Grapes Of Death (4 Stars)

"Grapes of Death" is Jean Rollin's tenth film, made in 1978. It's the film where Rollin finally stopped drifting through graveyards full of melancholy vampires and decided to make a proper gore film. The result is strange, uneven and occasionally repulsive; but it's also one of the most fascinating entries in his career precisely because it feels like Rollin wrestling against his own instincts.

Most of Rollin's films move like dreams. Stories barely matter. Characters wander through ruined castles, deserted beaches and cemeteries as if sleepwalking through somebody else's fantasy. Dialogue is sparse, the pacing is hypnotically slow and violence often feels secondary to atmosphere. Even when blood appears in films like "Requiem for a Vampire" or "The Nude Vampire", it rarely has much physical weight. Rollin was usually more interested in lonely women, surreal imagery and erotic melancholy than shock.

"The Grapes of Death" is different from its opening scene. The countryside here isn't mystical; it's diseased. A pesticide sprayed on vineyards has transformed local workers into rotting homicidal maniacs, creating something halfway between a zombie film and a rural plague nightmare. Rollin borrows openly from contemporary exploitation horror, particularly the splatter films emerging in Italy at the time. Faces split open, flesh peels away and bodies are mutilated with a level of nastiness almost absent from his earlier work.

Yet even while embracing gore, Rollin cannot entirely stop being himself. The film still contains stretches of eerie silence and bizarre encounters that feel disconnected from ordinary narrative logic. The heroine Elisabeth wanders from one pocket of madness to another, meeting traumatised survivors who seem trapped in their own isolated worlds. The atmosphere remains dreamlike even when the special effects become graphic. Rollin turns the French countryside into a place of decay and loneliness rather than pure terror.

What really separates the film from his earlier work is its anger. Rollin's vampire films are sad and romantic; "The Grapes of Death" feels bitter. The poisoned vineyards create an unmistakably environmental horror story, reflecting fears about industrial contamination and modern agriculture. The violence has a grimy physicality that strips away the fairy-tale quality usually found in his cinema. This is probably the closest Rollin ever came to making a conventional horror film for mainstream exploitation audiences.

The irony is that even here he could not fully conform. Beneath the gore and infected flesh lies the same lonely poetic sensibility that defined all his work. The film is rougher, harsher and bloodier than his usual output; but it still belongs unmistakably to Rollin. Nobody else would make a zombie film that pauses so often for melancholy, silence and strange beauty.

Two Orphan Vampires (5 Stars)

"Two Orphan Vampires" is Jean Rollin's 18th film, made in 1997. It's one of his last films, but in many ways it's his most typical film. It barely pretends to belong to the horror genre, even as it trades in vampires, blood and nocturnal wandering. The action, if it can even be called action, is downplayed. The film is like an abstract painting, creating emotions in everyone who watches it.

The film follows two blind girls who live in an orphanage. What the nuns don't know is that they're only blind in the daytime. At night they can see everything in a blue tint. They sneak out of the orphanage to drink blood, sometimes human blood, sometimes animals. They're not vampires in the conventional sense. They frequently live and die. How often they remain dead varies, but they always claw their way back to the surface. Dying is a time of rest for them. They've lived for a long time. In the 15th Century they were worshipped as Goddesses by the Aztecs. In a single ceremony 40,000 men were laid out for them to feed, all of them volunteers. Towards the end of the film we find out that they're much older, and there are hints that they've existed since the beginning of time, before Adam and Eve.

Rollin’s pacing is always languid, but here it feels almost defiant. Scenes linger far beyond what mainstream storytelling would allow; conversations drift, actions feel ritualistic, and long stretches pass where nothing much happens in a traditional sense. Yet this isn’t indulgence for its own sake. The slow rhythm creates a kind of trance state, pulling the viewer into the same suspended existence as the protagonists; caught between day and night, blindness and vision, innocence and predation.

