cinema history class: requiem for a vampire (1971)

The session: Odds and Sods
Four oddball Halloween-appropriate movies from different countries

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: Requiem for a Vampire (1971)
Directed by Jean Rollin

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
Two teenage girls on the run after a botched robbery find themselves lost in the French countryside and stumble into an old château inhabited by a vampire clan. Seduced and terrorized in equal measure, they become trapped in a strange mix of gothic horror and erotic surrealism. As the night unfolds, the girls must confront the castle’s master, who wants to make them part of his undead lineage.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
Requiem for a Vampire might be the least talkative movie I’ve ever seen that still has a story you can actually follow. The two girls at the center of it barely speak to each other, which creates this weird sense of emotional distance—but somehow the plot is still clear. The silence ends up giving the whole thing a dreamlike, drifting quality, like they’re wandering through someone else’s half-remembered nightmare.

The movie kept reminding me of El Topo, and that’s not a comparison I make lightly. I didn’t like El Topo—that one felt like a fever-dream that forgot to include the plot part. Requiem shares that surreal, symbolic tone, but at least here I always knew what was happening. Even when things got strange (and they often do), the movie never fully dissolved into nonsense.

What it does dissolve into is imagery. This thing feels like an experiment Rollin decided to conduct with costumes, shadows, masks, ruins, and the French countryside. And honestly, it works better than it probably has any right to. The visuals are great—atmospheric, moody, and occasionally beautiful—but the trade-off is that the movie sometimes feels more like an art project than a complete story. I didn’t mind watching it, but it left me a little unfulfilled, like it was a sketch for a bigger, richer gothic film he never quite made.

If you squint, you can read it as a kind of fairy tale about transformation—innocence turning into experience, humans becoming monsters, girls becoming something new altogether. It’s not spelled out, but the vibe is there.

Anyway, fun to look at, interesting as an experiment, not entirely satisfying as a narrative… but definitely memorable.

And for the record: Joe would’ve slammed this one the moment it reminded him of El Topo, but he’d still give it a higher score than El Topo, because he recognizes when a fever-dream at least remembers it’s supposed to have a plot.

cinema history class: tower of evil (1972)

The session: Odds and Sods
Four oddball Halloween-appropriate movies from different countries

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Tower of Evil (1972)
Directed by Jim O'Connolly

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
A group of archaeologists investigates the grisly murders of several young people on a fog-shrouded island off the English coast. As they explore an ancient Phoenician temple beneath a lighthouse, they discover that something monstrous—and not entirely human—still lurks there, determined to kill again.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
It's not a masterpiece by any means, but Tower of Evil pretty much delivers what it promises: plenty of jump scares, a good amount of blood, and enough suspense and mystery to keep things moving. The plot—archaeologists investigating a creepy island murder scene—has that classic early-’70s British horror vibe, with fog, shadows, and lots of screaming.

That said, it’s hard not to notice that half the movie was clearly filmed on a soundstage. Every so often you can practically hear the echo off the studio walls, and there's just blackness all around. This kind of makes the “remote island” feel about as isolated as a BBC backlot. Still, there’s a weird charm to it all. At times it almost plays like a grown-up version of The Goonies—a group exploring tunnels, discovering treasures, and unleashing something best left buried.

When we meet the ancient Phoenician god, I had to stifle a laugh. The poor creature looks suspiciously like the squirrel from the Ice Age movies, if the squirrel had just crawled out of a vat of mud. And the fiery finale gave me flashbacks to Island of Lost Souls, with that same sense of wild, apocalyptic chaos. And, as we see the island in flames, I expected to hear someone say "Don't Look Back."

Joe missed this one, but I’m sure he would have given it a ten.

cinema history class: devil's nightmare (1971)

The session: Odds and Sods
Four oddball Halloween-appropriate movies from different countries

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: The Devil's Nightmare (1971)
Directed by Jean Brismee

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
A group of travelers takes shelter for the night in a gloomy castle, unaware that their host is a cursed baron whose daughter, a succubus, preys on the seven deadly sins. One by one, the guests fall victim to their own vices as the demonic daughter exacts her infernal revenge.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
The Devil’s Nightmare is an interesting little morality tale. Each of the guests in an old castle represents one of the seven deadly sins, and each meets a death that supposedly reflects their vice. The idea is clever, but the execution is uneven—some deaths, like those tied to gluttony and greed, make perfect sense, while others feel like a stretch and are therefore forgettable. Maybe the writers lost track of which sin was which after a while—easy enough to do after seven.

None of the characters are especially likeable, so it’s hard to feel much when they meet their fates. On the bright side, that does make it easier to watch them die. Still, you can see a seed of the slasher formula that would blossom later in the ’70s and ’80s: people trapped in a confined setting, getting picked off one by one. The makeup effects are actually impressive, though, and they give the film a little extra polish it otherwise lacks.

By that point, though, logic had packed its bags and left the castle. And I have to admit, it’s a bit sad when you realize near the end that they killed the wrong girl at the beginning. That twist almost makes you want to give the movie more credit than it probably deserves.

And, as always, Joe rated it a ten!

cinema history class: mad doctor of blood island (1969)

The session: Odds and Sods
Four oddball Halloween-appropriate movies from different countries

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969)
Directed by Eddie Romero and Gerry DeLong

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
On remote Blood Island, an American doctor discovers a mad scientist turning villagers into green-skinned killers with a bizarre serum.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
Mad Doctor of Blood Island is a bit of a mixed bag. On the plus side, the scenery is gorgeous—lush jungles and tropical vistas that make you almost forgive the film for what comes next. Unfortunately, the camera work is a nightmare: the throbbing, rapid zooms during supposedly shocking moments are so relentless they’re genuinely nauseating.

The movie veers between silly and slightly impressive. The monster looks great in some shots but downright comical in others, and the comic book–like plotting makes it hard to care about any of the characters. At least the filmmakers bothered to give a plausible (if horror movie–plausible) explanation for the chaos, which is more than I was expecting early on.

There’s a surprising amount of explicit gore, which adds a curious touch of interest—even if I usually prefer the power of imagination over a flood of blood. Acting and dialogue are uniformly bad, but somehow, that fits the overall tone of absurdity.

At least Bobbo had fun watching it!