The Nude Vampire Blu-ray - Caroline Cartier

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Nude Vampire" or "Naked Vampire")

directed by Jean Rollin
France 1970

One night on a deserted street, Pierre (Olivier Martin of Rollin's LA VIOL DU VAMPIRE) runs into a scantily clad mute young woman (Caroline Cartier) who is being pursued by men in tuxedos and bizarre animal masks who kidnap her and take her back to a townhouse that belongs to Pierre's father, industrialist Georges Radamante (Maurice Lemaître) who warns Pierre to mind his own business. Pierre sneaks into the townhouse for one of his father's parties and witnesses a woman playing Russian Roulette shoot herself and the mute young woman drinks her blood. Pierre delves deeper into the mystery and has to fight off his own father's thugs while Georges and his associates squirrel the young woman off to an isolated country house. Pierre then meets the Grandmaster (Michel Delahaye) of a large group of bizarre looking and acting hippies - of whom the young woman is one of their number - who lay siege to the country house with his help to rescue the girl who it turns out has an unusual connection to Pierre.

Rollin's exploitation films could be seen as the link between the "traditional" French New Wave and the works of the more experimental Alain Robbe-Grillet (whose LA BELLE CAPTIVE quotes images from the later half of this film) with its surrealist-on-the-cheap touches and decadent Russian Roulette-playing upper class versus communal vampire hippies plot. Not as explicitly erotic as Rollin's later films - like LA VIOL DU VAMPIRE, LA VAMPIRE NUE still uses nudity as a teasing element - this is still quintessential Jean Rollin in its triumph of imagination over budgetary limitations.

Eric Cotenas

Poster

Theatrical Release: May 1970

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Comparison:

Redemption USA - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Redemption UK - Region 0 - PAL vs. Redemption - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for all the DVD Screen Caps!

Box Covers			Coming to 4K UHD by Indicator in April 2024:
Distribution	Redemption USA Region 0 - NTSC	Redemption UK Region 0 - PAL	Redemption USA Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:21:12 (4% PAL speedup)	1:21:27 (4% PAL speedup)	1:25:05.478
Video	1.58:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.1 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1.58:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 3.92 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 34,470,134,604 bytes Feature: 24,594,946,944 bytes Video Bitrate: 33.31 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: Redemption USA
Bitrate: Redemption UK
Bitrate: Redemption Blu-ray
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono)	French (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono); English (MP2 2.0 mono)	LPCM Audio English 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit LPCM Audio French 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles	none	English, none	English, none
Features	Release Information: Studio: Redemption USA Aspect Ratio: Widescreen letterboxed - 1.58:1 Edition Details: • English Theatrical Trailer (1.60:1/4:3; 3:32) • French Theatrical Trailer (1.60:1/4:3; 3:32) • Still Gallery • Amour Jaunes short film (1.78:1/16:9; 10:08) • Amour Jaunes still gallery • Blood & Dishonour book teaser • Iron Rose trailer (1.60:1/4:3; 3:33) • Hurt trailer (2.35:1/4:3; 2:32) • Black Mass trailer (1.78:1/16:9; 0:38) DVD Release Date: 13 November 2007 Amaray Chapters 9	Release Information: Studio: Redemption UK Aspect Ratio: Widescreen letterboxed - 1.58:1 Edition Details: • English Theatrical Trailer (1.60:1/4:3; MP2 audio; 3:34) • French Theatrical Trailer (1.60:1/4x3; MP2 audio; 3:33) • Stills Gallery • Publicity Gallery • Video Art • Filmography • Director's Interview (4:3; MP2 audio; 39:40) • US Devil's Nightmare TV spot (4:3; MP2 audio; 00:26) • English Nude For Satan Trailer (2.35:1/4:3; MP2 audio; 3:52) • Triple Silence Music Video (1.85:1/4:3; MP2 audio; 4:25) DVD Release Date: 31 January 2005 Amaray Chapters 12	Release Information: Studio: Redemption USA Aspect Ratio: 1.65:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 34,470,134,604 bytes Feature: 24,594,946,944 bytes Video Bitrate: 33.31 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • Introduction by Jean Rollin (2:04 in 1080P) • Jean Rollin Interview (19:06 in 1080P) • Natalie Perrey Interview (3:54 in 1080P) • French Theatrical Trailers for 5 Rollin films in 1080P • English Trailer (3:42 in 1080P) • 20-page booklet 'The Cinema of Jean Rollin's Blu-ray Release Date: January 24th, 2012 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters 10

Comments

NOTE: These Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Redemption - Region FREE - Blu-ray (January 12'): The Blu-ray version of The Nude Vampire from redemption differs quite a bit from their SD-DVD versions. I can't speak to how it looked originally but suspect this 1080P rendering is the most authentic. Skin tones warm, detail rises and there is a slight cast (intentional?) over the visuals. Contrast improves. There is a fair amount more information in the frame and as the NTSC DVDs were PAL-sourced these are the first theatrically-timed digital editions as well as being closer to the intended aspect ratio.

There are linear PCM tracks in the option of French or English and optional English subtitles. The audio is imperfect, but reflects the original production roots and there are no significant dropouts or pops. The disc is region FREE playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

We get many new extra on the Blu-ray - all in 1080P - starting with a 2-minute introduction by Jean Rollin, followed by an interview with the director last almost 20-minutes. There is also a short interview with Natalie Perrey as well as French Theatrical Trailers for 5 Rollin films and a 3.5-minute English Trailer for The Nude Vampire. Redemption include a 20-page booklet 'The Cinema of Jean Rollin' with essay (Tim Lucas) and other information.

This is not my cup-of-tea but I can see the appeal as this is creepy cinema - an unusual artsy type of horror. The director's fans - or fans of the genre - should definitely investigate as this is a significantly improved package from the older DVDs.

Gary W. Tooze

***

ON THE DVDs: Redemptions new NTSC DVD is a standards conversion of the UK transfer (itself behind the times as a non-anamorphic transfer in 2005) on their label with only the English dub track (their UK release had the French audio with English subtitles and the English track - see below). The short film "Les Amours Jaunes" (also featured on the Encore disc of LEVRES DE SANG) has been cropped to 1.78:1 and is anamorphic unlike the feature. Other than trailers for the feature and Rollin's THE IRON ROSE (comparison link), the remainder of the extras are for Redemption's tatty "erotic" Goth stuff.

The superior choice is the Redemption UK disc. While the cover and menus do not specify it, in addition to the French Dolby Digital Mono track and English subtitles, the English dub (in MP2 audio format) can be accessed with your remote (the English dub is serviceable but significant because only three of Rollin's films - not counting his last two - were dubbed into English. The extras are also more relevant to the film although the near 40-minute interview with Jean Rollin has horrible audio. The US DVD has a higher bitrate for the feature but it was likely converted from the already compressed PAL DVD MPEG-2 stream rather than going back to the master tape (as a result, the UK disc has a slightly sharper image).

Both Redemption's versions of the film feature truncated English credits rather than the longer French title sequence seen on Something Weird Video's out-of-print NTSC VHS release of the English dub (the film had been acquired - but not distributed - by Harry Novak's Box Office International) which also more effectively placed the first sequence before the credits which appears here after the credits to lesser effect. Most of the R2 extras have MP2 audio. The thumbnails for the trailers for THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE (actually a US TV spot) and NUDE FOR SATAN are reversed.

- Eric Cotenas

Menus

(Redemption USA - Region 0 - NTSC - LEFT vs. Redemption UK - Region 0 - PAL - RIGHT)