Thursday 25 June 2009

Movie Reviews

Two Orphan Vampires
Jean Rollin
Salvaltion Films

Two Orphan Vampires (Les Deux Orphelines Vampires) isn't one of those horror films masquerading as an arthouse film. It's one of those arthouse films masquerading as a horror film.

Henriette and Louise are blind orphans. They live at an orphanage where they are among the Mother Superior's favourites. During the day, they are blind; but when the sun goes down, they see perfectly, albeit in blue (because the cameraman had bought a blue filter, and he was going to use it, dammit!).

During the night, while everyone sleeps, they slip out of the orphanage and go to the cemetery on a very boring quest for blood. Sometimes sitting amongst the graves and talking about their travels, including the interesting creatures they have met (like the hilariously overacting werewolf and the embarrssing Vampire Queen), their previous lives, and where they might have come from. They like to think of themselves as blood-drinking goddesses for whom the Aztecs performed human sacrifices. What they actually are are appalling actressess in an appalling movie.

Firstly, the acting is universally awful. The low cost thespians mill around like a badly directed stage play, delivering over long monologues, and hugging a lot. Moments of true hilarity include watching Henriette and Louise sit back and let the fangs do the acting during the feeding scenes.



Even the DVD presentation itself feels rushed. The picture is of sub-VHS quality, with blips, and even trapped hairs in the gate cropping up now and again. There's only an option of the original French soundtrack with English subtitles. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but the subtitles are atrocious. They're poorly spelled, and poorly punctuated. I almost spat my drink out with laughter when Louise beseeched Henriette to "squeeze with all [her] mite". "Profit" instead of "prophet", "site" instead of "sight", you get the idea. Sure, you know what they mean, but I don't really think that's an excuse. Proof-readers are hardly expensive.

Between from the ironically vamping werewolf and the ironically hairy vampire, this may well be a contender for the least terrifying vampire movie of all time. Is it an okay arthouse movie? Yes, probably. It provides an interesting take on the vampire legend, at least - and originality is always to be rewarded. The soundtrack is absolutely fantasic, eerie and melancholy. Unfortunately, this far from compensates from the overall shoddy production.

The Emotionally Fourteen Rating:
Violence:
Some vampire feeding scenes, a couple of shootings. All executed like a bad collection of drunken stumbles from You've Been Framed.

Sex/Nudity: One topless scene. That's right. In a movie starring vampire school-girls, there's one topless scene.

Swearing: One or two instances. Badly spelled, probably.

Summary: I'm afraid there's very little to recommend this movie. Whether you like French arthouse cinema or exploitation horror, this isn't good example of either genre. - 2/10


1 comment:

  1. coming soon.. Alien vs Hunter? my dvd copy arrived today if you fancy a watch?

    But in terms of this movie, it sound shonky enough to be enjoyable. Of course if you want to take this film seriously, based on your review, i may be disappointed. As you know im a fan of over acting, shit ive been watching Bill Shatner for most of my life..

    I've got to say with such a low boob count, the cover seems to be a little misleading and probably captures the 1 frame of the film where said orphan boob can be seen..

    but the one thing that first stuck my mind was "they dont look very blind"...

    i suppose all i can summarise from this is "OOOOHH THE POTENTIAL...."

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