit dull to be honest. The cinematography was odd with the constant spinning around, but the sets were very cool. Together it did give you the feeling of being somewhere else or even somewhen else.

Plus I was distracted on how much Sandra Julien (Isla) looks like Lily Cole.

Still though. I do enjoy a vampire flick.
You can see scenes from the movie over at this Jean Rollin blog.
http://requiemforjeanrollin.blogspot.com/2009/12/jean-rollin-thrill-of-vampires.html

Tally: Watched 19, New 15

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October Challenge: Fascination (1979)

Fascination (1979)

You can't blog about horror movies and not do a Jean Rollin movie. I am likely to do more than 1 thanks to the combined magic of the new Redemption collection on Blu-Ray and Amazon Instant Video.

So what do we have here.  Well We have some high society types drinking ox blood in a butchery.  This shifts to a scene of a bunch of thieves and their double cross.  Long story short our double crosser escapes to a house where two servant girls, Franca Maï (Elizabeth) and Rollin mainstay Brigitte Lahaie  (Eva).  They toy with the thief (Mark) a bit. Mess around with each other some, and generally and alternately try to keep him or send him away.

Soon more women show up and it obvious that they are toying with this man and they plan to drink his blood or have sex with him.  Maybe in that order.

The film is very visually appealing and has that dream-like quality I always see in Euro-sleeze/erotics/horror.  There is plenty of exposed female flesh and plenty of blood and a lot of death.

The scene with Lahaie and the scythe is a classic one.

I don't want to ruin the ending of this in case there is anyone out there reading this blog who hasn't seen this (I am guess there is one or two).  But it is an unexpected twist.

The script is somewhat weak and the movie won't win any awards, but the cinematography is great.  Again, very languid, almost surreal really.

I am planning on checking out some more.

Tally: Watched 11, New 9

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