Virgins, Vampires and Clown Suits:
An Interview with Jean Rollin

by Louis Paul

French director Jean Rollin’s name has become synonymous with the sub-genre of erotic Euro-horror. His films are defined by intense, surreal imagery and minimal dialogue, conveying a feverish dream logic. With beautiful women lounging naked on fur-covered divans, or walking through the moonlight in diaphanous gowns, they are overtly sexual without being pornographic (although he has dabbled in pornography as well).

His first experiments with cinema were short, socio-political observations on French life, suffused with New Wave style. But inspired by the atmospheric horror films of his childhood, Rollin began a long career in the genre with The Rape of the Vampire in 1967 – a film that would immediately forge the director’s iconoclastic style. Over the three decades and more since, Rollin’s films – among them The Demoniacs, Zombie Lake, and The Living Dead Girl – have marked him as both a journeyman filmmaker and an artist of clear and consistant vision. Rollin spoke candidly with Penny Blood about his most famous and infamous works.

PENNY BLOOD: When you started out, you were an experimental filmmaker. Is that true?

ROLLIN: Yes.

PENNY BLOOD: Did you always love horror films?

ROLLIN: Always. When I was a child, I had seen my first horror film. It was the Universal movie, House of Dracula, directed by Erle C. Kenton. I was so frightened by it. I had nightmares for many, many months, and after, [I’ve made] this kind of horror film to exalt it.

PENNY BLOOD: 1958’s Les Amour Jaunes was your first film?

ROLLIN: Yes, it’s a short film.

PENNY BLOOD: One of your experimental films?

ROLLIN: Yes.

PENNY BLOOD: So, you made a number of these short films before your first feature, Le Viol Du Vampire, or The Rape of the Vampire, in 1967?

ROLLIN: Yes. That was my first long form film.

PENNY BLOOD: I have read that it is really a combination of two films.

ROLLIN: Yes it is, because in this period I only made short films. So, I made two short films to put together as one long film.

PENNY BLOOD: How was Le Viol Du Vampire received by the French critics of the time?

ROLLIN: There was a big, big scandal.

PENNY BLOOD: Because of the sexual themes?

ROLLIN: No, because no one understood anything. It may have been too experimental for a feature film. There were objections to the screenings of the movie by critics and the public. It was a terrific scandal.

PENNY BLOOD: Now this was in 1967, and it took two years for you to find financing for Le Vampire Nue. Why did it take that long for you to make another film?

ROLLIN: Because of the scandal of Le Viol Du Vampire. I had thought for a little while… to maybe find some other kind of work to do, to be involved no more in the cinema. But the film, Le Viol Du Vampire, was because of the scandal, a great success. I decided to seek funding and make another film.

PENNY BLOOD: There are great thematic shifts between Le Viol Du Vampire and La Vampire Nue. What influenced you to make something so different - with the use of color, etc. – from your first experimental picture?

ROLLIN: It’s very different, La Vampire Nue. It was the second film I made, so I was a little more proficient as a director. It was in color. And I had just a bit more money to do it, that is the reason.

PENNY BLOOD: What is the fascination that you have with castles and water? Because they appear in your films a lot.

ROLLIN: Castles and water. Water, I don’t know. It’s a story device really. Castles, probably from the Universal horror films I saw when I was young. All of those Universal films had castles.

PENNY BLOOD: For Le Frissons Des Vampires, you used an incredible psychedelic rock score…

ROLLIN: It was done by a group of very young guys. They were schoolboys who did that music. I think all of them were about sixteen years old.

PENNY BLOOD: Were you pleased with their score?

ROLLIN: Sure. I was curious to put this kind of music to such scenes. It was unusual. The film has a little bit of humor in it, so, although it was strange to put that kind of music in, I liked it.

PENNY BLOOD: Requiem Pour Un Vampire begins with young girls escaping from the law… but they are dressed as clowns. Where did that idea come from?

ROLLIN: This is a different kind of film, Requiem, it is a naïve film. I wrote it in one night and put in two girls as the main characters. They escape from the law, they are dressed in clown suits, they fall into an open grave. I wrote it just like that, how you say, stream of consciousness.

PENNY BLOOD: Let’s talk about Phantasmes…

ROLLIN: This film signals for me a great period where, for the first time, I tried to put a real story within the framework of an X-rated film. But it didn’t work. The audience did not like it. When the audience came to see the film, they wanted to see the sex scenes and nothing else.

PENNY BLOOD: What a shame, because I think it’s one of the better hardcore erotica films ever made. Now, you’ve also made numerous other erotic films, mostly under pseudonyms like Michael Gentil. Did you make those movies for any particular reason, or just to keep working?

