Two Orphan Vampires

When I see a film with the name Jean Rollin tagged to it I normally distinguish a vision, a vision of dreariness, breasts, vampires, and question marks - extra large question marks! I was quite surprised that Mr. Rollin still makes films, I was not surprised that they are still dreamy and have female blood suckers.

Two Orphan Vampires begins in an orphanage run by nuns. We are introduced to two teenage orphans, Henriette (Isabelle Teboul) and Louise (Alexandra Pic). During the daytime they are blind but during the night they are fully aware and can see in tones of blue. That's a little unique wouldn't you say? That's because these orphans are vampires of course!

When night comes these "little angels" go to the graveyard where they feel comfortable and reminisce about their past lives, their numerous past lives. We see that they actually roamed the night looking for prey and were a real pain in the neck to their victims. Quite obviously they are not the little angels the nuns think they are as they kill a nice little dog in the graveyard.

Doctor Dennary (Bernard Charnacé) adopts the girls believing he's doing something good. Off they go to Paris to live their new happy life. The doctor lives in a large house (slightly questionable if it is meant to be Paris!) in solitude. When he goes to sleep early the girls go exploring. Good ole Brigitte Lahaie has a nice quick cameo as she becomes their first Parisian victim. What will these mischievous girls do next? The girls end up going out to the cemetery when their new father goes away on business overnight. The girls are seen in the cemetery and have fun killing various visitors. Unfortunately on the way back home they don't have so much luck…will they get home before the doctor returns? The rest of the film shows their new life spiralling away from them.

Ok, we all know the Jean Rollin's films are long, slow, and boring. They are full of poor dreamy dialogue and all seem to melt into this reviewer's mind as the same thing. But putting that aside I still have a soft spot for his work. It's fun to see him trying to tell a gothic tale and of course the soft nudity is always fun. I personally think if he didn't use nudity, atmospheric music, and excellent use of colours (for example the blue tones used during the night) then no one would care.

Two Orphan Vampires is not an exception. Nothing spectacular about this film, however if you have nothing to watch I do recommend it for a night in without the missus and with a few beers. I was quite surprised that the nudity was light, especially with the cover art of the DVD! There's barely enough to tease the voyeurs among us. J

Rollin likes to throw in some characters in the film that don't really add substance, for example, throughout the orphan's little night time adventures, they meet various creatures of the night: a werewolf, a ghoul, and a bat woman (???). Of course these creatures look like humans, no hard use of special effects in this film, but then again Rollin has never really needed to use effects has he? I think in Rollin's mind he imagines a gothic world where demons and ghouls live amongst us! All very surreal…

The Redemption DVD is a fairly standard release and is the first release in the UK. The widescreen image is clear emphasising the nice nighttime blues. The audio is in French with optional English subtitles and is adequate. Extras include a new interview with Rollin (an interesting insight into his work and his Parisian apartment), a stills gallery, and Redemption trailers.

I should also mention there is already a R1 Shriek Show disk out there with an English track and also the film's score as a bonus.

I can't really say much more about this film. What I can say is that if you want to catch a "decent" Rollin film, check out his gory zombie flick Grapes of Death.

Review by: Broonage