Artful horror… The Iron Rose (1973)

There’s a moment in this curious film when the characters from Jean Rollin’s earlier films seem to visit the shoot. The two lovers are in a graveyard and, as night approaches, a clown* appears to lay a wreath whilst a tall vampiric nobleman enters into a tomb… both nods to Rollin’s previous film Requiem for a Vampire and other genre staples.

A special guest clown...

But this is possibly the film that people who don’t like Jean Rollin films might like… a gothic horror that relies almost totally on the psychological and not the physical. It plays like an art-house film in terms of the shot selection and a gentle narrative that sometimes leaves the actors adrift. It’s low on plot and, for a Rollin film surprisingly chaste: even when the central couple do get it on it’s only in the form of restrained petting.

Is the restraint deliberate or was the director playing as safe as he could to guarantee distribution?
That said, there’s plenty of the lovely Françoise Pascal on view late in the film to satisfy connoisseurs of seventies sex-kittens if not sexploitation… it’s all in the best possible taste.

Françoise Pascal on the beach...

Unsurprisingly, the story is taken from the poem by one Tristan Corbière – a proto-modernist who died tragically young from TB at just 29 (in 1875). This was adapted by Maurice Lemaître and Rollin himself who claimed to have added autobiographical elements.

Françoise Pascal

The film begins on a beach where a young woman (Pascal) enjoys a solitary stroll, smiling at her inner world and coming across a black metal rose. She cradles it for a while and then throws it back into the sea smiling… a foretaste of the mystery to come.

The story starts at a wedding where Pascal’s ballet dancer meets a young poet played by Hugues Quester. The wedding party is filmed naturalistically well by Rollin – you can almost believe that he hi-jacked a real one.

The wedding party... Boy meets Girl

His camera drifts around a run-down northern French town and then onto a partially disused railway yard where the two have agreed to meet. They play cat and mouse dancing around the various dormant locomotives: another foreshadowing, this time of the human graveyard to come.

Dead trains

As their day starts to close, the couple rest their cycles on the wall of a cemetery and walk inside to sample the atmosphere.

A walk in the park...

They find a grave with an iron door and clamber down inside to see what is entombed and to enjoy some privacy… After they make love they climb back out to find that dusk has almost descended.

They look for the way out but gradually come to realise that they’re lost and trapped inside. The tensions between the two starts to grow – the boy gets a little violent and the girl starts to be overcome by the presence of the dead.

After hours...

It’s hard to know exactly what is happening but the claustrophobia and dislocation will be familiar to anyone who has found themselves in the wrong dream at the wrong time… You’re unsure where the threat will come from and Rollin demonstrates some considerable restraint in keeping what threat there is in the minds of the two living protagonists.

Hugues Quester in a spin.

The two have a fairly violent fight that, again, appears to act as a foretaste of future events: yet you worry for the girl who is physically outmatched by her boy…

The Girl comes across a grave with the metal rose we saw at the beginning drifts into her beach-bound reverie: this was not someone looking back in happiness but ready to surrender to the darker side of her nature.

I won’t give anything more away as this is one to watch, especially if you like your horror gothic rather than graphic.

Both the leads are superb with Hugues Quester the rational poet who refuses to be overcome with superstition.  Françoise Pascal – who many in the UK might remember from the sit-com, Mind Your Language, is a revelation here and holds much of the film’s horrific intent internally. Her acting is subtle and never over-worked… no screaming or hysterics, just the gentle calm of the truly spell-bound.

Rollin directs with aplomb, choosing some cost-effectively eerie settings and making the most of the landscape and the light. All is underpinned by a suitably jarring and very Floydian experimental score from Pierre Raph (les Français adore le Pink Floyd!).

Dusty verdict: Well worth grabbing on DVD – available here – if you fancy the kind of horror that accumulates rather than overwhelms. Pascal’s excellence makes up for some pacing issues in the latter half.

