La fiancée de Dracula (2002)

La fiancée de Dracula: Directed by Jean Rollin. With Cyrille Gaudin, Jacques Orth, Thomas Smith, Sandrine Thoquet. A Van Helsing-like professor and his protegé are tracking Dracula’s descendants through the world of “parallels

“Iu0026#39;ve seen a handful of Jean Rollin films, and the only ones I liked were his zombie flicks The Living Dead Girl and The Grapes of Death; which is pretty ironic when you consider that ninety percent of his filmography is made up of lesbian vampire films. Well I must be a glutton for punishment having seen this film after seeing so many Rollin films that I didnu0026#39;t like; but to my surprise it would seem that four decades of lesbian vampires has actually taught Rollin something, and while The Fiancé of Dracula suffers from most of the same problems as Rollinu0026#39;s other films; it is actually surprisingly good! As you should expect, the plot is completely made up of nonsense and focuses on some Van Helsing wannabe and his dopey assistant as they go around hunting u0026quot;parallelsu0026quot; (hot lesbian vampires, basically). Their investigation leads them to a strange convent (via a circus dwarf) and the pair soon discovers that the nuns are harbouring a young woman who just so happens to be the fiancé of the almighty Count Dracula…u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNaturally, the film is completely incoherent and nothing after about the first fifteen minutes makes a lick of sense…but Rollin films generally arenu0026#39;t meant to, and he does at least get the ambiance right. Most of the actresses used are stunningly beautiful – even more so when given lesbian vampire roles and Rollin makes good use of them; in particular Rollin stalwart Brigitte Lahaie who has an interesting role as a u0026#39;wolf womanu0026#39;. It soon becomes easier to just take the film scene by scene rather than trying to enjoy it as a whole and the film features plenty of interesting scenes – one that involves a young girl eating a baby is a highlight. Given that Rollin made most of his films between the late sixties and early eighties; it would be reasonable to assume that The Fiancé of Dracula is merely an imitation of his earlier works, but actually thatu0026#39;s not the case and this film appears to be as u0026#39;trueu0026#39; to Rollinu0026#39;s style as anything he made earlier on in his career. Thereu0026#39;s not much point talking about the ending because it makes just as much sense as the rest of the film; but while this film isnu0026#39;t brilliant, itu0026#39;s better than most of Rollinu0026#39;s stuff and his fans should enjoy it.”