Description

NOTE: This title does not ship the the UK, any orders placed in error will be refunded.

A psychiatrist (Bernard Letrou) ventures to a remote castle to convince a brood of four vampire sisters that they are misguided, brainwashed by superstitious villagers, and not truly creatures of the supernatural. The villagers (including director Jean Rollin) confuse and abuse the sisters, before finally storming their castle. The cast descends on a hospital run by a young doctor (Jean-Loup Philippe), charged by the Queen of the Vampires (Jacqueline Sieger) to discover a cure for vampirism. This bewildering action culminates in a ‘blood wedding’ presided over by Sieger, in her regal hot pants, on the legendary stage of the now-defunct Theâtre du Grand Guignol.

The shoot was anything but professional. Everyone on the crew was making their first film. All copies of the script managed to get lost within two days, which quickly forced the production into improvisation mode. Rollin opted to let the film become what it wanted to become. It was in the spirit of the times to experiment. The resulting film, The Rape of the Vampire (Le Viol du Vampire), is a glorious puzzlement, like nothing else in the horror genre.

Special Features

  • Mastered HD from the uncensored 35mm negative
  • French with optional English subtitles
  • Introduction by Jean Rollin
  • Two short films by Jean Rollin:
    • Les Amours jaunes (The Yellow Loves, 1958, 9 min) and
    • Les Pays loin (The Far Country, 1965, 16 min.)
  • Alternate version of one scene (2 min.)
  • ‘Fragments of Pavements Under the Sand’, a documentary by Daniel Gouyette, featuring interviews with Jean Rollin, Jean-Denis Bonan, and Jean-Loup Bouyxou.
  • Interview with Jean Rollin
  • Interview with Jean-Loup Bouyxou.
  • 16-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog
  • Original theatrical trailers

Film details

  • Screenplay by Jean Rollin and Alain Yves Beaujour
  • Produced by Jean Rollin and Sam Selsky
  • Director of Photography: Guy Leblond
  • Music by Yves Géraud and François Tusques
  • Produced for Video by Bret Wood
  • With Solange Pradel, Jean-Loup Philippe, Bernard Letrou, Jacqueline Sieger