Nigel P This is a film widely regarded as a return to form for French director Jean Rollin and was released in 2002, 34 years after his debut. And it really is – everything is here; scantily clad young actresses enduring freezing looking, exotic locations, a finale set on a beach, a meandering storyline (which, on this occasion, takes in a Van Helsing subsititute, a circus dwarf, comedy nuns and even a cameo from Rollin veteran, my lovely Catherine Castel. Castel's appearance is so brief, you could very easily miss it, like I did a few times. She plays the non-speaking 'Soeur à la corde à sauter', or 'Sister with a skipping rope) and plenty of blood. There's even a nod to his earlier Shiver of the Vampires in that an old grandfather clock is used for transportation and resting for the vampire The dreamlike quality of story-telling is still very much in evidence here, and as such, a coherent storyline is almost an irrelevance. It seems mad killer nuns are grooming a young lady called Isabelle to be Dracula's bride, which seems fair enough. When he finally appears after being whispered about in hushed tones, Dracula is a disappointment – just a pleasant looking gent in a cape who pales into insignificance alongside the sensuous, snake-like ethereality of his former, red-haired, white-faced partner.I thoroughly enjoyed this film, it is a relief to see Rollin's imagination and skill for creating illusory weirdness so prevalent in his later life. The music, so important for setting a scene, is very effective here also.The whole film is delightful, mad and macabre, possibly Rollin's most joyful yet. There is a happy ending too, of sorts – it's very surreal, but gives the proceedings a memorable closure.

Michael_Elliott Fiancée of Dracula (2002) * 1/2 (out of 4) A professor and his assistant are trying to track down Dracula but aren't having any luck so instead they locate his fiancée and have her released from a nun-ran mental hospital. Once the fiancée is out, various circus freaks help her locate Dracula and of course the Van Helsing-wannabe is along for the tracking. After years of ill-health and not tackling any movies, director Jean Rollin tried a comeback with TWO ORPHAN VAMPIRES and this film, which followed five years later. Sadly, neither film returned the director to his glory days of the 1970s but I guess fans can at least be thankful that he did get to crank out a few more movies. This film here, plot wise, is an incoherent mess that never really adds up to much of anything. At 90-minutes the film is way too long because it's hard to get any type of feeling for the actual story since the thing is all over the place. I'm not sure if Rollin just wanted to throw everything on the picture and hope that something would stick but sadly the end result is rather lame and not much works. The biggest problem is that none of the characters are all that interesting and this is especially true of the three most important ones. The professor just comes off as a fool and it's hard to take anything he's doing very seriously. The fiancée is very poorly written and whatever motivations she has just roll off. Then there's the Dracula character who has to be one of the weakest versions from any film. Not only do we get vampires but there's also a semi-zombie and a wolf-woman. This wolf is one of the film's saving graces since she's played by the cult favorite Brigitte Lahaie, an actress who appeared in several of Rollin's earlier films. She's the only real energy in the film as she gets to have fun playing the bad girl and she even gets to make a return in a lesbian sequence. You certainly can't take away from the fact that she looks incredibly good at this stage in her life. As you'd expect, there's some gore and nudity but even this is rather tame and boring. There's just really no reason for one to be involved with anything going on since Rollin can add any energy to what we're watching. Fiancée OF Dracula is only for those Rollin fans who must watch everything he did.

ds1343 Pardon the pun..but this vampire movie sucked....major. One of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune of viewing. It would be perfect for use in a revival of Mystery Science 3000...only be sure to use the totally absurd English language version. Ridiculous and pointless plot with more holes than I could count. Abysmal. How about the part of the film where the "fiancee" goes off on the boat to meet Dracula at a spot non one knows...not even her (huh ?) Yet in the next scene all the other cast members are on the unknown island. Or how about in the first scenes...when the trackers captured the dwarf...they had the Vampire chick right there and apparently helpless and left her alone...why not kill her then and there ???. It wasn't scary..wasn't sexy...it was only boring and tedious. Avoid it like the plague...or create your own MST3K.

anthonycwhittle If your expecting another classic from Jean Rollin, then you will be very disappointed. It seemed that Mr. Rollin was poking fun at the work that made him the artist he is today. Avoid this and rent any Rollin film from the 70's instead.