Shiver of the Vampires (1971)

Shiver of the Vampires (Le frisson des vampires) was Jean Rollin’s third feature film. By this time he had definitely found his voice as a filmmaker.

If you’re unfamiliar with Rollin it’s as well to know that there is nothing conventional about his movies. If you’ve heard that he was a maker of erotic gothic horror movies or erotic vampire movies you will find that this is somewhat true but his movies are not like other people’s erotic vampire movies. Shiver of the Vampires is a very very different beast compared to Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers or Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness or even José Larraz’s Vampyres or Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos and Female Vampire. Those are all excellent movies that in various ways redefined the vampire movie but Shiver of the Vampires is much stranger.

It is an erotic vampire movie and it is an exploitation movie but it’s also an art film and an exercise in cinematic surrealism. The term surrealist is ludicrously overused but Rollin was the real deal. He was a full-blown surrealist, hugely influenced by surrealist painters such as Paul Delvaux and Clovis Trouille.

Shiver of the Vampires is uncompromisingly surrealist and uncompromisingly arty and it’s uncompromisingly a commercially oriented exploitation movie. Rollin wanted his movies to be commercially successful.

Isle (Sandra Julien) and Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand) are a young newly married couple. They’re heading to a semi-ruined chateau to visit Isle’s two male cousins who are her only living relatives. They arrive to discover that the cousins died a couple of days earlier.

The principal location used was the keep of the 14th century Château de Septmonts in Aisne. The keep is all that remains of the chateau. It’s an extraordinary location and Rollin wanted the chateau itself to be a character in the movie. It is in a sense alive. It influences all the characters. Although Isle and Antoine are madly in love and this is their wedding night (she is still wearing her bridal gown) she does not want to make love with her bridegroom. At this early stage of the story the chateau is already exerting its influence on Isle. It is claiming her.

The cousins reappear. They are not dead after all. Isle and Antoine are surprised but of course we, the viewers, are now suspecting that they are vampires. Perhaps they are, although later we discover that they were at one time vampire hunters. And another vampire, Isolde (Dominique) will soon make her appearance in one of the many dazzling minor visual set-pieces of the film. Isolde takes a keen interest in Isle.

Like many of Rollin’s films this is often regarded as a lesbian vampire story but that is slightly misleading. In Rollin’s films there are links and bonds and attractions between female characters but it is an over-simplification to see these in terms of lesbianism. Rollin describes this movie as a magical love story and the eroticism is indeed more magical than physical. There may be a physical side to it but it’s not physical desire that drives the story.

The connections between the characters between Isolde and the two cousins and between Isolde and Isle are inherently mysterious. The family history is complex. And the vampires here have mysterious origins. The cousins talk about ancient religious cults and conflicts between those cults and the Catholic Church.

There is also no clear-cut good vs evil conflict. Rollin’s vampires were rarely evil in any straightforward way.

And of course in a Rollin movie there is always a point at which we become aware that we are no longer in the world of reality in the sense that we usually understand reality. We may be in the world of myth or the world of dream. Perhaps those worlds are just different realities. In his late vampire movies, the superb Two Orphan Vampires (1997) and Dracula's Fiancee (2002), Rollin creates elaborate alternative mythologies. And in Two Orphan Vampires we are in a storybook world the reality of which is incredibly ambiguous.

Rollin had an overwhelming love for the pop culture of the past and his strange cinematic worlds draw heavily on such influences. In this case he is very deliberately homaging the amazing silent serials of Louis Feuillade, in particular Les Vampires (1915). For Rollin fictional worlds had their own reality.

Shiver of the Vampires is unusual among Rollin’s films for its fascination with hippie culture and the counter-culture in general. It was shot in 1970, a year after Woodstock. This was the high tide of hippiedom.

Rollin tells us in his audio commentary that he wanted to have something bizarre in every single shot. Trying to find a straightforward meaning in his films is a fool’s errand. It’s like trying to find a single coherent meaning in dream or a myth.

When Rollin is discussed it’s perhaps surprising that David Lynch doesn’t get mentioned. Very different filmmakers but with a few striking affinities. Those “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” moments in Lynch movies such as Blue Velvet serve the same purpose as similar moments in Rollin’s movies - opening a portal between everyday reality and another world in which reality has been subtly distorted.

Shiver of the Vampires is one of Rollin’s best and most characteristic movies. Very highly recommended.

Mr Vampire (1985)

Mr Vampire is a 1985 horror comedy released by Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest studio.

