The Shiver of the Vampires (1971)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A wonderful, weird, vampire movie about temptation and confusion. I am very much a fan of 1970s European vampire movies and Jean Rollin was the best of them. And Shiver is one of my favorites. It has very weird dialogue and the plot is very confusing, which is why it is great! If you are looking for the best of this genre, this is one of the films to watch.

A young honeymooning couple stop for the night at an ancient castle. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is home to a horde of vampires, who have their own plans for the couple.This is the sixth Jean Rollin film I have seen in the past week, and the fifth one to feature nude vampire women. Not sure what is up with Rollin: he needs nude women, vampires, castles and a sea side with a fence (or dilapidated pier) in all his films...I think this one was probably the best of those I have seen. The rocking music, the actual attempt to have a back story for the vampires... it was like he decided that a plot would be nice, besides just the sex and stripped women. Good call, Jean.

"The Shiver of the Vampires" is one of the better erotic vampire films around.**SPOILERS**On their honeymoon, Isle, (Sandra Julien) and Antoine, (Jean-Marie Durand) decide to stop off at her cousin's castle for a while. Finding that both her cousins, (Michael Delahaye) and (Jacques Robiolles) have both passed on, and soon afterward, she comes down with a strange illness that forces her into bed. That night, wandering around the castle, he witnesses two men who resemble her cousins alive and performing a black magic ritual with a strange women, Isolde, (Dominique) who later appears to Isle and attempts to seduce her. When he realizes that all of the inhabitants of the castle are a coven of vampires who want to initiate her into their group, he races to stop them before it's too late.The Good News: This is far better than it should've been. The film's impressive and continuous Gothic atmosphere is it's greatest asset. With the action mostly concerned with a large castle, filled with stone and rock, cobweb-laced furniture and all sorts of Gothic-influenced surroundings, including winding staircases, giant candles illuminating the proceedings, large, cluttered rooms, coffins in the middle of a ruined abbey, flowing dresses and much more to give off a real eerie feel to the setting. Taken place in a fog-covered graveyard doesn't hurt either, and the sequences inside, including the initial ceremony, some random dialog sequences, and a naked unconscious woman draped over a cemetery vault just a few examples of this. It has its occasional moments of surreal glory as well, including a vampire that sleeps inside a grandfather clock and giant ornate chimney places, only rises at midnight to the accompanying image of a female victim draped willingly around the clock waiting for her to awaken, the image of a female vampire wearing giant spiked black nipple caps to kill a troublesome woman, skulls in a goldfish bowl and the like. These surrealist images are seemingly inserted less with logical purpose in mind and more for the visual image they provide. They are wonderfully inserted and make the film that much more entertaining. The plot isn't that bad, and actually is pretty understandable. It's not exactly linear, but it's not that difficult to get an understanding of the film's motivations and intentions. The vampire plot is strong and well-defined, allowing for most of the best scenes to come from their appearance. Most of the rest of the time the film seems assembled in order to display as many women in a state of undress as possible. There are a large number of scantily-clad women in see-through gowns, a near-continuous stream of stripping for unnecessary events, a naked lesbian couple caressing on a fur blanket, a couple of seduction and sexual scenes and more, and is nicely integrated with the film artistically rather than being there for the sleaze appeal and it's a nicely different touch. There's also a really great pace on display, as something is always happening even if they don't make sense. It's a really great, underrated film.The Bad News: There isn't a whole lot wrong here. One of the main problems is that the film really fails to make the most of the connections drawn between vampirism and sex. Despite the great pain taken to set up the allure cast over the wife: she is mesmerized by the female vampire, nothing much occurs of the plot-line until she is led to a cemetery and the vampire bites her neck, the wife instantly collapses. The act of vampirism is reduced to a nano-second event with no eroticism other than the naked bodies on display. For a film containing vampires, that is a surprisingly small amount devoted to it's official status. The dream-like atmosphere maybe a source of frustration to some, as it's quite hard to get into and results in it being an acquired taste, but beyond these, the film isn't that bad at all.The Final Verdict: With abundant Gothic overtones, impressive scenery, lesbianism and only minor flaws, this is one of the better erotic vampires films around. This is certainly required viewing for anyone interested in the genre or a fan of the European Vampire films, and is a nice starting point for the uninitiated as well.Rated UR/R: Full Nudity, Violence, several sex scenes and Mild Language

Dreamy European vampire art-film with a modern-day setting, but all the trappings of a more traditional period horror. Throw in a psychedelic pop score and various hippy motifs and the result is an awkward hybrid of themes and ideas.'Le Frissons des Vampires' is basically a slow series of impressive images set to music, with limited dialogue and a disjointed narrative. The characters and performances are wooden but functional, although this is probably a deliberate method of enhancing the surreal aspects more. The allusions to vampire eroticism, with semi-clad females and implied lesbianism, are not unwelcome but the results are singularly uninteresting with little to excite the viewer.The storyline - pair of newlyweds stop off at a Castle inhabited by vampires - meanders dreamily (drearily) along, with no points of interest to break up the monotony. Despite some individual images which are stunning - the female vampire emerging from the grandfather clock - it's difficult to find much to recommend here. I'm not sure how much of the film's strength was lost to the poor dubbing, but even so I can't help feeling that 'Lust for a Vampire' (1971), despite its lack of artistic merit is better entertainment.For all its striking visuals, Rollin's film falls down on too many basic levels and as naked lesbian vampire films go, it's simply dull to watch.