opfcycle.blogg.se

A critical reevaluation has begun to take place and Rollin, who passed on in 2010, is now finding his posthumous due. That, of course, is not true - Rollin was a gifted filmmaker of distinct vision who often made the best of limited resources to make smart, strange films about women that also paid tribute to his influences, from poetry to classic-era serials to the beaches of France. Because of the abundance of (mostly female) nudity, lesbian undertones and preference for genre storytelling, Rollin was relegated to the dirty sidelines of the exploitation market, and his decidedly dreamy, poetic bent and refusal to adhere to genre norms, coupled with his shoestring budgets, made people think he was an incompetent hack, to boot. Outside a few stray weirdo flicks like BABY BLOOD and OGROFF: THE MAD MUTILATOR, French-borne horror was a generally non-existent concept, save for one man: Jean Rollin, a Surrealist-influenced filmmaker who kept the torch in his country alive for several decades, largely thanks to his erotic and oft-misunderstood Sapphic vampire epics like FASCINATION, REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE, and SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES.įor decades, however, at home and abroad, Rollin was critically snubbed and largely ignored by all but the most enthusiastic gutter dwelling grindhouse pervs, considered little more than a peddler of typical Euro art-smut sexploitation. Before 2007, when films like INSIDE and MARTYRS arrived like a brick to the face, France was hardly known as a progenitor of cutting-edge horror art.