A young couple (Francoise Pascal, Hugues Quester) sneak away to an old
cemetery for some peace and quiet, and since especially the guy lacks
respect for the dead, soon the two find themselves in a family crypt,
making love. When they get out of the crypt again, it's already dark, and
when they try to find the way out of the cemetery, they find out they
can't, and no matter where they go, they seem to go in circles, , and of
course there isn't a soul around to ask for help, and even the caretaker's
house is empty safe for some skeletons.
Eventually, the whole thing gets to the guy, and he finds himself so
enraged that he beats the girl up and destroys a few gravestones.
Eventually, the graveyard gets to the girl too, but quite differently ...
she falls into a sort of trance and starts to have all morbid ideas.
Finally she lures the guy into the crypt again and locks him in. then she
dances throught he graveyard, dances until sunrise. Only then she decides
to join her boyfriend, descends into the crypt and locks herself in with
him.
Finally a mourner leaves roses on the crypt ...
This diversion from Jean Rollin's favourite female vampire genre
nevertheless stays true to the predilections of the director: La Rose
de Fer is an atmospheric, surreal, erotic, enigmatic and consciously
slow-moving film made somewhere along the thin line that seperates cheap
horror from high art.
It's nor a gorey shocker, nor is it a piece of suspense or an outright
sexfilm, but if you have the time and nerve to sit through a macabre
mood-piece, you will be richly rewarded.
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