Rape Of The Vampire is Rollin’s first full length feature film, kicking off not only his career as a director but the string of vampire films he’s become most known for. The film is broken up in two parts, The Rape of the Vampire and The Vampire Women. The first section, I suppose, is supposed to set up the story of four vampire sisters (at least I think that’s what the unseen man who disrobes and feels up one of the sisters says, while he’s disrobing and feeling the girl up) while the second is the story of their revenge. Unfortunately neither is really a linear story, so you kind of have to watch the movie twice and then piece things together the best you can; or at least that’s what I had to do. In retrospect I think this actually works to the film’s advantage because the more you kind of fill in the gaps using your own interpretation of the story, the more you start to feel like it makes sense. At any rate, in part one we get familiar with the sisters and their trio of house guests, one of whom is there because he’s determined to convince the girls they are not vampires. At the same time, the guy who apparently convinced them they were vampires in the first place starts working overtime to prove the opposite, until the poor girls are completely confused and don’t know who to believe. (Much like the viewer.) Of course, when you’re watching the type of film that has scenes such as the one where the blind sister engages in a solo game of lawn bowling or the repeated scenes of the mute, mutant freak who lives on the sisters’ property twirling aimlessly, you can’t really expect it any other way. At any rate, eventually the group is severely whittled down and even the two remaining main characters wind up face down in the sand at the end of the first piece. After a quick and somewhat pointless credit roll, the second piece picks up where the first left off, literally. Except, since all of the main characters are dead at this point (or so we think!), we are quickly introduced to a group of a new characters. (Before we find out that the dead people are not dead at all. In fact, they’re undead. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) The most important of these new characters is the vampire queen. Who I gather is the impetus for not only everything following her introduction to the story, but everything preceding it as well. And that is pretty much the only thing I can say for sure about part two because, seriously, I was barely able to follow along; and, as mentioned previously, I watched it twice. Stuff like this is usually best left to film majors and art fags, and I am neither (although I did wear a lot of black in high school and used to own a copy of Meat Is Murder), but I have to admit, I liked this movie. Even with it’s lack of cohesion. Due to the availability of the releases we rented for this overview, and which Rollin films we’d watched previously, weren’t able see them in chronological order, it was interesting to go back to this one and investigate the roots of his mighty tree of mostly confusing, somewhat sexy vampire movies. One more trivial note about Rape Of The Vampire: apparently when it did get proper theatrical release in France the 1968 Paris student riots caused an essential shut down of French film distribution, and no other movie was released around that time; thus turning this into a box office smash. Ah the French, only they can truly appreciate the most subtle forms of entertainment; like movies where vampire sisters wander silently through the woods during seemingly daylight hours, clad in matching floor length white robes, carrying lit torches, and the collected works of Jerry Lewis.
—Bunny

Shiver Of The Vampires is only Rollin’s fourth feature film but, because it’s his third vampire saga, a lot of the formula and hallmarks that separate his vampire movies from those of just about every other filmmaker are already in place. It kinda goes like this: Outsiders (generally either a couple or an individual) inadvertently find themselves amidst a group of vampires and must fight to not only save themselves but kill (or at least stop) the bloodsuckers. Along the way we’re almost sure to get a fair amount of toplessness, sex (usually, but not exclusively, lesbian), funky costumes (read: wacky ‘70s Euro-fashion), and extended periods of silence where we’re supposed to figure out the symbolism. Vampirism is generally seen as an unwanted curse plaguing those who fall victim to it until they can find a way out. This time around we have Isle and Antoine, a newly married couple who, on the way to their honeymoon, stop at the bride’s cousin’s chateau because she hasn’t seen them since she was a small girl. They’re her favorite relatives and they also happen to be eccentric. When they stop in the town near the chateau to get directions, they’re told the two owners (the bride’s cousins) have both just died and been buried in the past day. Bummed but undaunted, they proceed to the chateau where they’re greeted by the cousins’ two servant girls (one of whom is the blond heroine in Caged Virgins), who seem to deny their masters’ deaths and carry on as if they’ll simply arrive back at the chateau later. (The chateau itself is beautifully shot, with soft red and blue lighting dividing lots of the sets in an almost psychedelic Mario Bava way, adding another dimension of weirdness.) Isle is so upset by the events she tells Antoine that, even though it’s supposed to be their first night together, she wants to sleep alone. He grudgingly obliges, but when he goes to check in on her later, finds her bed empty so he begins wandering the grounds to find