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Apocryphally Weird

59*. REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE (1972)

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Requiem pour un vampire, AKA Vierges et Vampires, Caged Virgins

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“[M]ore than thirty years later, Requiem remains one of my favorite films. In my view, it’s a real naïve film, written naively without thought, almost automatic writing, without prior idea and above all without reflection. It’s nothing else but a simple stream of ideas out of an unconstituted imagination. It’s a real ‘B’ movie with all that that involves. No intellectual reflection, no intentional symbolism. Nothing but this free and disordered imagery which I care so much about.” —, “The Making of Requiem for a Vampire” (2005)

DIRECTED BY: Jean Rollin

FEATURING: , Mareille Dargent, Dominique, Louise Dhour, Michel Delesalle

PLOT: Two teenage delinquents disguised as clowns escape unknown pursuers in a car; their getaway driver is gunned down in the chase. After escaping they remove their harlequin makeup and make their way across the countryside. They are eventually bitten by bats and wind up trapped in the medieval castle lair of a dying vampire and his minions.

BACKGROUND:

  • Rollin’s script for his fourth film, written in two days in a stream of consciousness, evolved out of two scenes: the car chase through the countryside and the piano concert in the cemetery.
  • The first half of the film is nearly silent. Inspired by the pioneering adventure serials of Louis Feuillade, Rollin chose to emphasize the action sequences by keeping them mostly dialogue-free.
  • The art direction was inspired by surrealist painters Clovis Trouille and Paul Delvaux.
  • The dungeon scenes were filmed in the twelfth century Château de la Roche-Guyon, after the crew was evicted from their first choice of castle when the owner caught sight of the film’s nudity. Edmée, Duchess de la Rochefoucauld never saw the script; she agreed to rent her chateau for filming under the impression the story was, in Rollin’s words, “a sort of fairytale.”
  • The dungeon torture scene is ten minutes long, the minimum length of sleaze sales agent Lionel Wallman required in order to sell the film on the international grindhouse circuit. Wallman also donated the getaway car that gets shot to pieces and set on fire.
  • Interpol briefly investigated the film’s production after local gendarmes discovered the shot-up car with Belgian plates in a secluded patch of forest and assumed it belonged to foreign drug traffickers.
  • The cemetery scenes were filmed in a burial ground for medieval plague victims in Crèvecoeur-en-Auge, a small village in Normandy, believed by locals to be cursed.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Many fantastic scenes in Requiem haunt the mind (the vampire Erika playing the organ in a chapel to an audience of skeleton monks, the crimson torture chamber, the master vampire’s coffin in a green-glowing crypt), but the two main characters dressed as stock clowns stand out whenever they appear, whether in a golden field, a collapsing barn, or a cemetery at dusk.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Clown car getaway; vagina bat

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: A car chase gunfight along a winding country road; a solitary food truck in the middle of nowhere; a motorcycle in an abandoned water tower; a chapel doorway glowing crimson in the dead of night. Requiem for a Vampire transitions from scene to scene with the abrupt illogical shifts of a dream, as the intrepid heroines traverse a deserted landscape freighted with mystery. Mysterious themselves, the girls transform from clowns to teenage outlaws with handguns in their miniskirts. It remains unknown quite how they’ve ended up here, who was chasing them, and even where “here” is.

Trailer for Requiem for a Vampire (1972)

COMMENTS: Disregard for normal narrative conventions (establishing the setting, introducing the characters) give Rollin’s films a Continue reading 59*. REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE (1972) →

Apocryphally Weird

48*. THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1971)

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Le frisson des vampires; AKA Sex and Vampires, Strange Things Happen at Night, Terror of the Vampires, Thrill of the Vampire, Vampire Thrills

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“A grandfather clock is of no interest – a vampire woman getting out of this clock at midnight, that’s me!”―Jean Rollin

DIRECTED BY: Jean Rollin

FEATURING: Sandra Julien, Jean-Marie Durand, Dominique, Marie-Pierre Castel (as Marie-Pierre Tricot), Kuelan Herce, Michel Delahaye, Jacques Robiolles, Nicole Nancel

PLOT: Newlyweds Isle and Antoine arrive at the castle of her beloved cousins, only to be told they died the day before. Isle soon discovers that the castle has become the domain of vampires, that her cousins were vampire hunters who were murdered and converted to the ranks of the undead, and that the lead vampire seeks to welcome the young newlywed into her coven. Antoine soon recognizes the threat to his bride, but he may be too late to prevent her from being seduced by the vampire’s call.

Still from shiver of the Vampires (1971)

BACKGROUND: 

  • This was the third of a quartet vampire movies that kicked off Rollin’s directorial career.
  • Marie-Pierre Castel, the blonde half of the pair of Renfield-like maids, is one of two cast members to return from Rollin’s previous feature, The Nude Vampire. She appeared in several of Rollin’s films, usually alongside her twin sister Catherine. (Catherine skipped this installment due to pregnancy).
  • Rollin shot the opening scene, in which the vampire slayers are entombed, in black-and-white as a nod to classic Universal horror films.
  • The director credited actors Delahaye (the other returning cast member) and Robiolles with improvising much of their dialogue, as they would often forget sections of their lengthy speeches during the extended takes.
  • Actress Nancel was widely disliked on the set, but she rose in the crew’s estimation when she volunteered to do a second take of a scene where her body is tossed into a moat, into water that was brackish and potentially toxic.
  • Explicit inserts were shot separately to turn this into a porno in some markets (a practice that was not infrequent in European horror movies in the early 70s).