*That is indeed Mireille Dargent who also dressed as a clown in Requiem… Rollin’s way of saying you’re not getting what you’re expecting? Well, just a little…

 

Clowning around… Requiem for a Vampire (1971)

Mireille Dargen and Marie-Pierre Castel

This is one of those films I hesitate to write about… there are a couple of sections of unpleasant sexual violence that are beyond a joke. But there’s also a good deal of craft in the film which I would say rescues it from the sleaze-fest dump-bin.

The first half hour of the film passes with virtually no dialogue as we follow a couple of girls dressed as clowns, on the run from unknown assailants. They fire bullets from a car driven by a male accomplice, at their nameless pursuers and, when their driver is fatally wounded, they manage to evade their enemies and drive into a forest. They say farewell to their friend then torch both him and the car before starting a relentless run through the woods.

The women are Michelle (Mireille Dargent) and her un-named blonde friend (Marie-Pierre Castel) who it later transpires have run away from school – whether this is a reform school is not specified although the two certainly know how to handle guns.

Marie tricks an off-road vendor into following her for “favours” so that Michelle can steal them some food. Then they take a motorbike and head off further into the country. Ditching the bike they head into a cemetery for rest. Here, bizarrely, Michelle almost gets buried by two grave diggers… you wonder why she doesn’t resist or even get noticed?

This is all part of Director Jean Rollin’s intent to disorientate, and he certainly succeeds in creating a strange atmosphere that persists as the two find their way to a ruined chateau. They explore the walls of this mysterious edifice and eventually lie down on a conveniently well-made bed to demonstrate that they are more than just friends.

Disturbed by a noise elsewhere in the castle they go off to investigate, finding a group of skeletons amongst which a gaunt woman (Fiona) is playing the organ… she turns around to reveal a pair of long and unconvincing canine extensions…

It is at this point that the film descends into straight-ahead “horrotica” and euro-trashy exploitation.

The first section is mysterious with the clown costumes, the ceaseless movement and with nothing really revealed...

Now the girls are assailed not only by the lady vampire but a couple of uncouth, sex-starved acolytes who paw at them repeatedly. The girls managed to escape but only get as far as the cemetery where their way is barred by a tall greying man who, barely smiling, reveals another set of vampiric chompers.

They are taken into the crypt where the big fella bites them and renders them both in a trance whilst the men ravage two young women chained to the walls… it’s an unpleasant scene and one that goes on far too long to have any real purpose other than to titillate the lazy minded cine-perve. Any-way… turns out that this is all part of the process of degradation and transformation of the innocent into vampires.

Yet, confusingly, the old Vampire later claims that as his powers are on their final waning; only Fiona can make the ultimate transition. Never-the-less, he tries to initiate the girls and sends them off to be instructed. They are to tempt two young men into the crypt as food for the vampires and set off to entrap the young men. Michelle succeeds but Marie decides on rebellion, the vampire requires virgins for his mojo to work and so she deliberately relieves herself of this status with the help of a handsome passer-by called Frederic.

Insert "hanging around" joke here...

Now it gets confusing as Michelle’s “interview” with the vampire goes to plan but he soon realises that Marie has betrayed him. He orders Michelle to torture her into telling them where the young man is… there follows a gratuitous scene of girl-on-girl whipping which culminates in Michelle fending off Fiona and helping Marie to escape…

Frederic is captured in the crypt, the girls get their guns and set off to finish things, they gun down the animalistic men – who seem to be multiplying - but no matter, the guns have many rounds! Finally, the old vampire has had enough and orders his last remaining acolytes to let them go… the game is up and there has been too much blood-shed.

Scarier in shadow

He takes Fiona with him into the crypt and will there remain until they have both perished, at which point his legacy and enduring power over his followers will be ended… Hmm, maybe he needed some better henchmen who were given to more constructive pursuits than  puerile degradation? Just a thought…

Requiem for a Vampire is worth watching for Rollin’s stylish first half hour but it never really gets going and the story feels convoluted and very thin. The running girls are good and the atmosphere well maintained but the motivations of the vampire are hard to credit…

Dusty verdict: if it’s on late night TV give it a go… or video and FFWD through the OTT bits like I did.