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‘French director Jean Rollin had a career-long fixation on deeply sexual, hideously gory vampire films, suffused with delicate, dreamy poetry that claimed him a niche audience of committed fans. His pictures are an odd, uncommercial blend of pornography and Gothic horror, entrancing and addictive to the select few. A listing of Rollin’s film titles hints at the strange images on display in his movies–but it only hints. Within the films themselves, a bounty of exotic, sadistic perversities awaits: lovers are sealed in a coffin that drifts out to sea, a marriage ceremony weds a pair of vampires, a female vampire frantically slices open her arm and drinks her own blood, a coven of vampires chain women victims to the walls of a dungeon, a crew of pirates tortures the survivors of a shipwreck, upper-class women convene at a chateau for ritualistic blood drinking, and that’s just for starters.
‘The low-budget independent film industry in 1970s France was a sex industry. The liberalisation of censorship gradually opened up to hard-core porn, which soon dominated the slates of exploitation producers. Rollin, personally obsessed with his own visions of erotic vampires, cleaved an idiosyncratic path. He did his share of straight sex pictures, and often cast porn stars in his horror epics (since they were used to performing in the nude, whatever their thespian abilities), but he spent most of his producers’ money on deeply personal films with little regard for their commercial prospects.
‘From 1968’s Le Viol du vampire (Rape of the Vampire) onwards to the present day, Rollin has exercised what Tim Lucas calls “one of the purest imaginations ever consecrated to the horror genre.” Rollin improvised one picture in its entirety—Requiem pour un vampire (Requiem for a Vampire, 1972)—which was the only one of his films to get a US theatrical release, thanks to sexploitation master Harry Novak who distributed it as Caged Virgins. And Rollin’s Les Raisins de la Mort (Grapes of Death, 1978) was the first notable “gore” film made in France.
‘But of his oeuvre, Fascination (1979) arguably ranks as Rollin’s finest work. An excellent-and of course heavily sexual-psychological thriller, Fascination presents a group of rich socialites who indulge in the drinking of bull blood as a cure for anemia—only to develop an insatiable taboo thirst for the human stuff. They sate this thirst in elaborate ritual gatherings to which they “invite” male victims. Thoughtful, sensual and lushly photographed, Fascination is a unique production, and undoubtedly the most accomplished work ever made with a porn-star cast.
‘Rollin’s movies combine pulp imagery with the plot mechanics of serials. You’ll find American models combined with the classic French serial tradition of Louis Feuillade, as epitomized by Les Vampires and Fantomas. In contrast to his enticingly hyperactive subject matter, Rollin’s approaches storytelling with a cool, dispassionate eye. Whereas directors such as Jose Larraz (Vampyres) and Jess Franco (Succubus) indulged in intensely emotional subject matter and images, Rollin preferred languid, morbid contemplation. So while his subject matter involved comic book aesthetics, Rollin filtered his storytelling through a high art sensibility.
‘Inspired to be a director by a childhood screening of Abel Gance’s Capitaine Fracasse (1942), Rollin also cites Georges Franju’s Judex (1963) as a major influence; and by extension, a line of influence can be traced all the way back to Louis Feuillade himself. Rollin also took a great deal from his mentor, the surrealist Ado Kyrou. Admits Rollin, however, “You know, there isn’t really a French tradition of fantastic cinema. I don’t think it can be said that I am a representative of French fantastic culture per se.”‘ — collaged from various sources
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Stills
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Further
Fascination: The Jean Rollin Experience
The Official Jean Rollin Website
Jean Rollin @ IMDb
The Films of Jean Rollin
The Jean Rollin Society @ Myspace
Jean Rollin page @ Facebook
‘Jean Rollin Sucks Retarded Turtle Dick’
Jean Rollin Memorial Page @ mubi
Jean Rollin DVDs @ Amazon
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General
Documentary: Jean Rollin Cinéaste de nulle part 1
Trailer: Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin
Trailer: Très Outré: The Sinister Visions of Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin interviewed in 2006 (in French)
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Interview
from Kinoeye
Vampires burst from grandfather clocks, lovers are speared on the same stake—you are noted for your imagery, not your narratives—is this a fair comment?
The answer is this. The imagery in my films is certainly more important than the story itself. But the stories are done to provoke such images. In a certain way, the stories are “mad love” stories and the images are surrealist visions. The mixture of both makes my films.
You have been roundly condemned by critics for your excursions into pornographic/hardcore films—what is your response to such criticism?
I shoot X-[rated] films to have sufficient money to be able to live. I don’t like the films but to make them can be amusing. I remember that period with pleasure. I liked the people I was working with, it was always one- or two-day shoots, very funny, a good friendly atmosphere. But no interesting films, that’s all I can say.
What influence did the likes of Georges Franju and Luis Buñuel have on your career?
It’s the same kind. Buñuel shot visions like Trouille did paintings, or Magritte. We can take some images off the film, those images speak for themselves. They are independent of the story, they are the voice of Buñuel himself. So, in a film so banal in appearance like Susana (1950) or even Él (This Strange Passion, 1952), everything is shown by the vision of the artist. Personally, I am jealous of an extraordinary vision I saw in one of Buñuel’s last French films. I don’t remember which one but: a man closes a coffin, and some gold hairs from the dead girl inside are visible.
Such imagery leaves me full of exaltation. There are many such imags in Buñuel films. Franju is the author of the greatest film of the genre, Les Yeux sans visage (1959). Perfection of the script, of the actors, of the light, of everything. I was haunted during many, many years by the end, Edith Scob walking in the park with her face covered by the white mask, and the white birds and that music… I have tried to find that atmosphere of dream, poetry and madness in many of my films.
