Samm Deighan at The Current:
French writer and director Jean Rollin is mostly remembered for a series of dreamlike vampire films he made beginning in the late 1960s: The Rape of the Vampire (1968), The Nude Vampire (1970), The Shiver of the Vampires (1971), Requiem for a Vampire (1971), and Lips of Blood (1975). But thinking of him simply as a director of supernatural horror is far too limited. His approach to genre tropes was highly unconventional, more influenced by surrealism, fairy tales, and fantastique literature than mainstream horror. This is most apparent in his characters: vampires are portrayed as tragic and romantic figures, rather than as bloodthirsty monsters, and his protagonists are often complex young women who embark on strange adventures through otherworldly landscapes.
Rollin was raised in an artistic family outside of Paris; his father was an actor and theater director, and his mother was an artists’ model in the same social circles as renowned surrealist artists and intellectuals. This influence, combined with Rollin’s childhood love of cinema, serials, and comic books, inspired him to pursue work in a film studio as a teenager. He began as a crew member on documentary productions and worked his way up to becoming a film editor for the French army during his military service.
more here.
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