The two leads carry the film less through dialogue than presence. Their performances are deliberately stylised, almost affectless at times, which only adds to their otherworldly quality. They don’t behave like typical horror figures, nor like realistic teenagers; they exist somewhere in between, embodying Rollin’s recurring fascination with fragile, doomed femininity. There’s an undercurrent of sadness running through everything they do, as though their vampirism is less a curse than an extension of an already isolated existence.

Visually, the film is steeped in a muted, dreamlike atmosphere. Rollin contrasts the drabness of daytime interiors with the freedom of the night, where cemeteries, empty streets and shadowy corners become spaces of strange beauty. His usual gothic imagery is present but subdued, less about spectacle and more about texture and feeling. The result is a Paris that feels detached from reality; familiar, yet ghostly and removed.

Anyone approaching "Two Orphan Vampires" expecting tension, scares or even a clear narrative arc will likely come away frustrated. This is a film that resists those pleasures almost entirely. But for those willing to meet it on its own terms, it offers something rarer; a melancholy, dreamlike meditation on isolation, identity and the strange freedoms of the night. It’s less a story you follow than a mood you inhabit, and it lingers precisely because it never fully resolves into something concrete.

The Escapees (4 Stars)

In one of his most understated films, Jean Rollin trades gothic horror for something more intimate; a drifting, melancholic tale of escape and fragile connection.

The story follows Michelle and Marie, two women who flee a psychiatric institution together and form an immediate, almost instinctive bond. Their journey unfolds less as a conventional narrative and more as a series of encounters, shaped by mood, landscape and the constant tension between freedom and vulnerability.

Central to that journey is Sophie, the pickpocket who helps facilitate their escape and becomes an essential third presence. Sophie brings a harder edge to the film; she understands survival in a way the other two do not, and her pragmatism both sustains and subtly undermines the fragile, almost utopian world they begin to build together.

Equally important is Louise, a commanding figure within the dockside underworld. As a bar owner, she represents a very different kind of power; rooted not in escape, but in control. Where Michelle and Marie drift, Louise is anchored; she navigates the same shadowy spaces with authority and confidence. Her presence broadens the film’s perspective, suggesting that life on the margins is not only about vulnerability, but can also offer its own forms of dominance and self-determination.

Visually, the film is pure Rollin; empty beaches, decaying buildings and quiet, in-between spaces that feel detached from time. The pacing is languid and at times aimless, but that is part of its charm. This is a film that prioritises atmosphere over plot, emotion over structure.

"The Escapees" may frustrate viewers looking for a tight storyline, but as a mood piece it is quietly absorbing; a wistful, dreamlike exploration of freedom, survival and the fleeting bonds formed in the spaces between.

We see Louise on stage singing several times. Here she's accompanied by an unnamed man played by Jean Rollin. Louise is played by the actress Louise Dhour. She appeared in three of Rollin's films, and in each film her character was called Louise, even though they were three different people. There were rumours that she had an affair with Jean Rollin. They denied it, but it didn't stop people whispering.

Louise Dhour died on 27th December 2010, only 12 days after Rollin himself. Was it coincidence, or brought on by grief after the death of her lover? I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

The Night of the Hunted (5 Stars)

While watching Jean Rollin's films in 4K I'm giving them better ratings. Is it because I appreciate them more in better quality? Or am I simply enjoying them more after multiple viewings. Whatever the reason, I'm giving "Night of the Hunted" a five star rating for the first time. I don't understand why I ever gave it less.

A young man called Robert is driving home at night. He sees a woman yelling for help. He picks her up and offers to drive her home, but she doesn't know her address or even her name. As he soon discovers, it's not just amnesia. Her memories are breaking down. Within 30 minutes she forgets everything that's happened. She doesn't even remember getting into Robert's car. He takes her home with him and they become lovers, but the next morning their romance is forgotten.

