The Shiver of the Vampires (4½ Stars)

"The Shiver of the Vampires" is Jean Rollin's third film, made in 1971. It opens with a newly married couple, Isabelle and Antoine, travelling through the French countryside on their honeymoon. They intend to spend their honeymoon at the remote castle of Isabelle's cousins, the enigmatic brothers Paul and Frederic, whom she hasn't seen since childhood. For reasons that are left unexplained, they're her only living relatives.

They arrive just too late. They're told that Paul and Frederic died the previous day. This unsettles Isabelle so much that she tells Antoine that she wants to sleep separately on their wedding night. But she isn't completely alone. In the middle of the night a mysterious woman called Isolde enters Isabelle's room and seduces her.

The next day Isabelle remembers nothing about Isolde. Food is served by two young women who say that they were Paul and Frederic's servants. At night the apparent reality of the situation begins to unravel. Paul and Frederic reappear, very much alive, revealing that their "funeral" was part of a secretive rite. They are members of a vampiric cult led by Isolde, who is not merely an associate but a commanding supernatural presence. The brothers attempt to draw Isabelle and Antoine into their world, treating vampirism less as a curse than as a decadent, liberating philosophy.

Antoine reacts with hostility and disbelief, clinging to rational explanations. Isabelle, however, is increasingly mesmerised. The castle becomes a liminal space where ordinary rules dissolve; its rooms are filled with symbolic objects, mirrors, and shadows, while strange music, including the now-famous psychedelic organ score, heightens the sense of dreamlike unreality.

Isolde begins to exert a powerful influence over Isabelle. Unlike traditional depictions of vampires as predatory monsters, these figures present vampirism as an ecstatic release from repression, particularly sexual repression. Isabelle is seduced not only physically but psychologically, drawn into a state where fear and desire merge. She forms a deep, almost trance-like bond with Isolde, whose authority over the cult is absolute.

Antoine, increasingly isolated, tries to rescue his wife. He seeks rational solutions, including consulting anti-vampire lore and attempting to destroy the brothers. However, his efforts are clumsy and ineffective; he is an outsider in a world governed by different rules. His inability to understand what is happening only accelerates Isabelle's transformation.

As the nights pass, Isabelle's allegiance shifts. She becomes less responsive to Antoine and more attuned to Isolde and the brothers, embracing their nocturnal existence. The film presents this transition ambiguously; it is both a loss of identity and a form of awakening. Isabelle is not simply victimised but appears to choose her fate, surrendering to the allure of immortality and erotic freedom.

The climax sees Antoine making a desperate attempt to break the spell. Armed with traditional methods, he confronts the vampires, leading to violent confrontations in the castle. Some of the vampiric figures are destroyed, yet the victory is partial and uncertain. The narrative does not resolve cleanly into good triumphing over evil.

In the final movement, Isabelle is fully absorbed into the vampiric realm. The ending suggests that she has crossed an irreversible threshold; whether this is damnation or liberation remains deliberately unclear. Antoine's efforts to reclaim her fail, and he is left either defeated or irrelevant in a world that has moved beyond him.

Like much of Jean Rollin's work, Shiver of the Vampires resists conventional storytelling. The plot unfolds less as a logical sequence of events and more as a series of hypnotic tableaux. Vampirism here is not merely literal but symbolic, representing desire, transgression and the seductive pull of an alternative existence that rejects societal norms.