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Shiver
of the Vampires review by Shade Rupe
Opening with a strange burial ceremony rendered in black and white the film then moves into lurid, bright color. In his closest moment to Welles, Rollin's camera moves through an open castle doorway and show the vampire's two assistants in ready for their master. Encountering him in deathly repose at the top of a staircase, he admits that his race must be destroyed, and only the two girls can save him from the menace of his disease. If I get this descriptive of each passage of this monumental film, I'd be taking up too much space. I must move the highlights which include the haunting Dominique as an ultra-creepy and sexy vampiress, appearing from within a midnight-striking grandfather clock's bowels, loosing herself into the castle via levitation down the chimney, and magically appearing behind bedroom curtains, brazing them open as if on a Broadway stage. And she's nude a lot. A newlywed couple and a pair of vampire hunters find themselves victims to the madwoman's deathly rampage against mankind. The philosophizing vampires, dreading their condition, find well-trained lights, and costume design, of all colors and textures wrapping them in various cinematic garments. A thick script for Rollin, rife with notations on the vampire's lifestyle of the dead, is churned into a chunky brew with the visuals, and tweaked-out groovy psychedelic rock store provided by Acanthus. Image's fineletterboxed presentation includes the original theatrical trailer in both French and English, and three still galleries totalling 43 images. OFFICIAL WEB
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One of director Jean Rollin's most deleriously dense and full films,
Shiver of the Vampires is, in itself, a compendium of exciting
EuroHorror energy and images.