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Are you kidding? It can only be the clock. Isolde, the vampire queen with the ghastly pallor, has a knack for entrances, but none is grander or more surprising than her first appearance, climbing out from within a grandfather clock and immediately pawing at the naked young woman she finds standing there. Rollin himself was unable to shake the sight; he returned to it in later films. 

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Death by pointy pasties; cousins deliver exposition in-the-round

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Easily ranking among the most elegant grindhouse movies ever made, The Shiver of the Vampires is relentless in its pursuit of exceedingly tasteful presentations of tawdry material. Gothic fashions and decor coexist harmoniously with a summer-of-love psychedelic vibe, all for the ostensible purpose of setting up vignettes of softcore smut but really in pursuit of an air of erotic disquiet. The film knows what it wants, and does exactly what it intends to do to get there.

Scene from Shiver of the Vampires

COMMENTS: How frequently over the years have movies been Continue reading 48*. THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1971) →

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CAPSULE: DAWN BREAKS BEHIND THE EYES (2021)

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Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

DIRECTED BY: Kevin Kopacka

FEATURING: Anna Platen, Jeff Wilbusch, Luisa Taraz, Frederik von Lüttichau

PLOT: A couple visit an old gothic castle the wife has inherited; it’s haunted, and simmering resentments from their past erupt into anger—but then there’s a twist.

Still from Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021)

COMMENTS: Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is a difficult movie to talk about, plotwise, because it contains a major twist coming at the end of the first act. It’s much easier to discuss in terms of its stylistic inspirations: it’s a shameless tribute to minimalist Gothic Eurohorror of the late 60s and early 70s, as exemplified by , , and (especially) . Set in a “castle” (I’d call it more of a manor), you can expect to see lots of lingering scenes of women wandering the darkened corridors bearing candelabras or walking through the grounds at night in a trance clad in white nightgowns, that sort of thing. The music—jazzy prog rock à la Goblin, alongside a variety of other rock-pop styles and more traditional orchestra-and-synth scare cues—is excellent, if ladled on a bit thick at times. Period details are perfect, even down to the pale pink, drop-shadowed opening title font, festooned with curlicues.

Again, there is not much that can be said about the plot without spoiling things. We’ll mention this nugget: while wandering around in the dusty wine cellar, Dieter (whose face and bearing perfectly express a Germanic arrogance that begs for a bloody comeuppance) finds a chest. Inside are a pair of glasses, an old newspaper article describing a tragedy, and a whip. All three items are clues, of an obscure sort. True to its inspirations, Dawn Breaks is more concerned with eerie ambiance than with narrative momentum, and the first thirty minutes are slow going. Things pick up, however, in the second act, eventually landing in a massive psychedelic-fueled orgy that shades into a finale that’s even weirder and more abstract than what came before.

Fans of vintage arty European horror movies are likely to be sucked in, although it is not the simple homage it appears to be at first. If the viewer can make it through the slow-paced introductory act, the movie starts to open up, introducing more levels that provide a psychological depth to the characters, casting them as archetypes of man and woman engaged in an eternal battle of the sexes. You are invited to infer your own backstory for the major characters based on hints dropped in casual conversation. The movie does well overcoming its budgetary limitations, utilizing every dusty, paint-stripped corner of its setting and relying on nifty editing and basic camera tricks (blurring, pink gel filters, superimposition) when it strides into lysergic territory. Multilayered and elegantly decadent, Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes remains mysterious to the end, a fact which will frustrate many horror fans hoping for a clear denouement, but which shouldn’t be a barrier for most of our readers.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes debuts on video-on-demand starting June 24; we’ll update this post with the link when the time arrives.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“About once a year, I see a movie that is so weird it takes me about 48 hours to figure out if I like it… Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes is that movie this year.”–Sharai Bohannon, Dread Central (festival screening)

Capsules

CAPSULE: ODISSEA DELLA MORTE (2018)

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AKA Valley of the Rats; Odyssey of Death

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Beware

DIRECTED BY: Vince D’Amato

FEATURING: Jesse Onocalla, Momona Komagata, ,  Tristan Risk

PLOT: A man rents a limousine and travels around town talking with his associates as he tries to figure out who killed his girlfriend.

Still from Odissea Della Morte (2019)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Amidst all the random shots of walking around, limo-bound conversations, and pseudo-BDSM, there is a quiet aura of nothingness going on. As there is virtually nothing doing in this movie, there is virtually nothing weird about it.

