6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
The film is the story of two teenage girls, Louise and Henriette, who have grown up orphaned and are believed to be blind. While it is true that they cannot see during the day, Louise and Henriette are given the power of vision at night, when they hunt their prey.
Starring: Alexandra Pic, Isabelle Teboul, Natalie Perrey, Gudule, Bernard CharnacéHorror | 100% |
Foreign | 77% |
Erotic | 33% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.69:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
French: LPCM 2.0
English: LPCM 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Between 1968 and 1979, French cult filmmaker Jean Rollin made six films about vampires or blood fetishists—The Rape of the Vampire,
The Nude Vampire, The Shiver of the Vampires, Requiem for a Vampire, and Fascination—establishing several
directorial calling cards along the way. Settling in to watch any given Rollin movie, you can justifiably expect to see mouldering graveyards, abandoned
chateaus, gratuitous nudity, and—most frequently—a pair of young, codependent female characters, either sisters or lovers. It'd be a stretch to claim
Rollin spent most of his career essentially remaking the same film with slight variations, but not much of one.
By the early 1980s, his dreamy, gothic brand of le fantastique had fallen out of fashion—the rise of the slasher film had killed audiences'
attention spans—and Rollin turned to directing porno under a pseudonym to make ends meet, occasionally scraping together the money to make
another feature. When the funds began drying up entirely, he transitioned to writing fiction, publishing a series of novellas known collectively as
Les Deux Orphelines Vampires, a supernatural riff on Les Deux Orphelines, an 1875 novel about two orphan girls adrift in Paris during
the French Revolution. Cult appreciation moves in cycles, and by the 1990s, interest in Rollin's early films peaked, allowing him to secure a budget for a
new movie that—as he was recently diagnosed with kidney failure—he assumed would be his last. Released in 1997, Two Orphan Vampires
does have an air of finality, as if Rollin—who subsequently got a transplant and lived until 2010—was revisiting and bidding adieu to all his favorite
themes. Unfortunately, this also means it feels like more of the same, a rote regurgitation of images and ideas he'd used to better effect twenty years
before.
Unlike most of Jean Rollin's films, the low-budgeted Two Orphan Vampires was shot on 16mm—instead of 35mm—so it inherently has a softer, chunkier look. What might come as more of a surprise is that this film, though made in 1997, has more print damage—in the form of near constant white specks, occasional scratches, and hairs stuck in the gate—than most of the Rollin movies from the '60s and '70s that Kino has released. That said, if you've ever seen the fairly atrocious Two Orphan Vampires DVD, which was released by Media Blasters in 2002, Kino's new 1080p/AVC- encoded transfer—sourced from the original 16mm negative—is a revelation. The film is unavoidably soft, but the high definition remaster brings out more detail, especially in closeups, and more naturally filmic texture. As usual with Kino releases, there's been no DNR or edge enhancement, but no digital restorative clean-up either. Essentially, the film is presented "as is." Color-wise, the film frequently employs a heavy, hazy day-for-night blue filtering that's very unnatural looking, but it's explained away in the script when one of the twins refers to "seeing blue." During the daytime scenes, however, color seems balanced and adequately dense, with a tonal contrast curve that has deep-enough blacks and highlights that are never overblown. Overall, the Blu-ray re-release makes for an impressive upgrade from the DVD, but this is far from Rollin's best-looking film.
Kino has given us two audio options here, the original French and an unsurprisingly goofy English dub, both presented in uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo. Aside from the language differences—and you'll want to stick with the French if at all possible, as the English dub is overlaid a bit too obviously on the mix—the two tracks seem fairly similar in tone, clarity, and dynamics. This isn't exactly a rock 'em, sock 'em audio presentation, but it gets the job done, with clear, comprehensible dialogue, a modicum of stereo separation, and a nice reproduction of Philippe D'Aram's score, which features lots of breathy synthesizer tones. The disc includes optional English subtitles, which appear in easy-to-read white lettering.
Jean Rollin's return to the bloodsucker genre and one of his final films, Two Orphan Vampires unfortunately isn't quite as compelling as some of his earlier movies. All of the Rollin-esque elements are here—the codependent female leads, the overgrown graveyards, the kooky characters and theatrical dialogue—but they really only serve to show how little the director evolved/progressed as a filmmaker throughout his career. Two Orphan Vampires has a distinct we've seen this all before vibe, and it's really only a must-watch for the steeliest Rollin fans. Euro-cult enthusiasts should be pleased, however, with Kino's new high definition remaster of the 16mm film, which is a huge improvement over the 2002 DVD.
Les deux orphelines vampires | Indicator Series | Limited Edition
1997
Les deux orphelines vampires | Indicator Series | Limited Edition
1997
Limited Edition | Indicator Series
1979
Les démoniaques | Limited Edition | Indicator Series
1974
La vampire nue | Limited Edition | Indicator Series
1970
Le frisson des vampires / Strange Things Happen at Night | Indicator Series | Limited Edition
1971
La nuit des traquées | Indicator Series | Limited Edition
1980
Le viol du vampire | Indicator Series | Limited Edition
1968
Lèvres de sang | Limited Edition | Indicator Series
1975
La fiancée de Dracula
2002
Special 2-Disc Limited Edition
1971
Caged Virgins | Vierges et vampires | Limited Edition
1971-1973
La fille de Dracula
1972
La rose de fer
1973
Limited Edition | La noche de Walpurgis / Werewolf Shadow / Werewolf and the Vampire Woman / Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman | Slipcover in Original Pressing
1971
La perversa caricia de Satán
1976
The Mask of Satan / La maschera del demonio | The Mario Bava Collection
1960
呪いの館 血を吸う眼 / Noroi no yakata: Chi o suu me
1971
AIP Cut | 60th Anniversary
1963
幽霊屋敷の恐怖 血を吸う人形 / Chi o suu ningyô
1970
El retorno del hombre lobo
1981
La novia ensangrentada
1972