The woman has been tracked by two mysterious doctors. They take her to a hospital where dozens of patients are suffering from the same symptoms. At least, they claim it's a hospital. It looks more like a bare apartment building. Anyone who tries to help a patient leave is shot. It's left open until the final scenes whether the doctors are trying to heal the patients or are responsible for their illness.

The narrative unfolds in a deliberately ambiguous way, focusing less on clear explanations and more on atmosphere, emotional disorientation and the terrifying idea of losing one's identity piece by piece. This ambiguity is what makes the film a beautiful masterpiece.

Fascination (5 Stars)

This is Jean Rollin's tenth film, made in 1979. It's yet another vampire masterpiece. The film takes place close to Paris in 1905. A jewel thief called Marc has betrayed the other members of his gang and is on the run across the countryside. He takes a refuge in a mansion occupied by two women, Eva and Elisabeth. They claim to be servants looking after the mansion while the owners are away, but Marc doesn't believe them. Unknown to Marc, the two women are waiting for the arrival of five other women to perform a yearly ritual.

While dancing with Elisabeth, she tells Marc, "At midnight you'll see what seven women can do to one man". There are only five women in this photo, but I'm sure they can handle a man as well. As a matter of fact, even one woman is too much for a man to handle. We see this when Eva kills the four gang members hunting Marc by herself.

Eva is played by the French actress Brigitte Lahaie. Jean Rollin met her when she took part in "Vibrations Sexuelles", a hardcore sex film that he made in 1977 when he was desperate to make money. He recognised her as a talented actress and promised he would give her a part in one of serious films. He hired her a year later for "Grapes of Death" (not yet available in 4K). She went on to appear in another three of Rollin's films, including "Fascination".

Orchestrator of Storms (5 Stars)

This is a wonderful documentary about the legendary director Jean Rollin. It's the second documentary about him; the first was "Le rêveur égaré", made in 2011. This is the better of the two documentaries, longer and more detailed. Whereas the first documentary concentrated on his films, the second gives more details about his life.

The film hasn't yet been released on disc. It's only available on the streaming service Arrow Player. I bet that's a streaming service that no one knows. I took out a 14 day free trial so I could watch it. That's better than nothing, but I still want to hold it on a shiny little disc. The only other films on Arrow Player that I'm interested in are ones that I already own.

The documentary answered a question that's always been bugging me: where is the beach that's featured in several of Jean Rollin's films, including "The Iron Rose"? It's the beach of Dieppe in Normandy. Evidently it's a popular destination for tourists, but Rollin always used a stony location by the cliffs where there aren't many visitors.

Jean Rollin struggled for money all his life. It was difficult for him to raise money for his films, so they were all low budget productions. One of the speakers in the documentary suggests that his films might not have been as good, or at least not as original, if he'd had money to spare. I don't know. There was a phase in his life when he made hardcore pornographic films as an easy way to make money. He said of these films that they were rubbish. He wouldn't have wasted his time making them if he'd had more money.

The documentary reminded me that I still haven't seen his last two films: "The Night of the Clocks" (2007) and "The Mask of Medusa" (2009). They don't seem to be available currently. They're the sort of films that should be made available on Arrow Player.

Le Rêveur Egaré (4 Stars)

I don't know why I watched this film today. I rarely watch a film at random, and I don't think I've ever watched a documentary twice. I wanted to watch a horror film with my son Benjamin, but he was tired and needed an afternoon nap, so I looked for a replacement. "Le Rêveur Egaré" is the first film that fell into my hands.

I said most of what you need to know in my first review. I'll just add a few things here. In interviews contained as extra features on his films he was often arrogant. He said, for example, "In the 1970's the critics didn't respect me, but now I'm recognised as France's greatest director". In the interviews used in the documentary he's more modest. I consider him my favourite French director, and so do many other horror fans, but I'm in the minority. The documentary points out that he's more popular in English speaking countries than in France itself.

It's said more than once that Jean Rollin didn't make films for the audiences, he made films for himself. He never strived for box office success. That's a very honest way to make films. As a low budget film maker he didn't have big studios breathing down his neck, telling him what to do.

