400-419 Jean Rollin

[Rayon Vert]

Thank you both! I'm also thinking that if such a big part of the appeal of his films is the visuals and their beauty, then having these quality blu-ray transfers should help bring that out more. (I'd previously seen Requiem, Fascination, Rose de Fer, Lips of Blood and Grapes of Death all on dvd.)

[MichaelB]

October's releases:

LIPS OF BLOOD
(Jean Rollin, 1975)
Release date: 23 October 2023
Limited Edition 4K UHD (World premiere)

Pre-order here: UK Blu-ray/UK UHD/US Blu-ray/US UHD
(The discs are identical regardless of territory, but there are minor local cosmetic differences in packaging)

One of Jean Rollin’s best-loved films, Lips of Blood (Lèvres de sang) finds the master of the fantastique marshalling all of his obsessions – ruined châteaux, remote beaches, abandoned graveyards, mysterious twins, and female vampires.

When a photograph of a decrepit seaside château evokes a childhood vision of an encounter with a mysterious girl, Frederick is compelled to investigate. Soon, he uncovers a surreal and erotic netherworld of vampirism from which he might never return.

Starring regular Rollin actors Jean-Loup Philippe (The Rape of the Vampire), Natalie Perrey (The Iron Rose), and twins Cathy and Marie-Pierre Castel (Requiem for a Vampire), Lips of Blood is a tour de force within Rollin’s inimitable oeuvre.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION 4K UHD SPECIAL FEATURES


• New 4K HDR restoration from the original negative by Powerhouse Films
• 4K (2160p) UHD presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Original French mono soundtrack
• Audio commentary with genre-film experts, critics and authors Stephen Jones and Kim Newman (2023)
• Selected scenes audio commentary with Jean Rollin (2005)
• Jean Rollin Introduces ‘Lips of Blood’ (1998): filmed appraisal
• The Beach That Follows Me (2005): Rollin reminisces about the beach in Dieppe and his many experiences filming there
• Newly edited archival interview with Rollin (2023)
• Newly edited archival interview with actor and frequent Rollin collaborator Natalie Perrey (2023)
• Newly edited archival interview with actor Jean-Loup Philippe (2023)
• Newly edited archival interview with actor Serge Rollin (2023)
• Newly edited archival interview with actor Cathy Tricot (2023)
• Critical appreciation by the author and film historian Virginie Sélavy (2023)
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image galleries: promotional and publicity material, and behind the scenes
• New and improved English translation subtitles
• Limited edition exclusive 80-page book with a new essay by Maitland McDonough, archival writing by Jean Rollin on the making of the film, archival interviews with Rollin and Annie Brilland, an analysis of Suck Me, Vampire, the hardcore film Rollin made using scenes from Lips of Blood, and full film credits
• World premiere on 4K UHD
• Limited edition of 10,000 individually numbered units (6,000 4K UHDs and 4,000 Blu-rays) for the UK and US

All extras subject to change

#PHILE407U
BBFC cert: 18
REGION FREE
EAN: 5060697922844

FASCINATION
(Jean Rollin, 1979)
Release date: 23 October 2023
Limited Edition 4K UHD (World premiere)

Pre-order here: UK Blu-ray/UK UHD/US Blu-ray/US UHD
(The discs are identical regardless of territory, but there are minor local cosmetic differences in packaging)

Jealousy, vengeance, obsession, cannibalism, and blood-drinking collide in Fascination, director Jean Rollin’s decadent fantasy of sex and death.

When a thief holes up in a remote château, taking two beautiful chambermaids hostage, the arrival of his accomplices and the château’s aristocratic owners leads to an orgy of violence and ritualistic bloodletting.

