Fascination (1979)

... aka: Das Blutschloss der Frauen (Blood Castle Women)
... aka: El castillo de las vampiras

Directed by:
Jean Rollin

When people throw out the word "dream-like" to describe a film, I immediately think it will possess three distinct qualities: 1. soft focus or hazy photography, 2. little to no plot, a plot of little substance that just meanders along or a plot that doesn't make sense, and finally, 3. shots that linger for an eternity to make up for the fact there's little to no plot. After all, something needs to fill the time if the story isn't, right? I can't say I'm usually a big fan of these kinds of films unless they're done by very talented directors who are able to use photography, lighting, music, art direction and shot composition to enhance and strengthen the plot. This is also commonly referred to "Making a proper movie." One can actually have it both ways and find that perfect balance. One can be both an artist and a storyteller, which is really what the art of filmmaking is all about. This film I don't think ever finds that balance. In fact, it doesn't really excel at anything. There's next to no plot and, despite this director's reputation as a visual stylist, the material is mostly presented in a surprisingly flat and uninspired fashion. Sure, there are a few nice shots in this 80-minute movie, but not nearly enough to justify sitting through the rest of it.

Arrogant thief Marc (Jean-Marie Lemaire) double-crosses a few people, takes the lone female as a hostage and runs off with a bag full of gold coins. The hostage flashes her breasts, kicks him in the crotch and manages to escape. Marc takes off again and sneaks inside a secluded mansion that's surrounded by water and accessible only by bridge. Those he's betrayed see him going in, but decide to lay low for awhile outside with plans on ambushing him later on that evening when he's not expecting it. Inside, Marc encounters two young women; Elisabeth (Franca Mai) and Eva (Brigitte Lahaie)... and they're odd to put it mildly. For starters, their story keeps changing as to why they're even there. They should be terrified by the presence of an armed, potentially dangerous thief, but instead act like giggly schoolgirls who joke about letting him rape them and then turn the tables by claiming they want to rape him.

Elisabeth and Eva are lovers and the director is kind enough to prove it by shoehorning in a sex scene at an awkward time as if quickly trying to fill some kind of requirement. Eva takes off her clothes and seduces the thief. Elisabeth gets jealous because she's in love with Eva but then claims she's in love with Marc and pleads for him to leave before nightfall. While that's going on, Eva goes outside to meet up with the four people Marc ripped off. She stabs one of the guys during sex with a dagger the director doesn't even attempt to hide is retractable and then takes a scythe to the other three in scenes that have absolutely no impact whatsoever because they're so poorly staged and edited. Night finally falls and another weird woman named Hélène (Fanny Magier) swings by with four other girls talking about some "reunion" and Satan. The ladies reveal themselves to be part of a bourgeois lez cult who drink human blood to keep themselves from becoming anemic (?) because they're sick of drinking ox blood (?!) The women then put on sheer nightgowns and walk around, a couple of people get shot and then the film is over.

This isn't art, as real art actually means something. This film means nothing, stands for nothing and ultimately accomplishes nothing. It's really just a minor piece of erotica shot at a cool-looking house and with a few attractive actresses in it and that's all. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but let's not make this something it isn't, right? The erotic angle is helped along by the fact one of the lead actresses is Lahaie, who's worth a look even in something as plodding and dull as this. She also has the lion's share of the nude scenes, so that's a plus. However, even gazing upon her fine form from time to time isn't enough to completely overcome the lumbering pace, meandering non-story and awful dialogue. Apparently they didn't even use a shooting script for this one and just made it all up as they went along... You can tell!

Worst of all, this isn't the least bit impressive on a visual level. Your average Friday the 13th sequel features more artistry and skillful camera-work than this does. The photography isn't imaginative, the score is forgettable, the editing is terrible, the potentially atmospheric location goes completely to waste since most of this is set indoors, every single "horror" moment is ineptly fumbled and the director seems to have no concept of scene continuity. There's a good reason people always focus on the strikingly sex image of a nude Lahaie, clad only in a black cape, holding onto a scythe. That's because it IS one of the only striking images in this film.

This is the sixth film I've seen from Rollin now and is one of his most popular and acclaimed works for some reason I can't quite fathom. I much preferred his zombie film THE GRAPES OF DEATH (1978) and the oddly compelling THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTED (1980) to this one. The cast also includes Evelyne Thomas and Cyril Val (who both appeared in several other Rollin films) and Muriel Montossé (who'd later show up in some Jess Franco movies).

