The Iron Rose
The Iron Rose is a 1973 film from France, directed by Jean Rollin, running 86 minutes. reelscum files it under euro-gothic.
- Year
- 1973 · 1970s films
- Country
- France
- Runtime
- 86 min
- Director
- Jean Rollin
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (47/100)
- Also known as
- The Crystal Rose
Defined in the glossary: Euro-gothic
Rollin with the vampires stripped out, and his best film for it.
The Jean Rollin film that even people who cannot stand Jean Rollin tend to respect. A young couple wander into an enormous cemetery for an afternoon, linger too long, and find as dusk falls that they cannot locate the way out, and from there the film is essentially the two of them and the gravestones. There are no vampires and almost no plot, just mounting panic and a woman who begins to prefer the dead to the living. It is Rollin's most controlled and least silly picture, closer to a poem than a horror film. If his vampire pictures felt like beautiful nonsense, this is where the beauty holds without the nonsense.
Trailer
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The cycle in depth
- Fantaterror: the Spanish horror boom, 1968 to 1976
Two cuts of every film, one for the censor in Madrid and one for the drive-in. Democracy killed the trick in two years.
Filed alongside
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Fascination
Rollin's best, and the one where the pretty dream logic finally grows teeth.
El Vampiro
Mexico's caped vampire, fanged on screen a year before Hammer got there.
The Living Dead Girl
Rollin's best late film. Melancholy where the Italians were loud.
This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse
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Lips of Blood
Rollin's most coherent, which is not saying a great deal. Gorgeous.
The Nude Vampire
A secret society, a Paris chateau, and dream logic all the way down.
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
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Nightmare Castle
Barbara Steele twice over, one of them back from the grave, scored by a young Morricone.
Vampyres
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Requiem for a Vampire
Rollin at his purest. Two women in clown costume, a castle, almost no dialogue.