Requiem for a Vampire

Jean Rollin at his purest, which means narrative is almost entirely optional. Two young women in clown costume flee some unexplained trouble, wander into a crumbling chateau, and are drawn into the last gasp of a dying vampire line. Dialogue is minimal; mood is everything.

It plays less like a horror film than a dream half-remembered, all empty landscapes, ruined stone and eroticism, scored by fragile organ music. Rollin's films fail as plots and succeed as reverie.

For viewers on Rollin's wavelength it is hypnotic. For everyone else it is impossible.