★★

La nuit des traquées (1980)

... aka: Night of the Cruel Sacrifice
... aka: Night of the Hunted
... aka: Night of the Hunted, The
... aka: Ragazza in amore

Directed by:
Jean Rollin

Driving alone at night in the country, Robert ("Vincent Gardere" / Alain Duclos) is surprised by a hysterical, nightgown-clad woman (Brigitte Lahaie) who jumps out of the woods and starts running down the road in a panic. She's seems to be a partial amnesiac, but at least remembers her name: Elysabeth. She claims she doesn't want to go... back there, and pleads the guy to take her with him... wherever he may be going. She doesn't seem to know much, but she does know she wants to get away from wherever she was... and it turns out she has very good reason not to want to. Robert decides to give her a lift to Paris. Once there, Elysabeth doesn't know where to go or even where she lives and says her mind is "completely blank." That's not exactly the case. She still has fragmented memories, which seem to come and go: one minute she'll recall something from the past and the next she's forgotten her own name all over again. Intrigued by the troubled young beauty, Robert brings her back to his apartment and the two make love. She ensures him she won't forget him but when he returns from work later that day she is gone.

Dr. Francis (Bernard Papineau) and his assistant Solange (Rachel Mhas), who claim to be Elysabeth's caregivers, have shown up to take Elysabeth back "home." Her "home" is an apartment in a tower block building where she lives with another woman named Catherine ("Catherine Greiner" / Cathy Stewart), who suffers from the same memory loss she does. Unlike normal apartments, the environment is mostly-white, clean and incredibly sterile, just like a hospital. The rooms lack any kind of individual touch or personality, just like their inhabitants. And someone brings food to their rooms, just like hotel room service. The place actually seems to be like a cross between a mental asylum (doctors are sometimes around and none of the "tenants" are quite right in the head) and a prison (armed guards occupy the ground floor and forbid anyone to leave). What it actually is is a place to quarantine and hide people poisoned by radiation who are slowly losing all of their brain cells, with leads to confusion, memory loss, madness and eventually death. Some patients are worse off than others. Catherine's disease is more advanced than Elysabeth's and she can't even coordinate a spoon going into her own mouth. Another man has no sense of balance and stumbles around in the hallways. Some of the patients have constant headaches. In the hallways, zombie-like people stand or sit around; some trying desperately to remember their pasts, while others "create memories" to temporarily pacify them.

After unsuccessfully making a pass at Elysabeth, Catherine gouges her eyes out with a pair of scissors. Then some of the others really start losing it and get violent. One of the guys who lives there is faking his illness and uses the convenience of everyone constantly forgetting everything to have his way with the women. While he's raping one of them, a man sneaks up behind them and beats him to death with a hammer. Another guy strangles his lover to death in the sauna during sex. Elysabeth attempts to escape again with her friend Véronique (Dominique Journet), who was with her the first time she broke out but got separated from her. She guns down several guards and an unhinged patient, is recaptured again and put in a straight jacket. Robert shows up with a gun but Solange greets him with a see-through dress and makes him dance with her (?) Noticing they're about to be exposed, Dr. Francis clears out the building and transports the patients to a train depot where he has his assistants inject them with poison and then burn the bodies in the oven. Robert tries to get there in time to save Elysabeth, but is he already too late?

Can't say I cared much for the director's meandering "arty" erotic vampire films I saw prior to this one. Both THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE (1967) and REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE (1973) were well-photographed but hollow, and pretty much left me feeling cold. Night of the Hunted on the other hand I liked. Quite a bit actually. Like almost all of Rollin's other films, this has a lot of nudity and sex, but unlike some of his others, that's not all it has. The premise (which appears to have been partially influenced by Cronenberg's SHIVERS) is quite intriguing and pulls you in right at the beginning. It slowly unveils aspects of the story, which provides a slight - albeit predictable - mystery aspect. Rollin and several of the actors have even managed to create a few interesting, oddly compelling characters, which is strange considering we're talking about "blank" slates with faulty memories here. Somehow these "walking vegetables" seem far more human than most of the director's other "normal" characters, likely because they're fighting a losing battle to feel human again.

Hunted certainly isn't perfect. Lahaie is very good in the central role, but some of the supporting actors (most of whom - like the leading lady - are French porno actors) are weak. The film also gets pretty sloppy at times in regards to the editing and continuity. Some viewers have complained that the film lacks atmosphere, but the same viewers probably don't realize that there's more to "atmosphere" than fog and crumbling castles. Sure, Rollin appears to have rented out a vacant floor of a high rise office building to shoot all of the apartment footage in, but it's actually sterile and vacant enough to work perfectly in this context. Good use is also made of a train depot and various outdoor locations.

Image and Redemption are the two most common DVD distributors of this one. Like many of the director's other films, it was never released theatrically in America.

★★★