I have to be upfront here - I really dislike horror comedies in general. This is a very crazy movie, which is a good thing, but for my tastes it’s just too silly. I enjoy silliness, but this is too much silliness for me. 

And the comedy is mainly slapstick, my least favourite form of comedy.

It begins with the reburial of the father of a prominent citizen, Master Yam. The family had buried the father after taking advice from a feng shui master but the advice was bad and has caused the family twenty years of bad luck.

The corpse is dug up and taken to the mortuary where it is discovered that the old man is turning into a vampire.

The priest and his two hapless assistants take what they hope are the necessary steps to prevent the transformation from being completed.

Their efforts are in vain. And one of the assistants is bitten by the vampire.

The other assistants is waylaid by a pretty female ghost. They have a nice time in bed together but the young man is now bewitched.

So the priest has to save one of his assistants from being turned into a vampire and save the other from the attentions of a very horny lady ghost.

At one stage the priest is locked up on suspicion of murder by Master Yam’s unbelievably stupid policeman nephew.

All of which gives rise to countless comedic kung fu action scenes.

The humour is mostly lame. One of the few genuinely funny moments is the misunderstanding in the shop where one of the priest’s assistants is employed - he thinks Master Yam’s very respectable daughter works in the brothel across the road. This is witty verbal humour and it works.

What makes the movie worth seeing is the fascinating wealth of vampire and ghost lore, much of it based at least to some degree on actual Chinese folklore. Chinese ghosts are corporeal and actually can and do have sex and lady ghosts do seduce men. And Chinese ghosts are not necessarily evil. Having sex with a ghost can lead to unfortunate consequences but this is not always the case.

And then there are the hopping vampires, and vampire-like hopping undead creatures do figure in Chinese folklore. They add a very bizarre touch.

The steps that need to be taken to combat vampires are insanely complicated. If you’re up against vampires you will need a great deal of glutinous rice, plenty of black ink and a lot of string. You’ll need advanced martial arts skills.

You’ll also need a good deal of luck. These vampires are near-unstoppable. You cannot afford mistakes.

Mr Vampire has its attractions and it’s certainly different. It was a huge commercial success and kicked off an entire genre.

The performances and the comedy are very very broad. Your enjoyment of the movie will depend very heavily on how much you like ultra-zany goofy slapstick humour.

If you do enjoy this type of comedy you’ll enjoy the movie much more than I did.

The Eureka Blu-Ray offers a very nice transfer with some extras.

The Velvet Vampire (1971)

The Velvet Vampire was made for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in 1971. It was directed by Stephanie Rothman.

This was a time when filmmakers in many different countries were totally redefining the vampire movie. The period between 1969 and 1974 saw the release of Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness, José Larraz’s Vampyres, Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos and Female Vampire, Michio Yamamoto’s The Vampire Doll and Jean Rollin’s The Nude Vampire. Huge chunks of traditional vampire lore were discarded. These were vampire movies in contemporary settings and these were vampires for the 70s.

The Velvet Vampire was very much part of this trend.

Lee Ritter (Michael Blodgett) and his wife Susan Ritter (Sherry Miles) meet the glamorous but strange Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall) at an art gallery. Lee is clearly besotted. Diane invites the couple to her house in the desert.

The Ritters’ car breaks down so they’re stuck at Diane’s house for several days. Diane seduces Lee. Susan has disturbing dreams.

Susan isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but she knows when another woman is trying to steal her man.

For more than a century there have been strange unexplained disappearances in the area. Lee and Susan should be more worried by this than they are. There are clues that there is something odd about Diane but they don’t connect the dots.

This is not likely to end well for the young couple.

The acting is generally terrible. Celeste Yarnall can’t act but she does look like a spooky mysterious sexy lady vampire and she gives off the right sinister seductive but creepy vibes.

Anyone seeing The Velvet Vampire at the time (or today) who was unfamiliar with European horror would have seen it as revolutionary and groundbreaking. Anyone actually familiar with European horror would have noticed that every single groundbreaking element in The Velvet Vampire is found in Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (made a year earlier) apart from from a few ideas that are found in Jean Rollin’s The Nude Vampire (also made a year earlier). And a few ideas that appeared in Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness.

Vampires who love the sun, vampires who enjoy lazing by the swimming pool, a vampire movie that eschews darkness and gothic trappings in favour of bright sunshine, vampirism as a blood disease. Even the symbolism - the scene with the rattlesnake is reminiscent of the scene with the scorpion in Vampyros Lesbos. And Franco and Rollin had already made vampire movies with dream imagery.