Same reflections about Judex (1963). It’s a serial, like a serial. For me, where the cinema is near the surrealist poetry, near the primitive mind of childhood, it is the serial. My remembrance as a child is of the serials I saw after school every Wednesday—Zorro Fighting Legion, Mysterious Docteur Satan, G-Men Versus the Black Dragon, etc. I think I personally have shot two serials: Le Viol du vampire and Les Trottoirs de Bangkok (Sidewalks of Bangkok, 1984). Here a critic said, “Rollin has done with Bangkok the same film as his first one, Le Viol, 25 years after.” And it’s true! Bangkok is a kind of “Fu-Manchu” and the film was improvised to a great degree like Le Viol. When I was shooting it, I was in the same mind that I was for Le Viol. I was 20 years old again!
Your first fantasy film Le Viol du vampire was considered daring for the time and was released during a turbulent period in French history—in what way did this film and the critical reaction to it shape your future career?
Le Viol was a terrible scandal here in Paris. People were really mad when they saw it. In Pigalle, they threw things at the screen. The principal reason was that nobody could understand the story. But there is a story, I swear it! Now, after such a long time, I think the principal reason is that the film was supposed to be a vampire story. The audience knew only Hammer’s vampires and my film disturbed their classical idea of what such a film had to be. And outside it was the revolution [1968], so people were able to exteriorise themselves. The scandal was a terrible surprise for me. I didn’t know that I had made such a “bizarre” picture.
For me, it was so simple! In all the country, throughout France, the film was a scandal. In my area, a little village, the priest said to his audience in church that they must not see the film on release at their local cinema… I was the devil. And even the fans of such films were disillusioned and the critics wrote horrors about me. A great newspaper, Le Figaro, wrote: “this film is certainly made by a group of drunk people, probably medical students. It’s a joke.” I thought that my career was finished. But many people came to see that scandalous film, and the producers asked me to do a second one. La Vampire nue was not so delirious.
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16 of Jean Rollin’s 49 films
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The Rape of the Vampire (1968)
‘As potentially problematic titles go, The Rape of the Vampire (an accurate translation of the French original, Le viol du vampire), the debut feature from French genre director Jean Rollin, is something of a peach. Quite aside from its teasingly ambiguous nature – is the vampire in question the rapist or the victim of rape, or perhaps even both? – the use of the word ‘rape’ in the title of a fantasy horror film would absolutely be frowned upon today, and with good reason. We have, I would hope, come a long way since the “I like rape” gag in Blazing Saddles and the “Been out raping, lad?” exchange in Yellowbeard, and the sensitivity with which the subject is now rightly treated could potentially create its own problems for a film that is much more than this sensationalist sounding title might suggest.’ — Slarek
Trailer
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The Nude Vampire (1970)
‘One night on a deserted street, Pierre (Olivier Martin of Rollin’s LA VIOL DU VAMPIRE) runs into a scantily clad mute young woman (Caroline Cartier) who is being pursued by men in tuxedos and bizarre animal masks who kidnap her and take her back to a townhouse that belongs to Pierre’s father, industrialist Georges Radamante (Maurice Lemaître) who warns Pierre to mind his own business. Pierre sneaks into the townhouse for one of his father’s parties and witnesses a woman playing Russian Roulette shoot herself and the mute young woman drinks her blood. Pierre delves deeper into the mystery and has to fight off his own father’s thugs while Georges and his associates squirrel the young woman off to an isolated country house. Pierre then meets the Grandmaster (Michel Delahaye) of a large group of bizarre looking and acting hippies – of whom the young woman is one of their number – who lay siege to the country house with his help to rescue the girl who it turns out has an unusual connection to Pierre.’ — dvdbeaver
Trailer
Excerpt
the entire film
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Requiem for a Vampire (1971)
‘Jean Rollin has remarked that he wrote the script for Requiem for a Vampire in three days. He started with images- two clowns being chased, a woman playing a piano in a field, and the went from there. His approach to writing the script was similar to that of the surrealists in their methods of automatic writing; he just jumped from image to image without censoring his subconscious. Even while shooting, he refused to change anything from his original script, it had come out of his head that way so he insisted on keeping it that way. Somewhat surprisingly, it turned out fantastic (and not only in the fantastique way). The plot follows two beautiful young girls as they escape from something unknown, and fall into the clutches of a renegade group of individuals protecting the last vampire. There is little to no dialogue for the first hour of the film, another factor that Rollin was very proud of. It’s very fast paced, and never really drags, all the while remaining beautiful, mysterious, and a tad melancholic.’ — Esotika Erotica Psychotica
Trailer
Excerpt
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The Iron Rose (1973)
‘A bit of a departure from his previous films, Jean Rollin’s THE IRON ROSE has no vampires, zombies or lesbians. Instead its minimalist plot sounds more like the outline for an independent film from a young suburbanite, who has borrowed the family camcorder, grabbed a group of buddies and ran off to the local cemetery to shoot. Featuring two main actors, one set, little dialogue, bad poetry and a random clown, this film should not work. Yet somehow, through the lens of Mr. Rollin, it does. Eerie and thick with gothic atmosphere, THE IRON ROSE may be short on dialogue but it is long on mood. The film’s main set piece, a cemetery located near Amiens, France is a gothic dream of seemingly infinite rows of tombstones, crosses and cherub statues. From the first frame, the film is awash with an unnatural fog and overall damp feeling, making it very much a mood piece. Jean Rollin effectively captures the feeling of being secluded and unfamiliar of one’s surroundings; as graves and crypts seem to run on endlessly, with the entire facility overgrown with fallen decaying leaves and winding moss. The film’s score is used as modestly as the dialogue, but is more than effective at raising a hair or two.’ — dvddrive-in
