Lips of Blood (1975)

"Lips of Blood" is Rollin on auto pilot. It has all his usual calling cards: vampires wandering around in see-through night gowns, Gothic castles filmed outdoors, "dreamlike" (read: nonsensical and lazy) plotting. It has none of the striking imagery that he could pull off in movies like The Nude Vampire.One misstep is the guy who plays the main character. He looks like a Victorian-era Ken doll, but with less charisma. I don't really know if I can blame the actor for doing such a bad job. Rollin himself may have assumed that to have a "dreamlike" movie, you need actors who act like they're asleep. Unfortunately it doesn't leave the audience much to work with. Someone should have told Rollin that you can have a "dreamlike" atmosphere and at least allow the main character to show some kind of emotion. Hell, he could have cast someone who was actually capable of showing emotion. From what we see, the main guy wasn't.He is also creepy, but not in a scary way. More of a "I don't want to watch this guy anymore" kind of way.You can't even begin to care about whatever's going on in this movie when you have to watch him all the time, but this is Jean Rollin, so it's not like there's much going on anyway. This movie really suffers from its low budget. You get tired of all the outdoor shots, and the apparition of the short haired vampire just becomes a bore.

Having only seen the beautiful poster of "Lèvres de sang" during my teenage years of fanzines, I was curious and a bit eager to finally get the chance to watch it. It has surprised me in two differences that I found regarding previous and later Rollin movies: 1) we get to follow the male protagonist's point of view most of the time, and 2) the first half of the movie is shot in a city or at least a large town, as opposed to the early cult classics of Rollin ("Le frisson des vampires", "Requiem for a vampire" etc.), though towards the ending the plot moves on to the good ol' ruined-castle-inhabited-by- naked-lesbian-vampires and rocky deserted beach kind of settings.As the story develops from the male protagonist's point of view, the movie seems to me more entertaining, it has a faster-moving path than other Rollin movies. In the story, a man becomes obsessed with a picture of a castle in ruins that is somehow connected to vague remembrances of his childhood. He lets go of himself to find some clue that guides him to the place in the picture and in his mind. Some murders take place, and at this point the movie reminds a good deal of an Italian giallo, in the stylish way they happen, but just at this point, as the plot gives the Rollin twist on its closing, which is somehow slower than the rest of the film but again beautiful, in its macabre way.We must remark the elegant soundtrack, with predominant wind instruments and violins.

There's no question that Jean Rollin films are something of an acquired taste. His style is certainly off-putting to many. Even from someone who is fond of most of his output, I can easily understand why someone would not like Rollin's movies at all. Lips of Blood is another textbook example of the man's work with all the usual eccentric and idiosyncratic details you could reasonably expect. Its story involving female vampires is typical of the sort of thing he is most well known for. Except I have to say that I think that this film may very well be the most complete expression that Rollin ever made. I get the feeling that this movie is possibly the closest of all his pictures to the original idea he envisioned.Quite unusually much of the action takes place in the middle of the city. But as is typical for Rollin, this also incorporates scenes in a Gothic cemetery as well as the expected crumbling castle and beach sequence. However, the night time city scenes are very probably the best parts of the entire movie. They include some strange and surreal locations such as the aquarium, the night fountains and the late night cinema (showing Le Frissons des Vampires no less). The extended scene where our hero navigates all these locations is some of the most fully-realized and effective stuff Rollin ever filmed. He photographs and lights things very well too and Lips of Blood doesn't betray its ultra low-budget origins as much as most of his other films.The storyline, however, is as basic as usual. The characterizations are as paper-thin as always. But these considerations are just not what you would watch his films for, and if these things do bother you then his films are most probably not for you. But if you appreciate more dream-like fare or melancholic horror films, then this could well be worth your time. Lips of Blood is arguably Rollin's best film, it's certainly one of his most well made. Recommended to those who like Euro horror from the more surreal end of the spectrum.

Frederick, a man with no memory of his childhood, attends a party at which he sees a poster of some ruins which stirs, what he believes to be, memories his youth. He seems to recall meeting, and falling in love with, a young girl at the ruins 20 years previously. His mother dismisses the idea, angering Frederick who sets off to see if he can track down the ruins in the poster. His searching takes him through the dark, desolate streets of Paris where he accidentally sets free 4 vampire women who seem to protect him on his quest. All the while he is seeing or having visions of the young girl from years ago……. This being a Jean Rollin film, the expected dodgy acting and plethora of gratuitous nudity is firmly in place but does not distract from the weird and wonderful goings-on. The themes of lost childhood, memories and dreams are fused together creating what comes across as a filmed nightmare as Frederick roams the Parisian streets, searching for something he doesn't know how to find. The ending of the film is bizarre, beautiful and touching all at once. I loved it.