Requiem For A Vampire (1971)

Blonde Marie (Marie Pierre Castel) and redhead Michelle (Mireille D’Argent) are two pretty teenage virgins who run away from a reform school dressed in ludicrous clown costumes.

They have a shoot-out with the police and dispose of the body of their dead male getaway driver by setting fire to the car and then wander off into the French countryside.

They steal a motorcycle and some food and wind up hiding out in a secluded cemetery.

Michelle falls into an open grave and ends up buried by gravediggers as Marie watches nearby, too scared to speak. Once Michelle is unearthed, the girls encounter a group of bats hanging from trees, who exhibit a strange hypnotic power over them and bite them on the neck.

The girls then find a seemingly abandoned château and do what any teenage virgins would do in a European erotic horror/fantasy film in the 1970s – they find a fur-covered bed, get naked and indulge in a spot of lesbianism.

Soon though they meet the occupants of the château who are, of course, vampires.

The dying head vampire (Michel Delesalle) is the last of his kind and desperately needs to make some more – but he can apparently only pass the curse on to virgins.

He is aided in his endeavours by his vampy pal Erika (Dominique).

Non-virgins are chained to a wall in the dungeon where monstrous barbarian man-servants forcefully have their way with them while Erika sucks blood from their breasts and a vampire (in bat form) performs cunnilingus. It’s a very gratuitous and graphic sexual scene – and it goes on for ages!

Conflict arises when Marie decides to lose her virginity to a random local man named Frédéric (Philippe Gasté) while Michelle decides to preserve hers and join the ranks of the living dead.

Requiem For A Vampire is the fourth feature from cult horror director Jean Rollin, once again showing off his weird fascination for young female double-acts and vampires, with full frontals and savage sexual scenes pushing the boundaries of film and pornography – and Rollin knew just how controversial he was being.

The film was rejected for release to UK cinemas in 1972. It was finally released on video in 1993 after extensive cuts of over six minutes to heavily edit scenes of chained women in a cellar being stripped and raped by vampires and a scene where Marie is whipped by Michelle.

Released in some markets as Caged Virgins and Dungeon of Virgins.

Marie
Marie Pierre Castel
Michelle
Mireille D’Argent
Frédéric
Philippe Gasté
Erika
Dominique
Louise
Louise Dhour
The old vampire
Michel Delesalle
Barbarian servants
Antoine Mosin
Olivier François
Dominique Toussaint
Victims
Agnès Petit
Agnès Jacquet
Anne-Rose Kurrat
Man on a bike
Paul Bisciglia
Getaway driver
Jean-Noël Delamarre

Director
Jean Rollin