Trailer
the entire film
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The Demoniacs (1974)
‘On some unspecified shore, a band of four “wreckers” lure ships to the rocks and rob the empty carcasses once they wreck. The film begins with an introduction of the four main dramatis personae, the Captain (John Rico), his two henchmen Le Bosco and Paul, and the gorgeous Tina (Joëlle Cœur). The narrative misleadingly characterizes them setting up the stage for nonexistent conflicts. Very funny. One night, as they pillage the wreckage of the latest unfortunate ship, the four stumble across two survivors, Demoniac #1 (Lieva Lone) and Demoniac #2 (Patricia Hermenier). The wreckers quickly wreck them also, and ineptly try to murder them. There’s so much gratuitous nudity by Tina that one cannot concentrate on the supposedly wicked goings on. Rollin followers have already seen this film. For the indiscriminating fan, it may be a little too much, although the rampant full frontal nudity and the delicious Tina will certainly keep men and lesbians glued to their seats. There isn’t much to recommend otherwise. I happen to like Rollin, and this is one of his better films. You have been warned. Unrated. Fun for the whole family.’ — gotterdammerung.org
Trailer
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Lips of Blood (1975)
‘Elegantly roaming from castle ruins to the streets of Paris, the wanton vampires in Jean Rollin’s bloodsucking classic are ethereal visions of eros.’ — MUBI
Trailer
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The Grapes of Death (1978)
‘From the get go, it’s a bit of a leap to really call the zombies in The Grapes of Death zombies. If anything, they’re more reminiscent of the infected populace from George Romero’s The Crazies (only with the ability to recognize what they are doing and whatnot) and the pseudo-zombies from Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City. The film does hold a social conscience not unlike Romero’s work though, especially when it comes to ecological and environmental issues. The “dead” here are not the real villains. Sure, they kill, torture and maim with zeal, but the true villain in Grapes is mankind itself, in particular it’s ignorance and arrogance towards the environment. Apart from that, this has many of the hallmarks of that has made Rollin’s work so revered among horror fans and students of the genre. It’s got the Gothic atmosphere (the use of a very creepy blind girl, the countryside is used effectively as a place were death lives) and the sadistic violence (including nasty moments such as an impalement with a pitchfork and a nasty beheading), but it lacks in the erotic beauty of his other works. That’s just fine though, as it’s still one of his best works, as well as one of his more straightforward films.’ — Talk of Horrors
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Excerpt
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Disco Sex (1978)
‘A disco band shows up at a studio to make a new album, but they are badly mobbed by a bunch of female groupies. A big orgy breaks out that postpones the recording session.’ — Letterboxd
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Fascination (1979)
‘Jean Rollin’s 1979 opus, Fascination, is an interesting and bewitching take on the idea of craving blood that is coupled with the director’s superior visual style and erotic nature. It is an intriguing tale set in 1905 that begins with mesmerizing visuals that captivate and draw the viewer in, before the story unfolds. At the start, we are treated to the lovely sight of an antique phonograph set on a bridged pathway over a body of water where two women in white (Brigitte Lahaie and Franca Mai) are enjoying a ballroom style dance. Elsewhere on a different day in a bloody butcher house, high society women in fancy dress stand around and participate in the “latest fashion” of drinking ox blood as a therapy for anemia, which I felt to be an interesting take on vampirism, and also feels like a mockery of sorts for wine tasting clubs. The beautiful but grim sight of these ladies drinking blood from a wine glass standing in a pool of blood is a darkly poetic visual done in a way only Rollin could, and is an image that will stick with you forever.’ — At the Mansion of Madness
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Night of the Hunted (1980)
‘Despite working with a miniscule budget, Rollin captures some haunting images in this film. Never has Paris looked as desolate as in this movie. One of Rollin’s trademarks has always been his own fascination with architecture and, as a result, the cold skyscraper where Lahaie is held prisoner almost becomes a character itself. I’ve always considered Jean Rollin to be horror cinema’s equivalent to Jean-Luc Godard and, with its images of a sterile city run by passionless autocrats, Night of the Hunted brings to mind Godard’s Alphaville. The film’s most haunting image comes at the end and it is this image that brings tears to my eyes every time. Whatever flaws the film may have, Night of the Hunted has one of the best final shots in the history of cinema. Even if everything preceeding it had been worthless, this movie would be worth sitting through just for the stark beauty of the final shot. Night of the Hunted ends on a note that manages to be darkly sad and inspiringly romantic at the same time. It’s an ending that makes Night of the Hunted one of the most romantic films of all time.’ — Through the Shattered Lens
Trailer
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Zombie Lake (1980)
‘Surely a film about Nazi zombies couldn’t fail in their grubby hands? Well Zombie Lake not only fails but fails like never before. In all my years of watching horror, I can’t recall a film which borders on the incompetent as much as Zombie Lake. Even the extremely gratuitous and frequent naked women are wasted in this appalling mess which comes off like some man’s perverted pet project.’ — Andrew Smith
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The Living Dead Girl (1982)
