Product Details

• Actors: Marie-Pierre Castel, Mireille Dargent, Philippe Gasté, Dominique, Louise Dhour
• Directors: Jean Rollin
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: August 3, 1999
• Run Time: 65 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305302049
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,192 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Requiem for a Vampire" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The films of French cult director Jean Rollin belong to a genre all their own, horror fantasies that plunge viewers into wild fantasy worlds out of time and place in which figures (usually nude women) wander a deserted landscape. In Requiem for a Vampire, two school girls in painted clown faces and goofy polka-dot garb shoot out of the back of a speeding car on a desolate country road. For 45 minutes, we follow the adventures of the braided young nymphs as they ditch the car, wipe off the clown white, and change into miniskirts, with nary a word spoken. They dreamily wander through a graveyard (where one falls into a freshly dug grave and is buried alive!) and into a castle, where they are suddenly set upon by cloaked figures and brutish henchmen and made the servants of a tired, sorry-looking vampire desperately attempting to perpetuate his race with fresh blood. The lyrical first half, with its often beautiful and bizarre imagery, gives way to an astonishingly brutal scene in which the henchman molest the women they have chained naked in their dungeon. The film bounces back and forth between surreal poetry and kinky decadence (which also includes scenes of sadomasochism and plenty of gratuitous nudity), but Jean Rollin's ethereal mood and fairy tale imagery gives the largely wordless film an eerie beauty and the surreal logic of a waking dream. The DVD features both French and English language tracks with optional subtitles, French and English trailers, and a gallery of production stills. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description

Two beautiful runaways seek refuge in a castle. When night falls, they become prey to a sadistic vampire named "The Last Vampire" who, as luck would have it, intends to use them to produce progeny who will continue his bloodline.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what you might expect., February 4, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Requiem for a Vampire (DVD)

Ever since I saw a copy of David Piries "vampire filmcult" in a public library, back in the 70ies, I wanted to see this movie. The book then contained a lot of impressive pictures of stunning beauty and erotic violence. Finally Salvation shipped me the DVD, and I could finally see my second Rollin movie - after I'd seen Grapes of Death in a movie theatre back in the 80ies. So I set down, pressed play and watched two beauties (though strange beauties)lost somewhere in Europe who stumble upon the last vampire and his red-haired desciples. So what to expect? Rollin is no Franco, so anyone reading about torture scenes should proceed with caution here: Rollin cannot decide whether he wants to recreate the silent beauty of Dryers "Vampyr" or create an exploitation movie. So you'll sit for the first 35 minutes whatching the girls walking through fields, woods, graveyards and nothing - absolutely nothing - happens. The way it is filmed though creates a dreamlike atmosphere that can drag you - if you like this kind of movies (like Eraserhead) - into this surreal world. Then they meet the red haired witches in a (not really impressive) castle - a little bit of violence and nudity - and then again they run through the woods for 20 minutes (this movie is 70 minutes long !!!). The vampire himself is not very impressive and some "effects" are truly laughable, detracting from the sense of wonder the movie had tried to create. Then, the S/M scenes: They are not what you'd expect, not like the Franco-stuff you might have seen. It's more like recreating the paintings of Bosch, and so there is little to no action in these scenes, it's more like looking at photographs. And they are very short, and in-between. So don't expect half an hour of relentless torture.

You can see the lack of money everywhere in this movie and I think the endless woods-walkings have to do more with them being cheaply to film than with any artistic imagry. But they work and that's ok.

Technically, you can't expect more from a 70ies low-budget (nearly amateur level) flick. Salvation/Redemption did a great job there. Although I miss the director's commentary, the private behind-the-scenes stills are funny. All in all the movie is short and the extras do little to enhance the value. Salvation should take a look at the DVDs from Something Weird to see how it's done.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the aardvark says yes, October 14, 2000

By 

Jeffrey HIggins (Bloomington, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Requiem for a Vampire (DVD)

this is, in my mind, the greatest of all of rollin's films i've ever seen; and that includes 'living dead girl' 'fascination' 'shiver of the vampires' and this one. there are more beautiful and poetic images in this one rollin film than in any other, save perhaps 'la vampire nue', which i have yet to see. the clowns are exquisite, and the dream perpetual. the first 20 (mostly silent) minutes shiver by like a ghostly dream, encapsulating all that stands. the remainder of the film takes the dream and stretches it, turning itself to rubber, elongating and perpetuating the surrealistic structure it inhabits. anyone with a taste for european low-budget beauty should apply, anyone with a taste for rollin should jump the door.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gorgeous sensual visions, April 29, 2001

By 

I. French (austin, tx United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Requiem for a Vampire (DVD)

This fantastic film allows us to see the vivid fabled visions that must fill Jean Rollins' mind. The flighty narrative is liberated from sequential logic, but is positively elevated in the process. The story comes off like a flickering memory. A haunting attraction pulls us in for a rare glimpse into a dream we can't pull away from for fear of forgetting upon awakening. The characters are beautiful and frail creatures. Possessed with a determination to uphold their forbidden and blithe lust they use childlike luck to guide their journey. An unbelievably beautiful film.