Requiem For A Vampire

Requiem For A Vampire (Caged Virgins) Directed By Jean Rollin, Starring Marie-Pierre Castel (1971).

The perfect way to start off your French vampire movie is with a clown shoot out car chase, but of course what can you expect from an accomplished professional like Jean Rollin, I mean the guy is no slouch. There's a huge debate among Eurotrash horror fanatics who pit Jess Franco and Rollin against each other (As you'll read, I almost despise Franco and it's a miracle if I'm able to stay awake during his bullshit). This film was sold in the U.S. as Caged Virgins because the distributor thought "Requiem, what the fuck is that"? Call it something different!

Eat a dick, Marcel Marceau

   It begins with two female clowns, who burn up their car with gasoline and head off to the "water chateau" which is what their partner in crime croaked just before his death.

Rollin has a style of tranquility and foreboding that registers as interesting, unlike Franco, whose tedium always makes want to turn off the T.V. and go to sleep.
   The ladies wipe off their makeup and ride off on a motorcycle, there's clumsy jump-cuts of the grease paint hitting the water. Bad mojo starts following the girls in the form of giant vampire bats, open graves and a mysterious castle. There's about two sentences of dialogue, but its all fun to watch and I can't explain why, it's just a fondness that I have for Rollins work. The girls enter the same ominous cobblestone castle from all of the director's films.

get used to this shot, you'll be seeing it alot

   They strip and make out on a blue shag quilt that looks as if it's made from muppet hair and

for split second they bump into creepy shit, like a severed arm poking out of wall and a funky lady vampire playing a pipe organ.

Dime store magic effects put to epic atmospheric use

   The girls are both armed (because apparently they are seasoned criminals) and waste alot of bullets never hitting any targets! Haven't they seen any Hammer films? The undead are immune to conventional weapons, I'm not an avid Rollin watcher and can't remember if he uses all of the entrapments associated with vampire destruction, this guy makes his own laws concerning Nosferatu lore. 

   The ladies flee in disgust, but have unfortunately attracted the satanic sect (who were always lurking in the dark forrest) and are followed into the graveyard.

This is the only sort of being laid Mr. Roper could ever enjoy, away from Mrs. Roper

   A mop-topped vampire shrouded in green light appears, it seems implied that he's the leader (but there's no dialogue to convey this) he looks like Mr. Roper from Threes Company!

 Some non vampiric, ogre-like henchman molest nude girls in chains as real giant bats hop around, one even attaches itself to a vagina!

Sorry we soiled this official Sesame Street Grover skinned quilt 

 
As a groovy organ number plays, there are tons of shots with the two girls looking into the camera as it pans in, there's an essential CD of all of Jean's soundtrack songs put out by finders keepers called The B-Music Of Jean Rollin.

 

Ooga chaka Ogre finally got some hair pie

 
   Another vampire boss tells the girls to lure in victims with their virginal qualities and that eventually they will not be able to withstand the sunlight, it will soon burn them like a typical creature of the night.

You're the coolest Marc Bolin

 
   I thought they were being cute when they described the two girls as virgins (because they were seen having lesbian sex, which doesn't count apparently in France). But Ok, I'll go with this inaccuracy for the sake of the plot, because one girl disturbs the entire operation by sleeping with a man. I guess the aspect of sleeping with a man registers as a textbook non-virgin, there's too many semantics going on for me to over analyze it. I always thought that sex period, equals non virgin, but what the hell do I know?

Second Amendment Right Three's Company

 
   This act of betrayal causes her lover and partner to whip her to get information on where the man is hidden. Also it causes the vampire sect to lose interest in continuing the cycle of their blood line using the two girls and they are able to escape, but obviously their friendship and companionship is strained.  
   This was close, but nothing will top my favorite film of his career, Living Dead Girl. That may be because it was the first one I ever saw and there were arial sprays of blood, I thought Shiver of The Vampires was amazing too.

That's pretty harsh and not very glitter rock!

   Goat Scrote and I recently had a serious discussion about Franco and Rollin and it boiled down to basically there are two camps of horror fans, you either love one lesbian vampire director or the other.
Franco vs. Rollin, the debate will continue, I can't honestly explain why I don't want to pull my hair out at the end of a Jean Rollin film and I can't justify the boredom either. As for Jess Franco, I must be either heavily intoxicated or it's just a goddamned entertaining film that wins me over (two cases featured on this site are Mandingo Manhunter and Eugenie: Sex Happening).

Fun for a typical Lesbian Vampire movie