ROLLIN: Well, when I made Phantasmes, I tried to do something different. But the rest of these kinds of films, it was just to make money.

PENNY BLOOD: Le Raisins De La Morte is a zombie film…

ROLLIN: Yes, I made it when zombie films were popular, and it was the first horror film I did with Brigitte Lahaie.

PENNY BLOOD: What made you choose Brigitte Lahaie to appear in the film?

ROLLIN: I knew Brigitte for a long time, and I always wanted to have her in this kind of film.

PENNY BLOOD: The make-up is very good in Morte.

ROLLIN: Yes, a make-up man from Italy worked on it.

PENNY BLOOD: Was this a more expensive production than you were making?

ROLLIN: Certainly.
 

PENNY BLOOD: Fascination has become, at least in English speaking countries, something of a cult classic. Certain images from the film – especially Brigitte Lahaie wielding that scythe – are frequently seen in genre magazines and books. Of all your films, this also has the least dialogue for long portions. Did you design it that way?

ROLLIN: Yes, for the audience to be taken away with it…

PENNY BLOOD: To be propelled by the mood?

ROLLIN: Yes.

PENNY BLOOD: Nuit Des Traquees…

ROLLIN: Yes. Night of the Hunted.

PENNY BLOOD: What was the idea behind this film? Was it intended as a futuristic piece? I’ve seen the movie, and yet I’m a bit puzzled by it…

ROLLIN: It takes place in a very near future. There has been an accident with a bomb, a nuclear catastrophe. The film is about the breakdown of society when this kind of catastrophe happens. In some versions of the film, there is a scene where a projection of a news video is on screen that explains this.

PENNY BLOOD: La Morte Vivante, The Living Dead Girl, is one of your most acclaimed movies. You have very good actresses in the film as well…

ROLLIN: Like Raisins De La Morte, this film was made during a period when zombie films, especially from Italy, were very successful. There were a lot of pictures being made that were like Night of the Living Dead during this period. After I made Raisins De La Morte, the producer asked me to make another zombie film. I wanted to do something more experimental. I think it’s much closer to a vampire film. In this, the girl who is afflicted becomes a vampire.
 

PENNY BLOOD: How did you become involved with Zombie Lake?

ROLLIN: A friend of mine, a producer, called me one day and said that he had to begin shooting a film with Jess Franco the very next day and that Jess Franco had not shown up. He said that they wanted me to do it, and I said “Why not?”

PENNY BLOOD: There has been a persistent rumor that Jess Franco had directed some of the footage for Zombie Lake, but that is not true?

ROLLIN: Zombie Lake is all mine. But, the script was not mine. This was the first time that I had directed a film that I did not write.

PENNY BLOOD: Was this a Eurocine production?

ROLLIN: Yes.

PENNY BLOOD: It looks much different than any of your other films. Was the crew, including the director of photography, chosen by Eurocine, the producers?

ROLLIN: Correct.

PENNY BLOOD: Killing Cars and Les Troittors De Bankok are two espionage films – a genre that you are not often associated with.

ROLLIN: It was funny for me to try something different. I shot Killing Cars in the usual horror mood that I’m associated with. But, for Troittors De Bankok, I attempted something else. It is like a Fu Manchu movie in many aspects.

PENNY BLOOD: And the Asian woman that stars in that film is interesting. She is very tiny and yet she is very strong. Was she a discovery of yours?

ROLLIN: I found her. She was a dancer in an erotic club.

PENNY BLOOD: The Perfume of Mathilde was a recent erotic sex film. You directed it?

ROLLIN: I am the co-director. There were two of us who worked on that film as director.

PENNY BLOOD: Did you intend it as a remake of Phantasmes?

ROLLIN: Not at all.

PENNY BLOOD: But the stories are almost identical.

ROLLIN: Well, now that you say that, maybe you are right. You could be right, Yes, it is possible.

PENNY BLOOD: Well, it seems quite apparent because, at the climax of Mathilde, Christopher Clark stares at the photograph of the woman he loved who had been transformed by her sexuality into something he couldn’t control, leading to a closing shot of a new female arrival. In Phantasmes the story lines are indentical with a similar ending.

ROLLIN: You have put your finger on something that I have never given much thought. But now I will think about it.

PENNY BLOOD: Two Orphan Vampires was one of your more recent films. Were you pleased with the way it turned out?

ROLLIN: It is probably my best film. More so because the story came from one of my books.

PENNY BLOOD: Do you think the reason why you are most pleased with this movie is it returns to ideas you explored earlier in your career?

ROLLIN: Probably.

