Lips of Blood

More mystery than horror
I've just begun to explore the Euro-horror genre, with Lips of Blood being one of the best so far. Interesting visuals (including attractive semi-nude female vampires), effectively somber mood and pacing, and a strong element of mystery, all serve to make this Rollin film worth seeing. However, if you are really into lots of gore and sex in horror films, this is one to skip.

"Vampirism is a terrible affliction"!
-The quote is from the film...

LIPS OF BLOOD (1974) is Jean Rollin's best film.

Like Jess Franco, Rollin is a flawed genius. In the films of these two unusual directors, we see infrequent flashes of brilliance mixed with mediocrity. In this particular film, the flashes of brilliance win out over the lesser powers.

The cinematography is very good. The haunting Paris night scenes (both in cemeteries and in dilapidated urban areas) are particularly effective.

Rollin's screenplay is also good: a strange admixture of a psychoanalytic probing into the lost memories of a rather pathetic and emotionally numb man (who lives with his mother) with the bizarre element of the secret of vampirism as it has impacted upon his early life.

There is an excellent segment of the film (reminiscent of NIGHT OF THE HUNTED) in which the rather disturbed mother has her son abducted and taken to a private mental hosptial for electroshock "therapy" rather than uncover his family's true...

Cheap 'n cheesy!
Jean Rollin is a name instantly recognizable to hardcore horror fans, yet meaningless to nearly everyone else. This ignorance is quite unfortunate because the French director concocted some of the sleaziest, most unusual films ever made during the 1970s and 1980s, films usually imbued with a disturbing mix of hypereroticism and bloody violence. I have often tossed Rollin's name around in impolite company with seeming aplomb even though I had never seen even one of the man's films. You read enough plot synopses about someone and you start to feel as though you know every intimate detail about their work. What I did hear from others about this director oftentimes did not bode well. He is apparently well versed in schlock filmmaking, which in and of itself is not a problem with me, a true lover of bad cinema, but several of his films continue to draw raves from a selected minority of genre fans. Well, I finally sat down with a Jean Rollin film, his 1979 effort "Fascination,"...

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