The best thing about this movie is that Diane is not an exiled European noblewoman - she’s an all-American girl. In some scenes, with her hat and boots, she looks a bit like a vampire cowgirl.

Finding good locations is crucial in low-budget filmmaking and in this case the locations are good. Not just the mansion in the desert but the abandoned mine and the ghost town. They could however have been used with a bit more flair and imagination.

The dream sequence with the bed and the mirror in the middle of desert achieves a nicely subtle surreal feel. It’s definitely the high point of the movie.

There’s a reason that Stephanie Rothman did not go on to a glittering career as a director. She was a terrible director. She fails to achieve the necessary feeling of menace. Everything about this movie is stilted and stiff, amateurish and rather dull.

This was a rare flop for Roger Corman. It did poorly at the box office and critics were scathing.

The Velvet Vampire seriously fails to live up to its potential. At best it’s an oddity. Maybe worth a look if you’re a vampire movie completist.

The Shout! Factory DVD offers a very good 16:9 enhanced transfer, with a few extras.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a 2001 French historical horror/action movie set in 1764. It was directed by Christophe Gans.

It’s based very very very loosely on the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, presumed to have been a huge wolf which killed over a hundred people.

In the movie naturalist Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel le Bihan) and his Iroquois companion Mani (Mark Dacascos) have been sent by the King to help the local authorities trap and destroy the Beast.

They run into some trouble with a huge gang of ruffians but fortunately Mani is a kung fu expert (the Iroquois being of course renowned for their kung fu skills).

Mani also has vague mystical spiritual powers which of course makes him a superior person. He’s also the most morally superior person in the story.

Attempts to track the Beast end in failure and the Beast claims more and more victims.

Tensions are high but de Fronsac finds time to fall in love with the beautiful Marianne de Morangias (Émilie Dequenne). He also finds time for some hot bedroom action with a local whore, Sylvia (Monica Bellucci). Sylvia also has vague mystical spiritual powers which of course makes her a superior person.

We get a series of revelations indicating what is really happening. Each revelation is a bit sillier and a bit more lame than the preceding one. The central idea is very implausible.

And then we get to the Big Reveal, at which point I was sorely tempted to just switch the movie off and go to bed.

The plot twists are not so much twists as out-and-out cheats. Or perhaps just a symptom of a garbled nonsensical script.

Visually it’s quite impressive in a very gimmick-laden way with the same visual tricks used over and over again.

There’s a lot of clumsy ideological messaging. Lots and lots of it.

A huge problem is that all the major sympathetic characters belong to the world of 2001, not the world of 1764. Their outlooks, attitudes and beliefs are those of 2001, not 1764.

I was amused by one online reviewer waxing lyrical about the steamy erotic scenes between Samuel le Bihan and Monica Bellucci. He must have seen a different movie. I saw the full uncut version. The sex scenes are boring and terribly un-erotic. This is a movie with zero erotic energy and zero emotional energy.

The kung fu scenes are absurdly out of place and make a silly movie even sillier and they’re not even particularly well done.

The biggest problem is that the movie just goes on and on and on. For two-and-a-half interminable hours. The pacing is glacial.

None of the elements really hang together and they’re not tonally consistent. It starts out trying to build a subtle atmosphere of dread and evil. Then it becomes a kung fu movie. Finally it turns into a comic book-style superhero movie. The evil turns out to be very trite. The ending is chaotic, but not in a good way.

Given that I was never even a tiny bit convinced by the historical setting or by the characters I found it difficult to keep interested. I can’t recommend this one.

It looks nice enough on Blu-Ray.

The Seventh Curse (1986)

Even by the standards of 1980s Hong Kong movies Golden Harvest’s The Seventh Curse (1986) is wild wild stuff.

It was inspired by the hugely popular novels of Ni Kuang. He wrote at least 300 wuxia and science fiction novels, being noted for working extraterrestrials into detective and mystery novels. His two most popular novel series were the Wisely series, about a wealthy adventurer named (obviously) Wisely, and the Dr Yuen series. The Seventh Curse is a Dr Yuen adventure but it’s an original story written for the film. And Wisely appears as a supporting character.

At a dinner party the famous novelist Ni Kuang (played by the famous novelist Ni Kuang) recounts the latest exploits of Dr Yuen.

The opening action scene is absolute mayhem. It’s a raid by the Hong Kong equivalent of a SWAT team. It’s a big operation - there must be a hundred cops involved. The police call on Dr Yuen for help. A doctor is needed to treat a hostage held in an office building. His job is to set off a flash bomb to distract the bad guys.