PENNY BLOOD: Not many French directors have made horror films over the years. I know of Jacques Scandelari, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Michael Lemoine, but all of them mainly work in erotic cinema. Their horror films have either been erotic movies with supernatural elements or macabre films with erotic overtones. What are your thoughts on fellow French directors who have dabbled in the genre?

ROLLIN: In France, I am alone in this field. There may have been two or three pictures where horror has been attempted. I seem to be the only director who [has made] this kind of film in France. I don’t know why.

The Rollin Filmography

Les Amours Jaunes (1958) [Experimental short film]
Ciel De Cuivre (1959) [Experimental short film]
Un Cheval Pour Deaux (1962) [Feature film, never completed]
L’Itineraire Marin (1962) [Feature film, never completed]
Vivre En Espagne (1964) [Short documentary]
Les Pays Loin (1965) [Short film]
Le Viol Du Vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) (1967) [Feature film, contains
footage from the short film Le Reine Des Vampires]
La Vampire Nue (The Nude Vampire) (1969) [Feature film]
Les Frissons Des Vampires (The Thrill of the Vampires) (1970) [Feature film]
Les Vierges Et Vampires (The Virgins and the Vampires, Caged Vampires, Dungeon of Terror, Requiem Pour Un Vampire, Requiem for a Vampire) (1971) [Feature film]
Les Demoniaques (The Demoniacs, Curse of the Living Dead) (1973) [Feature film]
Jeunes Filles Impudiques (Schoolgirl Hitchhikers) (1973) [Feature film]
La Rose De Fer (The Rose of Iron) (1973) [Feature film]
Bacchanales Sexuelles (Tout Le Monde Il En A Deux) (1974) [Feature film]
Levres De Sang (Lips of Blood) (1974) [Feature film]
Sui-Moi, Vampire (Suck Me, Vampire) (1974) [Feature film]
Phantasmes (The Seduction of Amy) (1975) [Feature film]
Douces Penetrations (1976) [Feature film]
Apotheose Porno (1976) [Feature film]
La Comptesse Ixe (1976) [Feature film]
Hard Penetrations (1976) [Feature film]
Vibrations Sexuelles (1976) [Feature film]
DiscoSex (1976) [Feature film, never completed]
Levres Entrouvertes (1977) [Feature film]
Positions Danoises (1977) [Feature film]
Saute-Moi Dessus (1977) [Feature film]
Petites Pensionnaires Impudiques (1978) [Feature film]
Pulsions Secretes (1978) [Feature film]
Les Raisins De La Morte (The Grapes of Death, Pesticide) (1978) [Feature film]
Le Ruee Vers L’Orgasme (1978) [Feature film]
Le Trois Trous (1978) [Feature film]
Fascination (1979) [Feature film]
Introductions Perverses (1979) [Feature film]
Le Lac Des Morts Vivants (Zombie Lake, The Lake of the Living Dead) (1980) [Feature film. Rollin had also shot an undetermined amount of film footage for Eurocine while on the production of Zombie Lake, some of which ended up in the 1980 Jess Franco feature A Virgin Among the Living Dead]
La Nuit Des Traquees (The Night of the Hunted) (1980) [Feature film]
Les Eschappes (Les Paumees Du Matin) (1981) [Feature film]
La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl, The Living Dead) (1982) [Feature film]
Sodomanie (1983) [Feature film]
Folies Anales (1983) [Feature film]
Les Troittoirs De Bangkok (The Streets of Bangkok, Sidewalks of Bangkok) (1984) [Feature film]
Ne Prends Pas Les Poulets Pour Des Pigeons (1985) [Feature film]
Emmanuelle 6 (1988) [Feature film. Bruno Zircone had been hired by the producers of this French/Italian co-production but apparently the finished product was deemed unreleasable, so Rollin – who wrote the screenplay – was brought in to finish the project. He re-shot most of the film and even appears in it. There are several versions available, including a French print which contains hardcore footage]
Perdues Dans New York (Lost in New York) (1989) [Feature film]
Chasing Barbara (1991) [Feature film. Rollin shot footage that updated older Eurocine product, including earlier Jess Franco films, for video re-release]
La Griffe D’Horus (The Claw of Horus) (1990) [Feature film]
Le Femme Dangereuse (Killing Cars) (1993) [Feature film]
Le Parfume De Mathilde (The Perfume of Mathilde) (1994) [Feature film. Co-directed by Rollin and Marc Dorcel)
Les Deux Orphelines Vampires (The Two Orphan Vampires) (1995) [Feature film]
La Fiancee Du Dracula (Le Retour De Dracula, The Brides of Dracula) (2002) [Feature film]