With its standout performance from Brigitte Lahaie (The Night of the Hunted), as the scythe-wielding Eva, and an evocative score from Philippe D’Aram (The Living Dead Girl), Fascination is one of the purest expressions of Rollin’s unique fantastique aesthetic.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION 4K UHD SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K HDR restoration from the original negative by Powerhouse Films
• 4K (2160p) UHD presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Original French mono soundtrack
• Audio commentary with Sylvia Kristel: From ‘Emmanuelle’ to Chabrol author Jeremy Richey (2023)
• Jean Rollin Introduces ‘Fascination’ (1998): filmed appraisal
• Rituals (2023): updated documentary on the making of Fascination by Rollin’s personal assistant, Daniel Gouyette, including interviews with key collaborators Natalie Perrey and Brigitte Lahaie
• The Music of ‘Fascination’ (2023): new presentation of an interview with composer Philippe D’Aram
• Newly edited archival interview with assistant director Natalie Perrey (2023)
• Critical appreciation by the author and film historian Virginie Sélavy (2023)
• Alternative sequences: two extended sex scenes
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image galleries: promotional and publicity material, and behind the scenes
• Virgins and Vampires (1999): documentary on Rollin, produced and directed by Andy Starke and Pete Tombs, featuring contributions from actors Monica Swinn and Brigitte Lahaie, Nigel Wingrove of Redemption Films, and Rollin
• New and improved English translation subtitles
• Limited edition exclusive 80-page book with a new essay by Vanessa Morgan, an archival introduction by Jean Rollin, a previously untranslated archival interview with Rollin, an archival interview with actor Fanny Magier, critic Daniel Bird on the film’s soundtrack, and full film credits
• World premiere on 4K UHD
• Limited edition of 10,000 individually numbered units (6,000 4K UHDs and 4,000 Blu-rays) for the UK and US

All extras subject to change

#PHILE410U
BBFC cert: 18
REGION FREE
EAN: 5060697922905

[MichaelB]

And a quick spine-number update for those tracking such things...

400 - The Rape of the Vampire (1968)
401 - ??? (but pretty obvious!)
402 - The Shiver of the Vampires (1971)
403 - ???
404 - ???
405 - ???
406 - ???
407 - Lips of Blood (1975)
408 - ???
409 - ???
410 - Fascination (1979)
411 - The Night of the Hunted (1980)
412 - ???
413 - ???
414 - ???
415 - ???
416 - ???
417 - Two Orphan Vampires (1997)
418 - ???
419 - ???

(I'm assuming the range is 400-419 based on the current plan to release twenty titles, but that may be subject to change.)

[tenia]

Is it safe to assume the spines have been assigned by the chronology of the movies ?

[yoloswegmaster]

It should be, which means that spine #401 would be for The Nude Vampire.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I love that art for Lips For Blood! I'd never seen it before so that was a very pleasant surprise. One of my favorites so this will be an easy upgrade over the Kino dvd. Glad to see Newman and Thrower on a joint commentary.

[black&huge]

I HATED that Lips of Blood cover since this morning when I opened the email newsletter but after just a few hours it has grown on me

[M Sanderson]

Wonderful announcements. Lips of Blood is one of the purest Rollin works with morbid romantic images, surreal beach scenes and a search for lost love. Fascination is absolute pulp, surreal joy. I had these on, I think, Redemption dvd and can't wait to see the calibre of the upgrade.

I've not actually purchased any of Indicator's Rollin releases and will have to crack on with it, in case any sell out.

Looking forwards, I'd be very keen to reacquaint with my absolute favourite, Grapes of Death; and reckon it could be time to give Living Dead Girl, which I had found rough and uneven, another shot. But the ones I'm most excited for are Rollin's final two films, Night of the Clocks which I was intrigued by when I read Tim Lucas' review in Sight & Sound, of all places; and Mask of Medusa.

[Dave78]

Wil the UK versions of ALL the Indicator Rollin titles be uncut?

[MichaelB]

Everything announced thus far. The other titles haven't been submitted yet.

Although of course "uncut" can be quite a fiddly concept as far as Jean Rollin is concerned! What we're trying to do is present what Rollin himself signed off on as regards the main feature, with any supplementary material (usually, and very obviously, shot by others) relegated to the extras.

[Orlac]

I hope Indicator can do some Jess Franco releases too!

[Robin Davies]

I hope Indicator can do some Jess Franco releases too!

And preferably some rarities. The likes of Severin, Redemption, Mondo Macabro and Vinegar Syndrome have already done sterling service on many Franco titles.

[MichaelB]

Which, I assume, is why Indicator has no current plans and possibly no future plans either.