her. What he doesn’t know is that at the stroke of midnight the grandfather clock in her room popped open and a scantily clad girl crawled out, hypnotized his wife and took her on a midnight stroll - a semi-naked midnight stroll - where the two fooled around and the clock girl, who we find out is called Isolde, put the bite on the new Mrs. He fails to locate his bride, but what he does see through a window is some sort of sacrifice/ceremony involving two post-hippie types (in a couture way) drinking blood. He dashes back to the main house and finds Isle peacefully sleeping in bed. Apparently the bite also has some sort of hypno-lesbionic power to it because the next day Isle seems to have lost all interest in Antoine and begins pining for Isolde. That night they are graced with the presence of Isle’s two cousins, who we slowly begin to realize are brothers and former vampire hunters who’ve recently been bitten and are now vampires. None of this is said directly however, because the two cousins try to intentionally confuse Antoine and Isle with very indirect answers to their questions - and the fact they complete the other’s sentences doesn’t help any either. Even though Antoine confronts the two, telling them what he saw the previous night, no one really seems to care. Later, Isle again tells Antoine she wants to sleep alone and this time he’s less than understanding. (Actually he’s pretty pissed off.) Nonetheless complies with her request. As the story progresses it gets more convoluted, involving a local woman who was lover to both men and still obsesses over them. There’s also a power struggle between the two brothers and Isolde, who’s apparently responsible for vampirizing them. Antoine keeps trying to get Isle to leave but she just can’t. She’s hopelessly hung up over Isolde and wants to stay with her cousins forever. (Meaning she wants to become a vampire.) After Antoine breaks up the final vampirization ceremony and grabs Isle we get a nighttime chase through the cavernous tunnels under the chateau that eventually spills out onto a beach. Turns out Antoine’s rescue came a little too late, as the morning sun does what it’ll do to vampires, leaving Antoine alone, screaming, and randomly firing his pistol in the air as the movie ends. In retrospect, Shiver Of The Vampires might be a very good place to start when diving into Rollin’s films.
—the Kommandant

The Demoniacs is an interesting, highly watchable—that’s right, highly watchable—revenge movie. Set in either the late 1700s or the 1800s in a “cursed” seaside town, we get two sets of characters whose actions and interactions are the movie’s core. The first is a group of four landlubber pirates called “wreckers,” who, according to the narrative, lure ships to shore with lights and, once the ships wreck, loot and plunder them. The second is a pair of sisters who become the Demoniacs of the title. The four wreckers: the Captain (who’s already halfway to insanity at the movie’s start); his right-hand man, Bosco;, their half-wit mate Paul; and the ridiculously hot Tina. Tina is hooked up with the Captain, and is the most truly evil, vengeful and remorseless of the lot. The movie starts with the wreckers waiting for booty from a newly sunk ship to wash in with the night’s tide but, as they wait, two waif-ish blondes clad in soaking nighties walk out of the darkness begging for help. Bosco and Paul oblige these teens as only they can, by brutally raping them and leaving them for dead on the rocks. Tina revels in the bloodshed by joyfully dancing around nekkid, which she does a lot in this film. Later on, while they’re all getting tanked up at the tavern where a lot of the action takes place, the Captain begins to have haunting visions of the two girls. Everywhere he looks, he sees them standing mute and staring right through him, but when he rubs his eyes and/or blinks, they’re not there. Eventually he convinces himself the girls are still alive and he drags his crew out to the beach to find them. Which they do, and, to everyone’s dismay, they’re very much alive. They chase the girls to an old ruin but none of them will follow the girls across the water because “the devil is there.” The girls stumble around the island ruin and eventually are met by a clown. Yep, a freakin’, face-painted, red-nosed clown. The clown escorts them to her master, a Rasputin looking guy who is, apparently, in charge of the island ruin’s only other resident, ”the devil,” an evil or demonic guy of some sort who’s locked up in a cell in the catacombs beneath the ruin. Are you still with me? Did I mention the piano playing psychic barmaid? Yeah, she’s some sort of Greek Chorus… I think… who somehow knows everything that’s already happened, is happening now and is about to happen when it concerns the wreckers and the two girls. The girls recover from their traumas and eventually find the prisoner, whom they free. In gratitude - I think - he gives them his powers for one night (technically until sunrise the following morning) to get their revenge on the wreckers. As they walk across the low tide waters back to the mainland, the clown and Rasputin looking guy say that, they’ll get their revenge but will also die soon. And over the next 20 minutes, that’s exactly what happens; I’m not going to reveal how all of that unfolds but a good deal of it is unexpected and well-executed. There’s a whole other ton of stuff you’re going to have to watch the movie to see that only adds to the insanity but I’ve gotta say I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The Demoniacs. From what I’ve seen, it’s probably one of Rollin’s better efforts.
