Requiem for a Vampire

Requiem for a Vampire, a 1971 film by Jean Rollin, is for those who like their women chained to a wall. There are two big scenes--an orgy, when a bunch of burly men rape women while their hands are chained above them, and then a scene late in the film, when a nude woman is chained and whipped (by her best friend!)

This is one of the weirder Rollin films. It starts in media res, with three people in a car, with another car in pursuit, exchanging gunfire. The two girls are in clown costumes. I assumed they were making a getaway from a bank robbery or something, but later one of the girls says they were running away from school--that school must have a strict disciplinary code.

The male driver dies, so the two girls tramp about the countryside, lost. After spending some time in a graveyard (where one of them is almost buried alive) they stumble upon a castle. They find a bed and get naked together, but then are disturbed by noises. They find some vampires, who take them to their leader, who is supposedly the last vampire (he looks a lot like the old horror movie host, Zacherle).

They are bitten, but the process for changing is slow. They also must be virgins, but one of the girls (Marie-Pierre Castel) decides to foil the plan by having sex with a passer-by (she finds him in the graveyard, which begs the question why the guy just happens to be passing through a graveyard in the middle of nowhere).

As schlocky horror films go, Requiem for a Vampire is bit below average. The vampires aren't really scary--they're more like tough camp counselors. In addition to taking delight in women being raped and whipped, the film also has a basic anti-woman tone--two scenes have women leading men on chases while laughing, a way of objectifying women as teases.