The Rape of the Vampire (1968)

 The Rape of the Vampire(1968)

This low budget first film from director Jean Rollin is in reality two very 

loosely-connected, surreally erotic shorts about vampirism. In the first, 

three Parisians including a psychoanalyst try to convince four neurotic 

sisters living in a decaying country chateau that their belief that they 

are 200 year old vampires is false. The alluring young women are influenced 

and controlled by a enigmatic disembodied voice which turns out to be the 

an aging, aristocratic lord of the manor, whose motives are unclear but 

clearly perverse. Local rustics unite to hunt down and kill the sanguine 

siblings. In the second, the Queen of the Vampires and her acolytes arrive 

on the scene, resurrect the dead, and promulgate the cause of the Undead 

while a medical researcher works to find an antidote to vampirism.

On the films original release, it received negative reviews but because of 

the events of May 1968 in Paris*, French distributors, fearing for the box 

office, decided to freeze their activities until it went back to normal. As 

a result, no other new feature was released during that period apart from 

this one. Consequently, by lack of competitors, it became the most successful 

film of the year in France. 

*The May 1968 protests in France involved the first wildcat general strike 

ever, and the largest general strike to date which brought the economy of an 

advanced industrial country to a virtual standstill.

NV