‘The Living Dead Girl leaves behind all of the signature trademarks director Jean Rollin has become known for. Besides the bright daytime settings common to many of his films, Rollin injects several surreal dreamlike qualities to his imagery and characters. He also mixes sex and violence in even measures, but while there is plenty of gore, it is offset by the beauty and innocence of the undead Catherine. Catherine is an extremely sad and tragic character that often reflects Shakespeare’s Ophelia through visual references and tone. She is by no means the typical cinematic zombie popularized by Romero or Fulci, nor is she in any way a reincarnation of the familiar Gothic vampires from the Universal or Hammer productions. She is quite plainly a girl brought back from the dead by no will of her own that only wishes to return to her grave after realizing that she must drink blood to survive. She has no purpose or meaning after being brought back, and she is forced to give into to her baser instincts. Catherine is assisted by her childhood friend, who seduces young women back to their secluded mansion in an attempt to save her deathly companion. This also drives the lesbian subtext common to many other Rollin films. Much of the dialog reads like poetry, with beautiful exchanges about life and death that make up for the lack of realism in rich romantic fantasy. Blanchard handles the role very well, with a dull, lifeless, and penetrating stare and angelic white robes that give her an ethereal appearance. LIVING DEAD GIRL is not your average undead Horror film by any means whatsoever, and while the slower pace and strange characters are sure to turn off many fans, it is these same unique elements that others will enjoy most.’ — Carl Mane
Excerpt
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The Sidewalks of Bangkok (1984)
‘Rollin combines kinky sex, Fu Manchu, cliffhanger adventure and sloppy martial-arts action in this pulp-inspired spies, sex and sadism thriller. Diminutive Asian actress Yoko stars as the innocent caught in the web of warring spies and a secret society of deadly female agents, suffering at their hands in every scene, like a kinky, soft-core Perils of Pauline dropped into an espionage drama. It was reportedly Rollin’s biggest hit, no doubt due to the long sequences of strippers and hookers strutting their stuff in meaningless detours from the limp plot.’ — parallax-view
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Lost in New York (1989)
‘Nostalgic and lugubrious. Hazy 16mm dream of the city as liminal domain, two spirits dislocated in space-time, desperately pursuing a reconnection. Snapshots of childhood, stories left hanging on the vine to ossify and grow obscure; a network of riant feelings stratified in memory, petrified synapses, whose egress has sealed over forever, like an abandoned warren, mossed over, lost and invisible to the present, concealed by an expressionless mask. Les Yeux sans visage. Running through the dark labyrinth of skyscrapers, following the ribbon of azure, faint river of light overhead; the cemetery at twilight, and the beach we always return to, bloodless water beneath a nubilous sky, rolling inexorably over ancient groynes, sea-bound sentinels, lapping at the shore of mortality, slowly carving tide-lines in ligneous, aging flesh. Reconciled at last, we prepare for a final journey.’ — WraithApe
Trailer
the entire film
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Killing Car (1993)
‘Jean Rollin’s KILLING CAR, stars Tiki Tsang as “The Car Woman”, one of the most enigmatic, eerily seductive characters in any film. She’s ruthless, relentless, and lethal. The opening junkyard scene, involving attempted car theft and murder, is both absurd and astonishing. This leads to the fast, desperate chase through a carnival, where she engages in a running gun battle with prostitutes. The car secured, she continues her murderous rampage. It’s obvious that anyone who comes in contact with this woman is doomed.’ — Dethcharm
Trailer
the entire film
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Two Orphan Vampires (1997)
‘Returning to the Vampire genre after taking a twelve-year absence from it – Fascination 1979 being the last one – there certainly are many things that Rollin could have done here to make Two Orphan Vampires feel like a rehash of vampire clichés. But instead he avoids them and actually takes a complete different path. Normal vampire lore and the rules associated with it are discarded in favour of other strenghts and weaknesses. Where the girls are completely unaffected by the crucifix – they actually start off by living in that catholic orphanage surrounded by nuns, and hide out there when the real world proves to fearsome – they can also wander in the otherwise deadly ultraviolet rays cast down by the sun. But they do have one trait that keeps them somewhat restraint, they cannot see in the sunlight, which has them blind at day and in search of blood at night. Two Orphan Vampires is a meditative, tender and delicate piece of film which firmly finds it’s place amongst Rollin’s canon, and is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy the older films of the great Jean Rollin.’ — CiNEZiLLA
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*
p.s. Hey. ** Dr. Kosten Koper, Hi! Very good to see you, sir. Yes, if Zac and I end up going to Walibi I’ll get word to you somehow. It would be swell to see you. Bon weekend. ** Dominik, Hi!!! If Carter does ever decide to make that film I’m going to have to insist we do a rewrite because it was long ago and I’m a whole lot better at script writing now to say the least. My ‘Bring Her Back’ review wil have to wait just a bit because today I have to watch or rather rewatch my assigned film (Pasolini’s ‘Teorama’) for my biweekly Zoom film/book club tomorrow. Love plucked a favorite sentence of mine there, of course, that mind reading dude. Love realising that the subject of vampires wasn’t as exhausted as I thought, G. ** jay, She’s really, really good. Not a bad dream you had there whatsoever. I don’t know enough about how AI works, but I am here wondering if AI would make it possible to visualise that dream of yours because I would absolutely watch it. I’m glad that a bruised brain lacks negative consequences. How did you know something was amiss enough with your head to get it checked up? When I was in high school I was known as the school’s arty writer/artist guy, and memory tells me that at the reunion most of the ex-schoolmates weren’t surprised that I went the route I did. If they had actually read my books, it surely would have been a different story. I don’t know ‘ANIMALIA’, but if Jamie recommended it, I’m certainly a fount of curiosity. Have a blast over the next two days somehow somewhere. xo, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Glad you liked it. I was going to say, ‘You’re still reading ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’?, but then I remembered its density and bulk and realised, ‘Duh, of course you are.’ ** Montse, Tillman is always a highly worthy read. Oh, gosh, any good word you feel like putting in with the Mostra’ maestro’s hubby would be awesome. Thank you, pal. I just wish the festival wasn’t a year from now. Enjoy your weekend, my buddy. ** Carsten, Tillman is a pip. There’s no cold like desert cold. And I say that as someone who slept one night in a tent on the surface of Antarctica. The nights when we were shooting outdoor scenes for our film until 5 am were borderline murder. I’ll look into those festivals you mentioned on this very day. Thanks. Fingers crossed. Weird that France, German’s next door neighbor, has what sounds like a polar opposite health care system. Europe is so strange. ** Steve, Great, then I’m happy for the upcoming visit. New single! Everyone, Steve has dropped a new double sided single provocatively titled ‘The Cage’/’How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?’ that you can hear and/or score at bandcamp aka here. I just ended up buying a few Robert Pollard things I didn’t have yesterday. People keep saying ‘The Naked Gun’ is really funny. I guess I’ll have to try it. In my mind, Liam Neeson is no Leslie Nielsen, but … ** Steeqhen, Why does Pride happen at so many different times? That’s a rhetorical question. Seems odd. Not that all Prides happening at once would make any difference. Granted I live in Paris, but €10 seems like chickenfeed. Have a swell weekend. ** HaRpEr //, That sounds really nerve-wracking. For me money worries are the scariest thing possible. I’ve never had a proper job, and I always survived by scrambling for journalism gigs or having to beg my parents for a loan that they knew I would never pay back, and it was almost constant stress, but I was able to do what I wanted to do with my writing, and I wouldn’t revise those years if I could. I don’t hate ‘Sally Can’t Dance’, but, at the time, it’s what followed up ‘Berlin’, and you can probably imagine what it was like to rush out to buy the new Lou Reed album on the heels of ‘Berlin’ and hear ‘SCD’ come out of the speakers. ** horatio, Hi. Well, keep in mind that just because the profiles are real doesn’t mean they’re non-fiction. I think most of them are just guys fantasising in public. Thanks for linking me to ‘Tastes like Pork’. Great! I’ll hit it this weekend. I was going to say tell Connie hi for me, but I see that just below your comment I can do that in person. And you have a splendiferous weekend. ** Hugo, When I’ve been in Brussels I’ve found the underlying battle between the French and Dutch speakers interesting. When we performed one of the Gisele Vienne pieces there years ago, we used Dutch subtitles, and there was an actual boycott of the shows by angry French speakers. Efteling is my favorite amusement park in the world. Will do if we end up going to Walibi. That’s still up in the air. Sorry about your friend’s cat. Most of the dogs my family had when I was growing up got hit and killed by cars. Ugh. Peace to you too. Nice. ** Connie, Hi, Connie. Nice to meet you. Oh, with the slave and escort profiles, I do switch around the names, locations, and photos, yes, as a way of protecting their identities. But the photos all come from those contexts, not elsewhere. The fact, or the presumed fact, is that quite a number of the guys use fake photos in their profiles, so, if the photos originated on Instagram, for instance, it’s one of the slaves or escorts who swiped them from there. Your vj work sounds interesting. Is that work viewable? Thanks for coming in here. ** julian, Um, probably. Sometimes it takes a while to realise it was wrong, right? To me, yes, they’re more objectively pleasant to look at. Asses are more charismatic than genitals, I think. They provide more space to dream. I’m a big Robert Wilson fan, and I didn’t know he did something with Gaga. But of course he did. ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, his work back in the 70s and 80s was absolutely mind blowing. So true about the posters’ superiority. True as well with the films <-> posters of the blog’s weekend star. ** Right. I’m asking you guys to spend your local time this weekend with the films of France’s oddball, vampire-inclined horror (and something other) director Mr. Jean Rollin. See you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
Hi Dennis! Vampirism and lesbians seem to be really big, for some reason. I don’t really have any idea why, but my understanding of the undercurrents in lesbian sexuality is basically zero. I guess blood-drinking is always sort of sexy, but who knows. I also kind of love this genre of film with a simulacra of lesbianism (which doesn’t really have actual sex, and is more about two naked women rubbing and gyrating for the camera) that’s largely made for men, it’s always really fascinating, in the same way as yaoi/BL. It’s cool you’re watching Teorema, that might be my favourite Passolini! I’m sure you’ve seen Takashi Miike’s reworking of it, but if you haven’t, here’s a link , for you or anyone else who’s interested.
I think AI could maybe get my dream across, but I don’t think you can ever communicate the natural-feeling logic of dreams to another person, which was the interesting part of that dream (to me at least). A car crashing down a hill – then coming back up in a weird melty way – seems like an amazing AI gif idea though. If you could get implicit logic on film in the same way you can get picture and sound though, I definitely would give it an attempt.
I only really went to the hospital as a follow-up, because I had a pretty serious concussion a few months ago. I think they just wanted to make sure it’s healed, but apparently it all has, which is great! That’s cool about your school reunion, I kind of hope a few of them looked you up afterwards – I know that if I had a school reunion and found out a classmate had written a lost 120 Days pastiche about my contemporaries a few decades ago, I’d find that incredibly interesting. Anyway, here’s hoping your weekend is exciting, and enjoy your Passolini!
Hey Dennis
The reason being for Pride being at different times was so that people could travel around Ireland to build up the numbers (or something along those lines — basically just so people from Dublin could come to other places and protect each other). Cork’s one is always the first Sunday of August (which is a bank holiday), Dublin’s is the last Saturday of June, Belfast is the last Saturday of July. Idk about the other places in Ireland.
My main gripe about having to pay €10 is that it’s one of the only places in Cork that actually has an entry charge, so for me I just cannot believe that I will have such a better time there that paying €10 to enter will be worth it.
I’ve been having a strange sleeping pattern, and with that I’ve been having some strange dreams, although I struggle to remember the plots. I guess my one last night involved an elevator that had an open door and was speeding through floors that didn’t exist, some guy having trouble with his closet case, a concert that became a movie screening, and something else that is on the far reaches of my brain that I can’t seem to remember, but linked them all together… huh.