Now he's dead. He passed away shortly after the documentary was made. His coffin is floating away into the Atlantic Ocean. Figuratively speaking. He's sadly missed by everyone who loves vampire films.

Another documentary was made in 2022. I'm trying to get my hands on it.

Gefangene Frauen (3½ Stars)

I never know how to rate films like this. It's full of beautiful women, which is always a plus, but it's trashy, and the plot is stretched so thinly between the nude scenes. It's not a good film, but it would be unfair to call it average. The rating 3½ Stars is a fair compromise.

This is a Swiss film made in 1980 by Erwin C. Dietrich. It was released in English as "Caged Women", which is a fair translation. As anyone familiar with the genre must know, what we can expect from a film about women in prison is nudity, torture and lesbian sex. Erwin C. Dietrich doesn't deviate from this, so if you're a fan of the genre you won't be disappointed.

The film takes place in an unnamed South American country. A United Nations inspection team is expected soon, so the President wants to clean up the country. There are European women working in the capital's brothels, and he thinks there might be suspicions that they've been kidnapped, so he needs to hide them. He has them arrested and sent to the island prison of Tarumago. There are 17 women, all young and beautiful. The film concentrates on three of them who share a cell.

Nadine Pascal as Rosi

France Romay as Lisa

Brigitte Lahaie as Rita

If you think they look familiar, it's because they're three of the six Swedish girls from "Six Swedish Girls in a Boarding School". Erwin C. Dietrich had a small pool of actors that he used repeatedly in his films.

After arriving in the prison the girls are hosed down with cold water. This scene lasts longer than necessary. We see six of the seventeen girls being hosed down in turn. I was worried we'd see all of them. Enough is enough.

At first the girls are given dull prison uniforms, but after an escape attempt the girls are punished by having their clothes taken away. That means there's total nudity for the rest of the film. I'm not complaining. The film's nudity is its greatest asset.

Rita, Rosi and Lisa in their cell. This is a definite improvement over those awful uniforms.

The girls even have to remain naked while they're breaking rocks. But tell me... do they really break rocks in prisons? What's the point in it?

The exercise yard is in an arena. Curiouser and curiouser.

A soldier escorts the girls back to their cell. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

This is the prison warden, Karine Gambier as Carla. She's sadistic and implacable. The prison's weak spot is its guards, who are all male. The girls have no problem in seducing them to turn them against the warden.

As I said above, this isn't a good film, but many of my readers might like it. The German Blu-ray contains dubbed English dialogue that only starts after the credits. That means that you have to sit through four minutes of German dialogue while the credits run, but don't worry. It's trivial banter that's irrelevant to the film's story.

Die Nichten der Frau Oberst (1980 version) (4 Stars)

This film is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant. There are two versions of the film on the Blu-ray that I watched today. The first was made in 1968, the second in 1980. Both were directed by Erwin C. Dietrich. That's interesting. How often has a film been remade by the same director? I can only think of two other examples. Alfred Hitchcock made "The Man Who Knew Too Much" in 1934 and 1956. Jess Franco made "Eugenie" in 1970 and 1980. In both cases the director thought he could improve on the original. Neill Blomkamp has said that he wants to remake "Elysium" if it's possible to finance it. He says that the film has a lot of good ideas, but he's unhappy with the way it turned out.

It's not easy to translate the film's title. "Oberst" is a German military rank that has no direct equivalent in the American army. It's a high ranking officer, so it's usually translated as colonel. The story by Guy de Maupassant is called "The colonel's cousins", so I'll stick with colonel. "Frau Oberst" isn't a female colonel, the title refers to a colonel's wife. That means that the full title is "The nieces of the colonel's wife"; not cousins. When the film was released in America, no attempt was made to translate the title. Instead, it was called "Secrets of a French Maid". Ugh! That makes no sense at all in the context of the film. Yes, there is a maid, but (1) she's not French, and (2) she's a minor character with only five minutes screen time.