We soon learn that Dr Yuen is not just an everyday medical doctor. He’s a martial arts expert, a crack shot, a medical researcher and an adventurer.

This guy is a totally awesome all-round hero.

But he has a problem. It’s a deadly blood curse imposed on him in Thailand.

He was part of a scientific expedition into the jungle, an expedition that encountered a particularly hostile tribe. That’s where he met Bachu. She was bathing half-naked in a river. Both Dr Yuen and Bachu fell foul of an incredibly evil sorcerer. The sorcerer presides over human sacrifices. Dr Yuen escapes.

The blood curse is a delayed action time bomb. Nothing happens for a year, then it activates, and now it will kill him in seven days. His only chance is to return to Thailand to find a cure for himself, and for Bachu.

In that opening police siege sequence Dr Yuen first came across Feisty Girl Reporter Tsui Hung (Maggie Cheung). Feisty Girl Reporters can be irritating but Tsui Hung is cute, sexy and adorable. Now she insists on accompanying him to Thailand - she smells a big story here.

From this point on the mayhem is non-stop with one great action sequence after another. Martial arts fans will not be disappointed. There's a huge amount of gunplay as well, and explosions.

And lots of crazy over-the-top special effects and plenty of gore. There’s a very obvious influence from Alien with demonic babies popping out of people’s chests. The intention was clearly to make the special effects fun.

Chin Siu-ho is terrific as Dr Yuen. He doesn’t look like an action hero. He looks a bit geeky. But in reality he’s a kind of Chinese Indiana Jones. He’s also very likeable.

Maggie Cheung is delightful and amusing and Miss Tsui Hung participates gleefully in the mayhem.

The location shooting was done in Thailand.

There’s a very small amount of nudity and no sex. This is all about the crazy witchcraft stuff and the action. I believe it was one of the films later retrospectively given a Category III rating.

This is a good-natured adventure romp that doesn’t take itself at all seriously. It wants the audience to enjoy the ride.

Director Lam Ngai Kai does a great job here. He went on to helm the fabulous Erotic Ghost Story.

The Seventh Curse is insanely entertaining. It’s not just bonkers. It’s beyond bonkers. But it delivers everything it promises and then some. Not surprising it was a major commercial success.

This movie is very highly recommended.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers the original Hong Kong cut and the shorter Export Cut plus plenty of extras.

Cobra (1986)

Cobra is a 1986 action film produced by the Cannon Group. Sylvestor Stallone stars and he wrote the screenplay as well.

It’s a fine demonstration of the extent to which critics had by this time become out of touch with public tastes. While critics clutched their pearls and lamented the movie’s wickedness it proceeded to clean up at the box office. Audiences didn’t care what the critics thought - they loved this movie. Which enraged the critics even more.

This is not a subtle movie and it doesn’t try to be. It’s an adrenalin-charged action thriller. The bad guys are totally evil. The hero is totally heroic. The heroine is beautiful and likeable. Lots of stuff gets blown up. Thousands of rounds of small arms ammunition are discharged. Grenades get thrown. The action doesn’t stop.

A bunch of crazed psychos are on a rampage of murder and mayhem. The cops seem helpless. Except for Lieutenant Marion Cobretti (Sylvestor Stallone) and his partner Sergeant Tony Gonzales (Reni Santoni). Cobretti has gained the nickname the Cobra. He’s read the rulebook. He wasn’t impressed. You can’t catch dirtbags that way.

There is one useful lead. Fashion model Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen) saw something that didn’t seem important to her at the time. But since the crazed psychos are now trying to kill her Cobretti figures it really was important.

He and Gonzales are going to have to find a way to keep Ingrid alive.

And there’s a leak in the department. A cop who is part of the psycho gang. And the gang has hundreds of members, all crazy fanatical killers.

There’s pretty much it for the plot. What matters is the rollercoaster ride of mayhem, handled skilfully by director George P. Cosmatos.

Stallone wrote the screenplay and I have to say that the man knows how to write cool hardboiled dialogue.

This is an 80s action movie but not in the Die Hard or Lethal Weapon mode. This has some of the flavour of 1930s/40s pulp fiction, stuff like The Shadow. The bad guys are the kinds of bad guys you’d get in a 30s/40s movie serial. And there’s a definite Dick Tracy vibe. Not the Dick Tracy of the slightly later (and excellent) 1990 Warren Beatty movie but the Dick Tracy of the comic strips and movie serials.

