Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

An action-packed slog

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

This was my first Jean Rollin film. Rollin, a pre-eminent French director known for his eroticism and surrealism in his "horror" films, definitely has an eye for atmosphere with his particular attentions given to color, shading, set pieces(love the Gothic look and feel of the film), and even the music chosen for the film. He also has an eye for the female form as well as we get to evaluate that critical approach again and again and again...honestly, Sandra Julien has one of the most beautiful backsides I have ever seen - in film or anywhere else! The story is very, very thin as Julien and her new husband want to pay their respects to her two cousins as they are on their honeymoon. These two strange men were vampire hunters(unbeknown-st to Julien) and have now been turned into vampires. Julien arrives hearing the news that her cousins are dead. That is more plot than the rest of the film which has a female vampire popping out of a clock and all sorts of strange places who turns Julien into her lesbian lover and then we wait for her final turn into a real vampire whilst her husband Antoine cannot understand what is going on. The two cousins have one good scene at dinner talking about vampirism but really the rest of the film is so slow....not much at all happens. The atmosphere does make up for much of it though...as do the plentiful breasts. While this film is not going to keep you on the edge of your seat at all(just wait until you see the anti-climatic end), it was interesting and intriguing and charming in its own way.

"Shivers of the Vampire" brings the groovy back. A pair of newlyweds, so newly wed they are still in gown and tux, visits an uncle's old castle. The uncles have recently been turned into vampires by the vampire woman who lives in the near-by cemetery. Despite the signs that something is afoot, like the uncle's mute female servants, the couple stays. The girl is immediately seduced by the lady vampire. The husband realizes quickly weirdness is about. Wackiness ensues. You know the drill.I think Rollin was aware of his formula. Despite the typically fast-and-loose story, he packs the film full of gorgeous images. The opening is long and almost dialogue free, as the two servants walk up a spiral staircase, bathed in red light. The opening credits play over fog billowing over a tombstone. The castle is decorated with bizarre statues, skulls, bones, and burnt-wood sculpted into human features. The vampire woman first appears nudged into a grandfather clock. Later, she shows up again, leaping out from behind red curtains. Color is hyper-stylized, as there are several late night walks into an orange and purple shaded cemetery. Rollin continues to dress his actresses in see-through shawls and it goes without saying that the nudity is abundant and often unexplained. The lesbian maids (Did I mention they are lesbians?) lunge around the castle in the nude and use an unorthodox method to wake the husband.Pretty pictures only do so much to make up for the maudlin pace. What does make up for that is hilarity. The musical score is composed of waa-waa-ing funky guitar riffs. The movie establishes it's goofy streak early when the female vampire rises from her grave, the stone moving in stop-motion and punctuated by animal screams. Upon hearing there's a library in the castle, the groom flocks to the room and is attack by psychic books. The obsessed (human) lover of the uncles is murdered with a bra fitted with metal spikes. Oh man, I haven't mentioned the crazy uncles. Dressed like fops, they ramble on about paganism, Christianity, goddess worship, while the camera spins around, as confused as the characters. The acting is more stilted then usual.Yeah, it's pacing falters by the end and there's plenty of vampires musing about what a wretched, unlovable species they are. The ending does feature an ironic take-down of the film's antagonist and that weird beach appears again. The film wasn't released in the US until the late seventies, with the new title "Strange Things Happen at Night." I actually prefer that title since it's far more evocative and also an accurate description of what's to come. This is my favorite of the director's films since "The Nude Vampire."

Unforgettable Rollin extravaganza, daring to go for effects other directors would dismiss as cheesy, and pulling them off. On one level, it seems pure exploitation, with its somnolent virgins and lesbian vampires; but it is the prospective male viewer that the film targets - his representative on screen is reduced to an impotent observer, finally breaking down into helpless madness. Rollin's style is as delirious as ever, fantastic French Gothic sets, seeping red filter, dreamlike pace, bewilderingly inventive soundtrack, resonant set-pieces and unmissably pretentious dialogue. It's easier to follow than THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE.

It seems axiomatic that the more cruddy a movie is, the more variant titles it will collect along its merry way, and this pretentious, self-conscious mix of "horror" and "sex" is tedious, dreary and almost embarrassing in its desperate attempt to appear "meaningful". With hammy acting and posturing substituting for emotional expression, what little plot development there is, gets padded by longeurs which, whilst evidently intended to convey some kind of "significance", merely provoke a yawn and a glance at the clock. What this film seemed to be aiming for, and so miserably failed to achieve, was so much more successfully captured in DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, so, give this one a miss, and fast-forward to that title instead if you want a vampiric theme pregnant with dark sensuality and sexual energy.