Foolishly, I watched the 1980 version first. I should have watched them the other way round. Sorry. I'll watch the 1968 version tomorrow.

The colonel's wife is a a young widow. She lives in a large mansion. The film takes place in a time when army officers were rich nobleman. It's probably the 18th or 19th Century. She has two young nieces in her care, and she's trying to find husbands for them.

Julia is played by the stunningly beautiful actress Brigitte Lahaie.

Florentine is played by Pascale Vital in her first film role.

The trouble is that Julia and Florentine are more interested in one another than in men. They're both still virgins. The colonel's wife encourages them to find men. They do what they're told. Julia has sex with the stable boy. He's not very intelligent, but he's good at sex. Florentine wants to have sex with the gardener, but she finds him so repulsive that it takes a few days before she can bring herself to do it.

The colonel's wife takes her responsibility as her nieces' legal guardian very seriously. She goes to bed with the stable boy and the gardener to test them. She wants to know whether they're good enough to satisfy her nieces.

At some point the plot breaks down. There are multiple sex scenes with various men and women. The colonel's wife has a large sexual appetite and devours every man she sees. Not just men, she also has sex with her maid.

This is a highly erotic film. The men in the film are just being used by the three women, especially the colonel's wife. It's not a film that won any Oscars, but it succeeded in its goal of presenting beautiful eye candy. The cinematography is outstanding. The scenery is tranquil and relaxing, emphasising the gentle erotic nature of the film.

Six Swedish Girls in the Alps (3½ Stars)

This is the fourth film in the Six Swedish Girls series, made in 1983. Yes, I know I haven't written about the third film yet. I didn't realise I'd got the order wrong until the film was over, but it's not such a big deal. The first two films continue from one another, but the last two are standalone films that can be watched in either order.

Here's a small curiosity. The first two films were directed by Michael Thomas, which was a pseudonym for Erwin C. Dietrich. This film is also directed by Michael Thomas, but this time it's a pseudonym for Paul Grau. This is an attempt to pretend there's continuity, when there really isn't any. Erwin C. Dietrich has taken a step back and is only the producer. If you examine the film closely, it's obvious that it has a different style to the first two films, which were made in 1979 and 1980. While it's still a softcore film (i.e. there's no sexual penetration), it's closer to the border between soft and hard pornography. There are brief glimpses of erect penises in some scenes, which is something never shown in the first two films.

There's also the matter of the characters. It's the same six Swedish girls, supposedly. From left to write we have Greta, Lil, Kerstin, Inga, Astrid and Selma, but they're six new actresses. None of them appeared in the first two films, not one. They're also different actresses to the ones who appeared in the third film. In the first two films the girls were presented with different personalities: for instance, Kerstin was a lesbian, Selma was a clumsy girl and Greta was the most sexually adventurous. In this film they're interchangeable, they're all giggling and sex mad. That makes this film weaker than the others.

These are the Six Swedish Girls version 3. They're easy to tell apart by the names on their chests. At least, they can be told apart at the beginning of the film. They spend most of the film naked.

Curiously, the six original Swedish girls appear briefly in the film. One of the girls relates a story about a friend, and there's a scene which seems to be unused footage from "Julchen und Jettchen".

When six Swedish girls are in Switzerland, no man is safe.

This poor man ended up running naked from the office. I would have stayed and suffered.

The film has a very simple plot, compared to the first two films. The girls have returned to Switzerland to claim an inheritance. (Didn't they already inherit a petrol station in the second film?) While they're waiting for the paperwork to be finalised, they go on holiday to a remote cabin. The only man available is the landlord. Somehow he makes it through the first night, but in the morning he's afraid he won't survive, so he sends his faithful dog into the next village, Guggisberg, with a letter:

"Help! I'm trapped in my cabin with six Swedish girls. I need immediate assistance".

