Lèvres de Sang (AKA Lips of Blood)
1975, France, Directed by Jean Rollin
Colour, Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD, Region 2, Redemption, Video: Letterbox 1.66:1, Audio: Mono
Obsessed with vague memories of a childhood nocturnal encounter with a strange woman, Philippe comes across some photographs at a get-together that remind of the castle where the encounter supposedly took place. After forcing a photographer friend to tell him where it is, he arranges to meet the mysterious woman but along the way comes across four female vampires. Philippe is on a strange journey to uncover secrets of his past.
In all honesty the plots of Rollin films are superfluous to the overall product - his films consist of recurring concepts contained within evocative visuals. His choice of location during the 60s through to early 80s was one of his strengths and facilitated the creation of incredible looking movies on miniscule budgets. He tended to utilise vampires, eroticism and gothic imagery to a great extent and with some often beautiful cinematography he was able to create dreamlike experiences for the viewers that connected with the material. Many people who watch his work will find it unprofessional but I’m one of the lucky few who can escape into the strange universes of Jean Rollin. Lèvres de Sang provides that opportunity nicely, although is not quite up there with my favourites (Requiem Pour un Vampire, and Frisson des Vampires for example). If you already like the work of Rollin then you will almost certainly like this; if you’re unfamiliar then this is a good place to start. Prepare yourself to be carried away to a unique world.
A nicely presented non-anamorphic 1.66:1 image from Redemption, the colours are strong and there is plenty of visual information to feast your eyes on. The French soundtrack is good and subtitles are perfectly legible. There are some cursory extras included but the primary draw here is a near-definitive Lips of Blood; not quite definitive - Encore (available from the continent) released an anamorphically enhanced (albeit incorrectly framed at 1.78:1) SE a year or so back, coming with a mountain of extras. If you’re not bothered about the extras, or you are concerned about the price, the Redemption disc is the way to go. Although the image quality itself is not quite as good as the Encore, at least it’s framed properly (a big plus). An enjoyable, fairly surreal erotic vampire film, something of a Rollin speciality…