One of my all time favorites.

Absolutely Brilliant!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Shiver of the Vampires, The (1971)** 1/2 (out of 4) Jean Rollin's third vampire film follows a honeymooning couple, Isa (Sandra Julien) and Antoine (Jean-Marie Durand), as they travel to the castle of her cousins. Once they arrive they only find a couple female servants and they are told that the cousins died the night before. It doesn't take long for strange things to start happening including the so-called dead cousins coming back. Following THE RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE and THE NUDE VAMPIRE, I think most people would agree that this is the film where director Rollin started to show what good things he was working up to. This film here is certainly far from a good movie but there are several interesting aspects that make it worth viewing and there many elements that you can see the director working with and he would eventually perfect these in upcoming films. The most impressive thing here is the style in the film. One certainly isn't going to mistake the style of Rollin with someone like Mario Bava or Dario Argento but what's so unique is that this French director was able to do something rather original and all his own. What's so impressive about Rollin's style is that it almost seems so lifeless but when you consider that he's dealing with the undead, this perfectly fits the films. Just look at the way he shoots all the stuff with the living. The majority of the interior shots all look as if they were filmed on faded film stock as the walls seem as if they were bleached and the skin tones are also very light. Compare these to the scenes when the dead are ruling things and you'll see Rollin using beautiful, haunting colors and there's some terrific stuff in the cemetery with some vivid reds that really jump out. Of course, this being a Rollin picture, the nudity levels were starting to rise at this point, which I'm sure is going to sit very well with the male viewers. Not only is Julien extremely beautiful but she gives a pretty good performance as well. Marie-Pierre Castel and Kuelan Herce play the seductive maids and, as you'd expect, they're certainly easy on the eyes but they too offer up fine performances. The nudity here on full display from start to finish and the director also manages to make quite a bit of it very erotic. The one major flaw with the picture is that it runs 96-minutes and it almost feels as long as Abel Gance's NAPOLEON. The pacing of the picture is a very big flaw because it moves so slow that there will be times where you think the thing is almost over and then you realize that you've only been watching for a matter of minutes. You'll then feel as if it's almost over, check the time and then realize it's only been a few minutes since you last checked. The pacing issues aside, overall this is a rather impressive mix of horror and eroticism that fans of Rollin will certainly want to check out.

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.

It seems axiomatic that the more cruddy a movie is, the more variant titles it will collect along its merry way, and this pretentious, self-conscious mix of "horror" and "sex" is tedious, dreary and almost embarrassing in its desperate attempt to appear "meaningful". With hammy acting and posturing substituting for emotional expression, what little plot development there is, gets padded by longeurs which, whilst evidently intended to convey some kind of "significance", merely provoke a yawn and a glance at the clock. What this film seemed to be aiming for, and so miserably failed to achieve, was so much more successfully captured in DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS, so, give this one a miss, and fast-forward to that title instead if you want a vampiric theme pregnant with dark sensuality and sexual energy.

Absolutely true to say that it has no story but the combination of pretty nude vampires and photography, coupled with the muddled story give it a certain charm. Watch out for the purple eyed vampiress who emerges from a clock then from a chimney. See her kill her victim with a pair of pointed breasts.Also look out for the two old male vampires who wear crushed velvet loon pants. I especially liked the end where the vampires dies with cheesy special effects and our demented hero is firing his gun into the air as he runs along the beach.