The letter is read by six men who rush to the cabin as fast as they can: a hunter, an angler, a schoolteacher, a shopkeeper, a postman and an innkeeper. The only problem is that the innkeeper's wife suspects what's happening and follows her husband.

When the men arrive the Swedish girls quickly strip their prey and sexually devour them. The cabin's landlord goes out to rest, but then the innkeeper's wife arrives and has sex with him.

I understand the problems faced by Hans the landlord, but I wouldn't have given up the way he did. We all have to die some day, so why not die in bed with sex Swedish girls?

His dog Ello is a beautiful St. Bernard.

Eventually the lawyer arrives in his helicopter, and the girls rush out greet him. Naked, of course.

They jump into the helicopter, still naked, to be flown to their inheritance. And they all lived happily ever after. The voiceover as the helicopter flies into the sunset promises a sequel, but this was the last film.

Six Swedish Girls at a Petrol Station (4 Stars)

This film, made in 1980, is a direct sequel to "Six Swedish Girls in a Boarding School", made a year earlier. It features the same six Swedish girls that we saw in school: Greta, Kerstin, Lil, Inga, Astrid and Selma. There are new actresses playing Astrid and Lil, but the other four are played by the same actresses, in particular Brigitte Lahaie as Greta. The girls have finished school, and they're running a petrol station which one of them has inherited.

Maybe it's an exaggeration calling it a petrol station (American: gas station), because it's just a café with a single petrol pump standing outside.

The petrol station is located in a picturesque little Swiss town. I don't know where it was filmed, but I'd love to know the name of this town. Can anyone help me? The only clue is that the writing on the petrol station's name is in Italian, which would place the town in the South-East.

The red shop sign on the butcher's shop is bilingual, Macelleria (Italian) and Metzgerei (German). In German-speaking Switzerland no sign would ever be translated into Italian, so it has to be an Italian sign translated into German. This really is a beautiful town.

What's remarkable is that the girls still wear their school uniforms, including the blue tops with their names printed on them.

The film has a simple plot. The girls are making money by having sex with their male customers. They insert the fuel nozzle into the car, then take the man upstairs for sex while the pump is running.

There's no auto-stop valve, so petrol worth hundreds of Swiss Francs overflows and runs into the drain. The man has to pay the bill, including spillage. It's not prostitution, because he's paying for the petrol, not the sex. I need a lawyer's opinion on that fine distinction.

The mayor's wife wants her husband to expel the Swedish girls from the town. She says it's because she doesn't like the immorality, but it's really because she doesn't like the competition. She has sex with almost everyone in the town, except for her husband. Poor man.

The mayor doesn't want to expel the Swedish girls, so he finds a good excuse. The town's brass band needs a new place to practise, and the petrol station's café is the only room big enough.

Between you and me, the cafe looks too cramped for band practice, but it's a good enough excuse to let the Swedish girls stay in the town.

Here are the lobby cards for the film. If you know what a lobby card is, you're too damn old! In the days before multiplex cinemas, when only one film at a time was shown in a cinema, there was a set of framed photos hanging either in the foyer or on display in the window. Today, lobby cards are collectors items, especially for the big blockbusters of the pre-multiplex era.

There's one curious thing about this film. In the previous film, Selma, played by Elsa Maroussia, was the main character. In this film she's the only one of the six girls who has a non-speaking role. She doesn't have a solo scene, and in the group scenes she's always sitting silently while the others chatter. When the girls go out for a run she's always last, but that was also the case in the previous film. However, look at the last two lobby cards. In both photos, she's hidden from sight, with only her legs visible behind the petrol pump or the other girls.

To compensate for her relative absence from the film, I've decided to show more of her in this post than any of the other girls. This is Selma running through the woods. Last, of course.

This film isn't as good as the previous Swedish girls film, but it's still an enjoyable voyeuristic spectacle. If you want to see pretty naked girls, this is the film for you.