—the Kommandnat

A lot of people consider this to be Rollin’s worst film, and I couldn’t disagree more. I’m not saying it’s NOT a bad movie, but it’s unintentional hilarity rescues it from the bottom of the barrel. Jess Franco wrote the script but even he turned it down when offered the director’s chair—possibly because he shot eight other movies in 1981 including his own zombie “epic,” Oasis Of The Living Dead. Be that as it may, in my world, when you can sum up a movie with the following three words you can do no wrong: Underwater Nazi Zombies. I first stumbled across this movie sometime in the late ‘80s and my shitty VHS copy is pretty worn out at this point, so seeing a clean DVD transfer for the first time was a welcome relief. As was all the gratuitous nudity and sex that was apparently edited out for the American VHS release two decades ago. But, technicalities aside, Rollin probably got as much out of this story as any other director could have (especially with the obviously threadbare budget) and what a ridiculous story it is. The movie opens with a girl stripping down by a lake, disposing of the ‘No Swimming’ sign near the water’s edge, and going for a little naked swim. From above it’s a real lake, but the underwater shots are clearly in a swimming pool dressed up to look like a lake. As the girl frolics in the water she’s being spied upon by a one-eyed Nazi zombie poking his head out of the water like a periscope. A few long minutes of surveillance later, and he rises out of the water and drags the girl down to her death - albeit with an underwater fight to milk a few extra seconds of nudity from the scene. In the next scene, at the town tavern, a local hothead is talking to his friends about the girl being missing, and asks the waitress the immortal question - dubbed horrendously of course - ”Didn’t she say [pause] where the fuck she was going!?” To which the waitress numbly answers, “She said she was going to the lake,” which seems to make everybody uncomfortable. Shortly after, a local woman is out alone doing laundry when she’s suddenly attacked and killed by a Nazi zombie. The makeup on the zombie guy is so cheap you can not only clearly see strips of it peeling off his face, about a third of the green paint rubs off on the woman whose neck he’s biting. When the woman’s body is discovered and brought to the mayor’s doorstep (the mayor is played by Eurotrash all-star Howard Vernon), the townsfolk all silently glare at him while he vows to figure out how this happened and call in the police. The next day a reporter shows up, merely out of coincidence, to get some colorful local stories about the lake, which we then find out is nicknamed ‘The Lake Of Ghosts.’ They send her to the mayor, and he relates the story of the lake. Which helps to kill about 20 minutes. It turns out the mayor and most of the locals were in the French resistance during WWII, killed a troop of Nazis who were encamped on the outskirts of town, and dumped their bodies in the lake. Somehow, in the midst of the Nazi occupation, one of the soldiers fell in love with a local girl and fathered a child with her; the mother also died shortly after giving birth. Now we get to the most glaring misstep in the movie. While it’s clearly set in the 1970s, we see the Nazi soldier’s love child is only eight or nine years old when, by all rights, she should be close to 30! We find this out by zombie dad’s repeat visits to the girl while the troop is out chomping on the locals. He gives her a necklace her mom had given to him, which she immediately recognizes from an old photo of mom (sporting VERY ‘70s hair). In what’s gotta be the funniest and oddest bit in the film, the go for a walk hand-in-hand and he protects her from the other zombies, which causes a zombie knife fight between zombie dad and another zombie soldier. After a few more zombie attacks and a fruitless attempt to shoot them, the little girl realizes the zombies are bad and tells the mayor she’ll lure them to a barn so the town can do what they want to them. She asks for “lots of fresh blood,” and that night gets dad and his dead buddies to follow her to the barn. Needless to say, the zombies are eliminated once and for all, so the lake can go back to just being haunted by the ghosts of the children sacrificed there in medieval times. While Zombie Lake is not the weakest entry in Rollin’s filmography, it’s definitely best suited to either die hard fans or zombie completists.
—the Kommandant