COMMENTS: With money, generally, comes a modicum of competence when it comes to filmmaking. The middle-to-big-budget movie you watch may not be particularly entertaining, but it’s at least technically well done. But low budget films are odd beasts. Some cost as much as a used economy car, and are unceasingly entertaining. Others, costing as much as a higher-end mid-budget sedan, are unceasingly tedious. To what end do I type all this garbled verbiage? My reason is twofold. First, I am somewhat frantically trying to think of what to write about Vince D’Amato’s Odissea Della Morte (translation probably not needed). Second, having begun the review in this stylistic manner, it occurs to me that it’s a fairly decent textual translation of Odissea‘s cinematic style.

Jesse (Jesse Onocalla) rides around in a limo, much to his friends’ bemusement, going on a bender while interviewing various people who saw his girlfriend (I don’t remember her name, it doesn’t matter) before she was murdered. While chewing over various evils of modern society in this mobile backdrop, various nonentities enter and exit the vehicle and make various unimportant observations. Intercutting these vignettes are shots of largely naked, occasionally gothed-out women doing ambiguously sexy things and photographing each other until the whole movie becomes this weird (!) and tedious dream thing that culminates in what is perhaps a twist.

I hope my record of reviews can attest to the fact that I am generally a very patient viewer who is eager to give every movie the fairest shake possible. The closest I’ve ever gotten to “cheating” for this website is with this movie. I did watch it, all of it, and even have some notes to prove I paid attention for portions of it. However, when your film’s two highlights are a brief conversation with an affable limo driver and some blandly cryptic remarks from an actress most famous for a small part in a movie known mostly for its theme song by David Bowie, your film is probably doomed, and no amount of T&A, canted angles, and color-to-black-and-white shifts can obscure that.

Forgive me, there was a third highlight: an aura of menace, a tied up woman threatened with a knife, and some beardo shouting, “I AM THE CITY!” in a way that made Jack Skellington‘s declaration of pumpkin-kingship seem altogether Shakespearean by comparison. That gave me a chuckle.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a love letter to the works of David Cronenberg and Jess Franco set to [D’Amato’s] unique take on the giallo film.”–Film Bizarro

Odissea Della Morte [Blu-ray]

Odissea Della Morte [Blu-ray]
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Canonically Weird (The List)

362. THE DEVILS (1971)

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“There was no better director to learn from. He would always take the adventurous path even at the expense of coherence.”–Derek Jarman on Ken Russell

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , Gemma Jones, Dudley Sutton, Michael Gothard, Murray Melvin

PLOT: Father Urbain Grandier is the charismatic spiritual and political leader of the independent city of Loudun; Cardinal Richelieu wants him replaced because he refuses to allow the city’s walls to be torn down. Sister Jeanne, Mother Superior of the town’s convent, is tormented by sexual dreams about Grandier. When Sister Jeanne confesses her fantasies to a priest, Richelieu’s men hatch a plot to frame Grandier as a warlock, and the entire convent is whipped into mass hysteria, becoming convinced they are possessed by devils.

Still from The Devils (1971)

BACKGROUND:

  • Father Grandier and Sister Jeanne, among many other characters in the film, were real people. Grandier was burnt at the stake in 1634 on accusations of practicing witchcraft.
  • The Devils was based on John Whiting’s play “The Devils of Loudun,” which itself was based on Aldous Huxley’s novel of the same title.
  • Ken Russell’s original theatrical cut ran 117 minutes, after the British censors removed an infamous 4-minute sequence known as “the rape of Christ.” The U.S. distributor cut an additional three to six minutes of sex and blasphemy out so that the film could be released with an “R” rating in the States, and that release became the standard version and the only one released on VHS. The longer director’s cut was not seen until 2004, thanks to a restoration effort led by . Russell’s director’s cut has never been issued on home video; the X-rated theatrical cut is the most complete version currently available. Portions of the “rape of Christ” scene are preserved in a BBC documentary called “Hell on Earth” (included on the BFI DVD).
  • A young designed the sets. This was his first feature credit.
  • The Devils is included in Steven Schneider’s “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.”
  • The contemporary arguments over the film became so heated that Russell himself attacked critic Alexander Walker on live television, hitting him on the head with a copy of his negative review.
  • Warner Brothers has steadfastly refused to release the movie on DVD, but they did eventually sublicense it to the British Film Institute for overseas release.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Even with the “rape of Christ” scene excised, what sticks out in The Devils are the scenes of possessed nuns, some with shaved heads, whipping off their habits and cavorting in the nude, writhing, self-flagellating, jerking off votive candles, and waggling their tongues in an obscene performance. For a single, and singular, image that encapsulates the themes and shock level of The Devils, however, try the vision of Vanessa Redgrave seductively licking at the wound in Oliver Reed’s side when she imagines him as Christ descended from the cross to ravage her.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Crocodile parry; Christ licking; John Lennon, exorcist

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Nobody, but nobody, shoots a nun orgy like Ken Russell. Aside from a dream sequence or two, The Devils is a historically accurate account of a real-life medieval witch hunt—but Russell emphasizes only the oddest and most perverse details, so that the movie itself becomes as hysterical and overwrought as the frenzy it condemns. Truth, in this case, is at least as strange as fiction.


Original U.S. release trailer for The Devils

COMMENTS: Viewed from a great distance, The Devils is a classical Continue reading 362. THE DEVILS (1971) →