This movie does not succumb to the temptation to present the crazies as a political or religious cult. In a comic book or a 1940s pulp story or a movie serial you would have a diabolical criminal mastermind aiming vaguely at world domination, with his own private army. And that’s what Cobra offers. Villains who are villains simply because they’re evil.

One great thing about this movie is that it’s from the pre-political correctness era. There’s an evil female cop, which you probably wouldn’t get away with today. And there’s no GirlPower! stuff. Ingrid is allowed to be a woman. She’s allowed to need a man to protect her. And she actually likes having a man to protect her.

Stallone knew he wasn’t going to win an Oscar for this film. He doesn’t worry too much about acting, he just relies on his charisma. And his mirrorshades.

Brigitte Nielsen looks great and she’s likeable.

There’s no characterisation to speak of. It’s not exactly a profound character study.

The movie has an 80s aesthetic with occasional retro 40s touches. I love Cobra’s car, a big mean customised 1950 Mercury that looks like it belongs in a comic book. I want a car like this.

Cobra is a big dumb action movie and it delivers as much mayhem and excitement as any reasonable person could ask for. Don’t try to think about it because there’s nothing here to think about. Just grab a few beers and some popcorn. I enjoyed it immensely. Highly recommended.

Cobra looks terrific on Blu-Ray, and the disc includes quite a few extras.

Sex and Zen (1991)

Sex and Zen was released by Golden Harvest in 1991 and it is one of the more notorious Hong Kong Category III movies.

Category III was a censorship rating introduced in 1988, similar to the American NC-17 rating. No-one under 18 was allowed to see such films. The NC-17 rating never worked because in the U.S. distributors and exhibitors conspired to wreck the commercial prospects of any film unlucky enough to get such a classification. The Hong Kong Category III rating worked because it was a genuine and honest attempt to allow filmmakers to deal with grown-up subject matter with a reasonable degree of freedom.

Category III movies usually had both graphic violence and explicit sex and nudity. Sex and Zen concentrates on the sex. It’s a wild insane sex comedy.

Mei Yeung-Sheng (Lawrence Ng) is a scholar who believes that what really matters in life is the pursuit of erotic pleasure without reference to conventional rules of morality. This has led to a clash with the wise monk known as the Sack Monk who has tried to persuade him to embrace the virtues of self-denial.

The wise old monk assures the young scholar that no matter how clever you might be the pursuit of other men’s wives will lead to disaster. Retribution is a certainty. Mei Yeung-Sheng refuses to listen.

Mei Yeung-Sheng marries Huk-Yeung (Amy Yip), the daughter of a rich and powerful man known as Master Iron Gate. Huk-Yeung thinks sex is shameful. Their wedding night might not be a total success for the young couple but it provides a great deal of amusement for the audience.

Mei Yeung-Sheng continues his pursuit of women aided by cat burglar Choi Kun-Lun (Lo Lieh). His ability to break into homes and pick locks will be useful - Mei Yeung-Sheng will use the most unscrupulous methods in pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Choi Kun-Lun persuades Mei Yeung-Sheng that his problem with women is that his equipment is not adequate for the job. He needs a hardware upgrade.

The movie now becomes steadily more crazy and outrageous. The young scholar finds a surgeon who can perform the upgrade. The operation should go smoothly as long as it doesn’t rain - this surgeon gets very jumpy when it rains.

And as long as the horse co-operates.

The scholar is only too anxious to find out if the upgrade has been successful. He doesn’t get any complaints from the ladies.

Mei Yeung-Sheng embarks on an erotic spree which gets him into a certain amount of trouble.

After their marriage his wife Huk-Yeung (Amy Yip) had quickly discovered that sex isn’t disgusting after all. In fact she likes it very much indeed. But her husband is away most of the time. She finds some very imaginative ways to provide pleasure to herself but it’s just not the same. She needs a man. She needs a man real bad.

She finds one, in the form of the gardener. Which leads to complicated and unfortunate results. For just about everybody.

Sex and Zen is based on Li Yu’s seventeenth-century erotic novel The Carnal Prayer Mat.

The sex scenes are frequent, very imaginatively shot and very very explicit. And at times very kinky. If you are easily shocked or offended you might want to keep right away from this movie.

Sex and Zen might not be for the faint-hearted but on the other hand it really is very funny and it’s wild and crazy. Highly recommended.

Umbrella’s Blu-Ray release offers a lovely transfer. The main extra is an interview with the director.