[Adam X]

Wil the UK versions of ALL the Indicator Rollin titles be uncut?

I can't really think of anything that'd have any issue being passed in the UK for the films Indicator are likely to release in this series, unless you're referring to the hardcore inserts Michael's alluding to.

[jlnight]

Schoolgirl Hitchhikers had compulsory cuts in 2010. Of course, we don't know at this point if that will be one of the titles Indicator will tackle. A TV broadcast of the film ran to about 73 minutes.

[Dave78]

I’m pretty sure some of the previous Rollin Screenbound / BH titles released on BD in the UK were problematic and required cuts whereas all the Kino / Redemption titles were released fully uncut in the US which is why I ask. If cuts are mandatory it would be nice to workaround this by having the Region A and Region B versions accessible on all discs as Arrow did with some of their Spaghetti Westerns that required cuts.

[Adam X]

You’re right. I forgot to take into account the BFI’s attitude toward the presentation of (fairly tame) BDSM content. At least one of those films, Rape of the Vampire, has now passed uncut, as confirmed above and elsewhere.
From memory, of the remaining films, I could only see Requiem being an issue, but that seems unlikely.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Screenbound didn’t even try to get the relevant films passed uncut, in order to save some money.

[MichaelB]

I’m pretty sure some of the previous Rollin Screenbound / BH titles released on BD in the UK were problematic and required cuts whereas all the Kino / Redemption titles were released fully uncut in the US which is why I ask. If cuts are mandatory it would be nice to workaround this by having the Region A and Region B versions accessible on all discs as Arrow did with some of their Spaghetti Westerns that required cuts.

That won't be feasible with region-free UHD releases, but thus far this issue hasn't arisen. And hopefully it won't.

[Robin Davies]

Requiem was hacked by about 7 minutes for the 2011 Redemption DVD in the UK, but the Melon Farmers website lists a 2018 Black House Films release with a running time that suggests it might be complete.
By the way, does anyone know how to find out what cuts the BBFC have made to any particular film from their website? This used to be possible but I can't seem to get any useful info from their current website.

[MichaelB]

Someone specifically asked on another forum whether Indicator's The Rape of the Vampire was uncut, to which the answer is "yes, absolutely".

The BBFC website hasn't been updated yet to reflect the 2023 submission, but it seems that they've only once previously vetted the film, way back in 1994, from which all subsequent UK releases until this one were presumably derived. So attitudes have clearly changed, either in terms of tolerance of sexualised violence (although in all honesty there's nothing there that the normal 18 certificate can't handle these days) or recognition of Jean Rollin's auteur status - or, of course, a bit of both.

Anyway, the Melon Farmers website gives the running time of the censored version as 89:55, almost certainly at the PAL video framerate of 25fps. If adjusted to theatrical speed, that increases to 93:39, but the Indicator restoration runs 95:07, so nearly a full minute and a half longer. (That's the running time of the actual film from first shot to last, so things like differing distributor idents/restoration credits aren't an issue here.)

Also, the UHD version looks incredible. Both it and The Night of the Hunted are a distinct cut above The Shiver of the Vampires and Two Orphan Vampires in this respect, because unlike Shiver (35mm interneg) and Orphan Vampires (shot on 16mm), these two titles were both shot on 35mm and the restoration team had direct access to the camera negs - and no matter how minuscule the budget was in both cases, a well-exposed 35mm negative holds one hell of a lot of fine detail that most people won't have been able to make out before. (The HDR grading is particularly striking at the start of The Night of the Hunted, where the vehicle headlamps emerging from the darkness are so bright as to be properly alarming - and Brigitte Lahaie's character is duly alarmed.)

[colinr0380]

The BBFC website hasn't been updated yet to reflect the 2023 submission, but it seems that they've only once previously vetted the film, way back in 1994, from which all subsequent UK releases until this one were presumably derived. So attitudes have clearly changed, either in terms of tolerance of sexualised violence (although in all honesty there's nothing there that the normal 18 certificate can't handle these days) or recognition of Jean Rollin's auteur status - or, of course, a bit of both.