I’m intending on applying to work at this one bookshop soon. I need a job because I have €88 a week from disability (after deducting rent costs and so) and that is enough for groceries and maybe a cheap, penny-pinching night out. I like being able to do whatever I want when I wake up, but at this point in time it just makes me incredibly lazy, and I think a consistent routine would be good…
Hey little update, my friend Shannon let me know about a debut novel competition in Ireland running til the 14th of September. Basically I need to submit a 5000 manuscript along with a brief of what the story is. There’s 12 winners, so hopefully if it’s good enough I could be up with a chance with speaking to publishers about a novel… exciting stuff
I need to check out some of these Rollin films. Very into the idea of the lesbian vampire and all the baggage associated with that. One of my friends has this idea that trans lesbians sort of exist in the same cultural space as a lesbian vampire. Like that cis men see us as monsters to be conquered to free our partners from us and that we’re seen as having an intense sexual and manipulative power that makes us spooky despite our best intentions? She’d explain it better but I definitely have felt that vibe when dealing with shitty dudes. Have you seen Stephanie Rothman’s The Velvet Vampire?
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/q4fn4be4vs3nqc1st8t7b/AKtqM_wz8tqODNYzByrfKjY?rlkey=fy54oruo2y0ejge0zbu0wlpkc&st=rj8ls1dj&dl=0
Here’s a link to the first part of my most recent set! This one was examining internet culture and why a large portion of trans women claim some animal sexual identity. Like how there are dog girls, cat girls, horse girls, deer girls, sheep girls, etc. Specifically it was about the dj of this first section, Ryaha, and their path into becoming a dog girl. After this played out, Ryaha took over the computer and made their first gender affirming care appointment live in front of the audience. Most of the crowd got completely naked by the end of the night, people were biting eachother and leaving huge welts, and someone got her dick sucked on the lawn outside the venue. Very much felt like the imagery was like extending out of the screens and into real space.
Gotta say I do love me some lesbian vampire action, so Mr Rollin is an obvious favourite of mine. Despite its lack of this particular angle, I think the Iron Rose represents his artistic zenith.
Here in the UK we used to have a satellite TV channel called Bravo that would screen plenty of erotic Euro horror back in the 90s that would fuel my horny teenage imagination. Jess Franco and Rollin were the leading lights.
Hi!!
That seems like a fair and entirely valid request.
I haven’t seen “Teorema.” (I feel like I never know any movie anyone mentions ever.) How do you decide which films to watch for your film/book club? I mean, do you have certain criteria or…?
I have to agree with love. I have great respect for people who pursue their passion/interests unapologetically and without shame – and Jean Rollin seemed to be one of them when it came to vampires. Charming.
Love wondering whether he might be lactose intolerant, Od.
Hi there Dennis! Hope all has been well with you this week.
I’ve been keeping myself busy with meetups. One of my closest friends will be leaving for university next month. It feels strange to essentially begin a new path where I won’t be able to access their aid so easily. However, we will keep in touch through messages at least. She’s moving North to Nottingham and will be studying music. Although she has released some projects in the past few years, she’s been disillusioned due to uncertainty in what to do with her life. Seeing her practice again has been inspiring. I used to play bass in my early teens, but I later found that it wasn’t an instrument I wanted to commit to. Recently, I bought an acoustic guitar, and I’d like to commit to practising with it. Have you ever had any interest in performing an instrument?
Lately, I’ve been spending time watching films. As I mentioned in my last message, I showed Via Eraserhead. It startled her, but she described it as very poetic and is just letting it sit with her. In return, she showed me All About Lily Chou Chou, which is her favourite film. I just saw it last night, but it was an incredibly distilling experience. Such strong patience is conveyed through the lens being absorbed in the character’s interactions. Warmth is present, but it’s such a mysterious experience due to how identity is constructed. On the prior day, I watched this harrowing film called Vengeance is Mine. When reading reviews of it, I was struck by a write-up that references Pedro Costa’s concept of “Open Door Films”. Both of these films, to me at least, linger on the ambiguity of faces and allow the viewer to infer what may inform that state. It’s playful, but also very serene. I wondered as a filmmaker if what I’m describing may linger during your creative process?
I’ll make time tomorrow to watch something from Jean Rollin! The most familiar I have with his work is his film Lost in New York. Its visual language was used for the artwork surrounding Clams Casino’s song I’m God. I find it to be a beautiful piece, and the images of the people in those masks stood out to me.
Wishing you a fruitful weekend!
Big D! Hahaha, the carrot cake thing is funny because it’s a running joke with us. Essentially, the twerker guy at the gym once dressed like a Playboy bunny for some event and showed us pics. Since then, we’ve always joked about bunnies and carrots, and every time we see a carrot cake in a bakery or wherever, we joke with each other about it. However, carrot cake can be good.
I got him an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery with cheesecake ice cream and vanilla cake. It was pretty awesome. I also made stuffed shells. For presents, I got him a pair of Skechers slip-ins for walking because he’s on his feet all day, a jean jacket, and a Judgment chain like the one a character in the Hunter x Hunter anime has. Thing is, I got all these things during Prime week and actually spent about 50% of what I would have generally. Also got him some Hunter x Hunter Funko pops, which are really for both of us. It’s kind of a thing we do now for gifts: there’s always a Funko pop of some sort.
The MRI is on Saturday the 9th. The follow-up appointment is on Monday the 18th. I took the whole day off. Fuck em. They ain’t give a shit about me, I ain’t give a shit about them anymore.
So yeah, full time in office starts Monday. We’ll see how it goes. My incompetent boss was supposed to send us all this shit and get me a cubicle and a bunch of things I need at my desk, but that’s not happened. Dude is such a low-IQ fuck. I usually don’t talk about people like that, but if he didn’t fucking lie about everything, I’d be nicer.
Oh, and I think I told you I owe a bunch of money to the state of MD for taxes that it looks like my company didn’t pay over last year. Thing is, they certainly withheld them. But I didn’t get paystubs and it wasn’t reflected on the W-2 they gave me. I’ve filed a complaint with the MD Comptroller but have not heard back. At least I have it in writing from them that they fucked up and are looking to refund me that. Fuckers.
Really, I find something else, I’m out. I can’t take it anymore. My coworkers feel the same way.
