Requiem for a Vampire
Requiem for a Vampire
| 01 August 1971 (USA)
Requiem for a Vampire Trailers

Two girls on the run get lost in the French countryside, and wind up in a haunted chateau occupied by an ailing vampire and his servants.

Reviews
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
McQualude This movie starts with a bang, literally. It's the story of the two worst vampires in cinema... they dress like clowns (again literally), aren't affected by sunlight, don't have super strength, are afraid of bats, corpses and other vampires, but they do have the ability to spontaneously change attire and spawn pistols. Oh and they drink blood but seem to prefer french fries... and making out... with each other... while naked. The film starts with a nice little shootout and car chase but that must have blown a good chunk of budget because they spend a long time just walking around after that. Soon enough the girls are captured by a vampire. We know he's a vampire because he has ridiculous looking canines sticking out of his mouth and bats. Hijinks ensue... in his Gothic BDSM dungeon. Oh, and I was wrong, the girls aren't vampires, they are virgins! And you can't be a vampire if you're a virgin, says the king vampire, go find men, says the king; and they do. But one girl meets a handsome young man and decides that lesbo stuff is for squares and now she doesn't want to be a vampire. It's an age old story. By the way, it's French so prepare for armpit hair! Luckily for the actors they just had to look good because there probably aren't a dozen lines in the whole film. By all standards this is a terrible film yet I was entertained.
rosscinema This film is known under several titles and I viewed it as "Caged Virgins" according to the outside of the tape but when it started to play the credits listed it as "Dungeon of Virgins". Anyway, this is a moderately effective exploitation film that has tons of nudity and unsuccessful attempts at horror. The story starts out with two girls and a guy fleeing in their car after a murder and being chased but suddenly the male is shot and the car is steered off the road where it is hidden. Marie (Marie Pierre Castel) and Michelle (Mireille D'Argent) burn the car and the body and start to wander the countryside. They come across a cemetery and behind it they discover what appears to be an old castle so they enter it and discover that it is not uninhabited.*****SPOILER ALERT*****They run into some female vampires and their male servants so the girls try and outrun them but they keep getting caught. They are introduced to the head vampire (Philippe Gaste) who tells them that he is the last of his kind and that since they are virgins they can help keep his legacy alive. Marie and Michelle are both bit and told to help lure men into the castle for them to feed on. Marie meets a man and decides to lose her virginity to him and later she asks him to help her get out.This was directed by Jean Rollin who made a career out of making erotic vampire/supernatural films and while this is extremely low budget and highly exploitive this film still creates an effective mood that enhances the story. This is a film that has very little dialogue and there are a number of scenes where the two characters just walk around never speaking. I watched this film waiting to hear the names of the two girls and only once in a scene did I hear D'Argent call her friend Marie. I had to look at other reviews to find out that D'Argent is named Michelle. To say that this is an exploitation film is like saying "Titanic" is about a boat! When the two girls first enter the castle they find a bed and immediately get naked where they start to engage in lesbianism. Then later in the dungeon we see several naked woman chained to the walls where they are raped by the overly horny male slaves. This film does use it's locations to it's advantage and with the remote landscape and quietness of the film this gives a genuine sense of being really lost in the middle of nowhere. The two lead actresses Castel and D'Argent don't really act much except when staring at everything around them like deer caught in the headlights. They both wear these young girl outfits and have on these noisy shoes that make an annoying clacking sound when they run. They can't run very fast with them on so why didn't they take them off? This is definitely not a film for everyone but if your a fan of exploitation like myself than this is a film that delivers the goods. But I'm not talking about the horror part of the film, if you know what I mean.
Infofreak 'Requiem For A Vampire' is the first disappointing Jean Rollin movie I've watched. It starts off beautifully enough with two girls made up as clowns fleeing a scene which we are later told was a murder. Desperate and hungry they wander the countryside looking for food and shelter. Most of these early sequences feature very little dialogue, and are beautiful and haunting. Both the girls themselves and the landscape they inhabit are perfect and typically Rollinesque. Eventually the girls look for sanctuary in mysterious and apparently abandoned castle. This is where their troubles really begin, because it is inhabited by a vampire and his entourage who force the girls into luring men to their doom. It's around this point that the movie falls apart for me I'm afraid. I that the movie is listed as having a runtime of 95 minutes. The DVD version I watched clocked in at around 75. I can only assume that the footage I missed would have salvaged this one from mediocrity. There was very little nudity, which is unusual for Rollin, and I saw virtually no "Sadeian sex" that the back cover blurb mentioned. I can only comment on the cut I saw (released by Salvation, who are normally very good), and this version was weak and uninspiring. I hope one day to see the complete version and that it is up to the usual high standards of Rollin who has become a great favourite of mine.
Anyanwu This film was rated higher by others than I would have thought. Vampires usually do a lot of biting and blood sucking. There was more erotic virgin handling and molestation than biting and the like in this one. The use of silence in the film gave it a surreal quality. The whole movie was dream-like. The lure of the victims was not captured. The chase and seduction is the best thing about vampires but those subtleties were lost here. But, I must admit, the film did remind me of Vampyros Lesbos and, to a lesser extent, Suspiria. I must state that vampire films do not have to be bloody etc. But a little blood at the bite would have been welcomed. Not a bad watch if you seek those who walk at night.