Wasn't there also that suggestion at the time that the BBFC and Redemption head Nigel Wingrove got into quite heated conflict (over things like the submission of Jess Franco's Bare Behind Bars being rejected; and eventually Wingrove's 'naughty nun' obsession resulting in the film Visions of Ecstasy, which caused the first censorship furore and initial rejection for reasons of 'blasphemy' in the UK), and that led to the BBFC cutting or outright rejecting certain releases when they would otherwise have shown a bit more lenience? Shivers magazine ran through all of Redemption's VHS releases around the time that the dispute was at its highest with the Bare Behind Bars rejection, noting all of the various censorship edits being made to the company's releases. The film with the most amount of edits after Requiem For A Vampire, and the most relevant to this thread, was Rollin's Living Dead Girl having around four and half minutes removed from it, although from looking up submissions on the BBFC website (what there are of them since the BBFC's 'revamp') it seems that when a different company put it through the BBFC a few years back for a previous DVD release The Living Dead Girl and other Rollin films had their cuts restored. So it may not be much of an issue anymore, both with the backgrounding of Wingrove/Redemption, the many different changes in BBFC management since the late 1990s, and the changing times in general when there is much more contemporary material (like Raw or Bones and All in the 'erotic cannibal' genre that films like Living Dead Girl or Norman J. Warren's Prey arguably pioneered) that have made the issue rather a moot one.

[MichaelB]

So far, everything submitted has been waved through, including some fairly eyebrow-raising material that I'll let purchasers discover and report back for themselves.

But this is three decades on from the original UK Rollin releases, and a lot has changed since then.

[colinr0380]

There's an amusing moment in the commentary for the Alamo Drafthouse volume of the 42nd Street Forever collection where the staff members of the Alamo talk about an unfortunate incident involving a screening of a trailer of Requiem For A Vampire under its "Caged Virgins" (very NSFW, though even this trailer is edited from the one on the trailer collection DVD!) title

"Speaking of European movies, this is one of the best. This is a trailer we've shown many times and it always gets such a great audience reaction..."
"This is obviously a much more over the top trailer and probably not for all audiences... We found out that there was a new drive-in opening in China, Texas, which is about 80 miles away from here. And there is a brewery in China so we were like "Let's go do a road trip, go drink some beer and watch some movies at a drive-in!", and so we drove all the way down there and I actually packed a reel of trailers of things, like "I'm just going to take these just in case because I've never actually seen my trailers at a drive-in". So we get there and it is actually just a fenced-off pasture in a farm, and there is a billboard maybe 10 feet tall by 25 feet wide as a screen, and then a trailer that had a projector in it. I gotta say it was really disappointing to go down there.

They were showing a horror movie but it was something like The Others, something barely rated "R", at 9 o'clock. So I talked to the projectionist and said "Hey man! I've brought some drive-in trailers! Can you play them before the movie?", and he said "That's awesome! That's gonna be great!". But it was all families and even though it was sort of an R movie they got to Caged Virgins and the boobs and the blood started flowing, and then the projector turned off. I almost just left and abandoned the trailer reel, but I decided to man up and go and get my stuff back!"

"How awkward was that?"
"It was pretty awkward. That was the last time I went to that drive-in"
"... because even for R-rated this trailer is pretty rough!"
"I didn't know.. sometimes I don't have the best radar for these sort of things! There are some shots coming up that are gonna..."
"Every time I watch this trailer now, I'll think of that family audience watching this. You didn't get this far though, did you?"
[shot of breasts being squeezed in close up and the bat in the crotch]
"No, no! Thank God! Can you imagine!"

Though even that story gets trumped later on by one of an inappropriate combination of a trailer for Poor Pretty Eddie (NSFW) with an early evening screening of Sweet Home Alabama, which apparently traumatised a few mothers and their teenage daughters!

[black&huge]

did Rape of the Vampire and The Night of The Hunted get pushed back? no one's seemed to review them yet

[MichaelB]

These reviews of The Night of the Hunted and The Rape of the Vampire aren't especially edifying (they only tackle the main features, not the technical specs or the gazillion extras), but they do at least demonstrate that review copies are out there.

But given the sheer quantity of material on both discs, it's not surprising that more conscientious reviewers seem to be taking longer.