The Nude Vampire (1970)

The Nude Vampire (La vampire nue) was Jean Rollin’s second feature film, and the second in his vampire cycle. It was released in 1970. If you’re not familiar with Rollin’s work you may go into this movie expecting a straightforward erotic horror movie. If so you’re going to become very disoriented very quickly. Rollin was a surrealist. By that I don’t mean that he used surrealist images and techniques to add some atmosphere. This movie is surrealism all the way through.

All of Rollin’s horror movies are surrealist but that’s particularly true of his vampire films. The later vampire films, like the superb Fascination, are slightly more subtle but they’re still surrealist. The early movies are about as surrealist as any movies can get, and I’m not just talking about horror films. Very few directors ever attempted to push surrealism as far as Rollin did, and very few succeeded in making it work as well as Rollin did.

Trying to disentangle the plot of The Nude Vampire is like trying to make sense of a dream. You can gain some glimmerings of understanding, you can even get some real insights into dream states, but if you insist on logic you’re lost. It’s not that there isn’t a plot, it’s just that logic won’t help you.

A young man is rather concerned that his very wealthy father M. Radamante has kidnapped a young woman. The young man, Pierre Radamante, thinks his dad may be doing something relatively harmless like hosting occult sex parties for the decadent rich. In fact his dad is up to something much weirder.

There’s plenty of decadence here. There are for instance bored rich people playing Russian roulette. But it’s not what it seems - they’re a kind of cult. They worship the kidnapped girl. Who may not have been kidnapped. The girl is a vampire, or perhaps M. Radamante is right that she simply has a rare blood disease. She cannot tolerate sunlight. Any wounds she suffer heal almost instantly. She drinks blood. Perhaps this is really a science fiction film.

M. Radamante has his vampire and he intends to discover her secrets. But can he hang on to her? And will he realise that the situation is not at all what it seems to be and that he really has no idea what he is dealing with.

This movie is all about the images and the mood and these were always Rollin’s strengths. The images are disturbing, not in the sense of offering gore or overt terrors, but simply in conveying a sense that we’ve entered a world in which the rules are different.

There are characteristic Rollin touches. There are clocks. There are two young ladies who appear to be twins. No clowns, but he does manage to include a scene on his beloved beach at Dieppe, the beach that features in so many of his films.

There are some wonderful shots. Solange eavesdropping on the twins for instance, a beautifully composed scene.

Rollin had little in common with other practitioners of the erotic horror genre who were active at the time. He had his own style and seemed indifferent to the preoccupations of his contemporaries. The obvious movie with which to compare The Nude Vampire is Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1983 exercise in surreal eroticism, La Belle Captive.

And why did Rollin make so many vampire movies, and all of them concerning female vampires? Not because he had any interest in vampire folklore but for the very simple practical reason that compared to other types of horror films they are more aesthetically pleasing. You can cast pretty women in them. And the opportunities for combining horror and eroticism are so much greater. That’s Rollin’s explanation and there’s no reason to doubt it.

There’s no sex and not as much nudity as you might expect. The girls do get to wear some wild costumes though. And there are the masks.

Some of his later vampire films work better as horror films although I think it’s fair to say that Rollin never did make anything resembling a conventional horror movie. The Nude Vampire is a truly bizarre movie but the imagery is extraordinary. If you’re new to Rollin, start with Lips of Blood or Fascination but if you’re a Rollin fan this one is essential viewing. On that basis The Nude Vampire is highly recommended.