FANGORIA reports the passing of beloved French erotic-horror filmmaker Jean Rollin.
The director died last night, after a long illness. He was 72.
Fans of European genre films, especially those coming out of the free-thinking 1970s, are no doubt aware of the work of Rollin—a talented, gentle poet of sensual horror, a man who made personal, lush and haunting works that were often ghettoized alongside the efforts of some of his more crass contemporaries and yet almost always offered something more, something richer and more melancholy.
With films like THE NUDE VAMPIRE, REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE, LIPS OF BLOOD, FASCINATION, THE LIVING DEAD GIRL and THE GRAPES OF DEATH, Rollin left behind a body of work as infatuated with spurting blood as it was enamored of the curves of the female form, often depicting both within the same frame. Like his colleague Jess Franco (with whom he unofficially “collaborated on VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD and ZOMBIE LAKE), Rollin employed a variety of pseudonyms, depending on the quality of his work and the genres they fell under. Some of those nom de plume pictures included several works of hardcore pornography, a strain of cinema the director was never fully comfortable making.
Loved by legions, misunderstood by many and sadly ignored by the rest, Rollin's work is widely available on DVD and is ready to be rediscovered. Within the confines of his catalogue you will find beauty, surrealism, sex, sadness and very real human truths hiding within a fantastical world. There really was no one quite like him.
Deepest sympathies and respect to his friends and family.
To learn more about Jean Rollin’s legacy, visit the official site -
http://www.shockingimages.com/rollin