Hi
Love many Jean Rollin films. The Night of the Hunted is my favourite of his films so far. Fascination is another good one, and The Grapes of Death. Have to see many more
The Night of the Hunted is so great. I did a collage from four stills that haunt me from the film when I saw it years ago and posted it on Facebook today along with repost of this Day!
I hope I can charge my phone enough and that heat will not drive my broken phone even more crazy so I can watch a Jean Rollin film tomorrow
Hi from Chania as usual hi from me chilling in my bed and trying to hide the boy troubles I have so deep they are not visible until they resolve…
The Iron Rose and Lost in New York are added to my long viewing list. Which Rollin film do you think I should start with? The pornographic stuff seems interesting, too. I have kind of an obsession with 70’s and 80’s porn from the era when they still had pretensions of making real movies. I like the idea of an ass being charismatic. Maybe I even prefer the idea of an ass being uncharismatic or repulsive. I guess Robert Wilson made a handful of video portraits of Gaga and also designed the sets for an MTV performance during her “ARTPOP” era when she was trying really hard to inject avant-garde art culture into her image. I was wondering, what time of day do you usually start making these posts? I just wanted to know so that I don’t end up commenting last minute after you’ve already finished looking at all the comments and replying to everyone.
Keeping things very old school, I just bought a new MP3 player after I lost the charger for the one I had. I learned that model is no longer manufactured, and in fact there are only a few brands still on the market. I had to buy it mail order. I’m charging this one for the first time now.
After I got into the Velvet Underground as a teenager, I went to the mall and bought several Lou Reed solo albums. BERLIN and THE BLUE MASK were pretty satisfying, but except for “Kill Your Sons,” SALLY was not what I wanted to hear from him.
Shudder’s doing a Rollin retrospective, but the selection is pretty limited. I’m grateful for the links to NIGHT OF THE HUNTED and LOST IN NEW YORK.
Oh this takes me back to an innocent time… when I first saw Brigitte Lahaie naked in one of Rollin’s films I had yet to see any porn, & remembering now what a big deal that was puts a smile on my face. I can’t explain the appeal of the lesbian vampire either, but it certainly worked on my horny adolescent self. The queen of that niche remains Soledad Miranda though, in Jess Franco’s films.
OK now you’re gonna have to explain how you ended up in a tent in Antarctica.
Well the Germans go around congratulating themselves on their great health care system all the time & it isn’t bad unless you’re a freelancer. Then you’re fucked. Regular school teachers are civil servants here & get excellent coverage, but practically all adult educators are self-employed. It’s how language schools cut corners. And not just on health care. Back when I worked full-time at an adult education center I was only paid for the actual classroom hours, not all the time spent at the desk on prep, correcting homework etc. And then they complain about a lack of teachers… I’m glad I ditched that racket a few years ago.
But yeah, I gasped when I read that you pay annually what I pay in a month. All the more reason to switch to another model once I’m in Spain.
Fingers crossed on those festivals.
One more thing about the French 300 bucks a year plan you’re on: does this cover everything? So in a hospitalization scenario there’s no deductible or anything of the sort?
Rollin’s is a curious body of work. I’ve only seen a couple obvious items (Fascination, The Nude Vampire). Do I have the overall idea, or should I check out some of the more obscure movies?
I finally got to one of your recs: Gary Shipley’s So Beautiful and Elastic. It was tough for me to get into at first, but once I got warmed up, it was riveting.
Bill
Dennis!!! Hi!!!
Very long time no see, how’ve you been? Been a little while since I was on here, but a post about freaky vampire films was a great one to come back too. I’m pretty uneducated when it comes to vampire films, the only real vampire film I love is ’Låt den rätte komma in’, but I’ve wanted to delve more into those old exploitation ones.
Oh, and as you might remember, me and my friends where recently in Berlin. We lived in a really shitty area, where people sat with needles in their legs and there was this local man who had a huge open flesh wound which he tried to patch up himself, right outside of our hostel. We were offered cocaine every single night, people started jerking off in public when some of my female friends walked by and every Berliner we spoke to was either angry or irritated. Long story short, I adored every second of living in this utopia. Of course, I made all my friends go to Basmah, as you recommended, and we all loved it. None of us had ever tried Sudanese falafel before, but it was probably the best and cheapest place we ate all trip. We even took a group photo there, which I would send here if that was possible!
What’s been going on lately? Many festivals or events to attend? My life has been pretty busy, but I’m really content and happy. There’s this girl I’ve been interested in for god knows how long which I finally built up the courage to ask if she would like to go the movies with me (we go to the same school and know who the other one is but we don’t really know each other) and she said yes! I don’t know if she viewed it as a date, since I’m terrible at picking up signs and anything romantic, but I think we had a great time. We walked through rainy Stockholm under an umbrella, smoked, went and saw Thelma and Louise at Zita, then she suggested we take a walk, which we did, where we talked and smoked more.
Oh and also, I read somewhere you said that Laika wanted to make a ’God Jr’ adaptation, but that it fell through. That sounds really cool, but pretty out there compared to the other stuff they’ve made. How did those plans happen? Did they ever start anything or was it just an idea?
xoxo, BT
Hey Dennis.
Damn, vampires. Has there ever been a gift that kept on giving like them? I feel like they’re more interesting and versatile than zombies, but sadly, I never find them used as much. I need to check this stuff out. Btw, you ever seen Romero’s film “Martin”? I really like that one.
Funnily enough, I’ve never had many problems with the dutch/french split here. Probably because I’m a foreigner, so they don’t really know what to make of me. I did briefly share a school with the Belgian prince; apparently, he knew I was anti-monarchist, but that’s as far as it went with him and me.
Anyway, I’ve been overwhelmed as of late, have had bad headaches, and confused moments. Might be some kind of illness or just worry, I dunno. I remember a similar state of mind in university, and it isn’t pleasant.
A friend of mine (the one I mentioned to you was reading Mishima) sent me parts of his diary on Saturday. Reading parts of it, I was struck by how well spoken it was.
Here’s the opening:
“I am the way that I am because my grandmother would impose her fantasies on me from the moment I was born. When she looked at me she saw only what she wanted to see in me, and now it’s my problem. Every relationship mine ends the same way: a fantasy that is never correspondent with my real personality. All I want is someone who is obsessed with me, not the pretty parts of me, but the only ugly parts of me.”
(shared with permission since he likes yr work)
Have a good Monday, Dennis.
*of mine
Hey. At this point I’ve never had a proper job either, except for working in a cinema at one point, and then I went through a period where I modelled for fashion students doing life drawing classes. But then they tired of me and wanted a fresh face.
Yeah, I really don’t know what will happen. I wish I didn’t take all of these things to heart but it takes all of my will not to fall apart at any given moment. I’m deathly afraid of accidentally getting comfortable. I don’t think I even could get comfortable if I tried (in more ways than one, but for one thing, I’m not very employable). All that will result from temporary comfort is misery. I just need the money to live on. But anyway, to turn this into a positive, not knowing what is going to happen can be a good thing. I’m hopeful, anyway, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be. I just need to get past this very difficult stage, however that is…
Cool that you watched ‘Teorema’. I’ve seen it twice and did really like certain scenes, but it still didn’t quite do it for me like it does for others. Albeit, Terrence Stamp looks very sexy reading Rimbaud, he could land in my garden anytime. But uh seriously, Pasolini can sometimes be quite obvious and didactic in my opinion. For example, characters will go off on monologues that are sort of contrived in their self-agrandisingness. And I will be honest, it is very nearly the same movie as ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, though I guess the fault there is with Schlesinger. My favourite Pasolini is probably ‘The Decameron’. I really love that one, and I did really want to love ‘Teorema’ as much as other people do, but maybe it just didn’t live up to what it had been hyped up to me as. But anyway, I still admire it.
hi dennis!
i’ve wanted to dive into jean rollin for a while but i’ve never known where to start. do you have any recommendations for good starting points?
re: your comments in https://denniscooperblog.com/hes-into-being-force-fed-poppers-by-a-bear-wearing-a-polo-shirt-in-a-dark-room/
around the time of my ‘psychic tv’ phase, i was really interested in drug culture (particularly psychedelics) and wanted to pursue those experiences (in a really dumb and immature way) but i never did end up doing it, partially cuz i didn’t know anyone/anywhere to get them from and also cuz i couldn’t even handle weed (every experience i’ve had on weed has been a horrible panic attack). because of that, i’m quite wary of drugs nowadays and don’t do any of them (not even caffeine cuz i’m an insomniac). i get hypomanic regularly (as a result of having type-2 bipolar) so i guess i at least get to feel the euphoria and high energy of what i imagine stimulants to be like (not to mention the comedown).
i also noticed you and dominik talking about carter smith. i’ve only seen two of his films (‘bugcrush’ and ‘swallowed’) but they were great and i wanna see ‘the passenger’ sometime. i haven’t seen his feature debut ‘the ruins’ but i know it was shot in queensland despite being set in mexico. i like pointing out when something is filmed in australia, particularly queensland (where i’m from), that you’d never expect to be filmed there.
i’ll try to check out ‘a queen in bucks county’ and ‘disquiet drive’ sometime.
Connie & I just finished watching The Nude Vampire and woah, what a neat flick. Rollin & his cinematographer create some really striking images- that first scene, with the animal masks, was so intense & creepy. I’m kind of obsessed with the costuming in general, there’s a part where the bad guy’s twin girlfriends are wearing these crazy objectifying outfits… like, there are these bars on their chests with transparent plastic circles hanging from them… it looked like they were being used as an abacus but I couldn’t be sure. If that isn’t the case, the sheer impracticality of such a garment is so interesting, since they don’t really hide, compliment, or emphasize anything. I guess the garment could also be like… a fidget toy / lingerie fusion. I feel like I’ve seen people joke about something like that before… “my partner has a short attention span so I put on subway-surfers brain rot while we’re intimate” or something.
That’s very true also, about public fantasies. Personally I get nervous when guys tell me they have no boundaries & things like that. Most of the time they’re being hyperbolic, and I’ve found that they will draw lines if you throw strange hypotheticals at them. I know there have been times in my life where I’ve felt too scared to voice my own boundaries though, & I wouldn’t want to risk putting someone else in that position so I don’t really engage with those types beyond asking questions.
Also, I wanted to let you know that submissions for AIFVF have opened! And that one of my former professors is reading “I Wished” now. I wrote about the film adaptation of Frisk (I was pretty critical of it but it gave me an excuse to talk about the book) for one of her classes last fall, so I have been hyping you up to her for a while eheheh…
I hope you had a relaxing weekend Dennis!
Hi, Dennis! Of course, I’ll gladly speak highly of you and the film. But yes, it’s a bummer it’s still so many months ahead. Have an excellent week!
Hi, Dennis! Of course, I’ll gladly speak highly of you and the film. But yes, it’s a bummer it’s still so many months ahead. Have an excellent week!
Hi Dennis, thank you for turning me onto Jean. His work reminds me Walerian Borowyczk, another 70s-Paris art-pornographer who used genre to get different angles on dreamy eroticism. “La Bête” takes “sex is comedy” to such horny lengths. Also wondering if you’ve seen the recent “Humanist Vampire Seeking a Consenting Suicidal Person”—sharp Québecois black comedy about teen vampires/depressives. Made me think about teen suicide in your work, like in Closer the older sadists seem to prey on teens already unattached to their lives.