The Shiver of the Vampires

Lore & Background

The plot centers on newlyweds Isle and Antoine, who visit the chateau of Isle's recently deceased cousins. There, they encounter two female servants and a vampire named Isolde, who emerges from a grandfather clock and bites Isle. The cousins, revealed to be alive and under Isolde's control, are vampires turned by Isolde. The film includes scenes of human sacrifice and a climax on a beach where Isolde dies by biting her own wrist after being sealed in her coffin by a cross. The love scene on the graves was filmed inside the cemetery at Clichy, with the crew distracting the guard with liquor.

Reader's Guide

Le frisson des vampires is notable as Jean Rollin's third vampire film, contributing to his distinctive style in French horror cinema. The film's narrative is described by the Monthly Film Bulletin as having 'excellent visual qualities' that 'outweigh an inadequate narrative and some irritating music.' Its multiple English titles—including 'Sex and Vampires' and 'Strange Things Happen at Night'—reflect its blend of eroticism and horror. The film has seen various home media releases, from VHS in 1993 to Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2023, indicating enduring cult interest. Its production anecdote about filming a sex scene in a cemetery by deceiving the guard highlights the unconventional methods of its era.

Did You Know?

• The love scene on the graves was filmed inside the cemetery at Clichy, with the crew distracting the guard with liquor.
• The film has been released under multiple English titles, including 'Sex and Vampires' and 'Strange Things Happen at Night'.
• Isolde dies by biting her own wrist after being sealed in her coffin by a cross.
• The film was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on May 8, 2023, by Powerhouse Films.

Plot & Narrative Architecture

The story centers on Isle and Antoine, a newlywed couple on their honeymoon who travel to visit Isle's two cousins. Upon reaching the town, they discover the cousins died the day before, yet the couple still proceeds to the chateau where the cousins lived. Two female renfields greet them and show them to a room. The narrative quickly takes on a surreal, dreamlike quality. Isabelle confides in Isle that she was once destined to marry both cousins, and a woman named Isolde emerges from a grandfather clock to bite Isle in the neck. Antoine stumbles upon what appears to be a human sacrifice in the chapel, where the cousins explain they must kill a woman to stop her becoming a vampire. The following morning, the renfields reveal the cousins are not truly dead, and Antoine is knocked unconscious by books in the library. Isolde's dominance over the cousins grows, and Isabelle is punished for uncovering the truth. The film builds toward a chapel ceremony that dissolves like a dream, Isle's growing sensitivity to sunlight, and a beach confrontation where Isolde is sealed in a burning coffin and dies by biting her own wrist. Isle ultimately stays with her cousins as they await the sunrise.

Production & the Clichy Cemetery

One of the most revealing production details concerns the love scene set on graves, which was filmed inside the cemetery at Clichy. Jean Rollin himself disclosed that the authorities would never have permitted such an explicit sexual scene to be shot within a cemetery. To circumvent this, the crew simply lied to the caretakers about what they intended to do. Because the shoot took place late at night, only a single cemetery guard was on duty. Actress Natalie Perrey was tasked with keeping the guard distracted; she approached him with a couple of liquor bottles and kept him entertained long enough for the crew to complete their work. This anecdote illustrates the kind of creative workaround the production required to capture a scene in a location that would otherwise have been off-limits. The decision to film among actual graves, rather than on a constructed set, lent the sequence an authenticity and gothic atmosphere that a studio backlot could not easily replicate, grounding the film's supernatural elements in a tangible, real-world setting.

Home Media & Release History

The film's journey through home video formats spans over three decades. Its first home release came on VHS in the UK through Redemption Films on 27 September 1993, presented in a full-frame version. The DVD era brought multiple editions: Encore issued a two-disc European set featuring a new 16:9/1.77:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, digitally remastered French and English dubbed audio tracks, a slideshow of rare production photographs, an audio commentary by Rollin himself, deleted scenes, the original theatrical trailer, and a 32-page booklet. Redemption re-released the DVD in the UK on 27 September 2004, while Image Entertainment handled the US DVD release on 14 September 1999. In 2012, Kino Lorber included the film in a five-disc Blu-ray collection alongside La Rose de Fer, Fascination, La Vampire Nue, and Lèvres de Sang. Most recently, Powerhouse Films issued an Ultra HD Blu-ray on 8 May 2023, pairing it with Les deux orphelines vampires as the inaugural titles in their dedicated series of Rollin restorations.

Reception & Cultural Identity

As Jean Rollin's third vampire film, Le frisson des vampires occupies a distinctive place in the director's body of work. Contemporary critical response was mixed; the Monthly Film Bulletin acknowledged the film's excellent visual qualities while noting that these were undermined by an inadequate narrative and some irritating music. This assessment captures a recurring tension in Rollin's cinema, where atmospheric imagery and erotic sensibility often took precedence over conventional storytelling. The film's identity in English-speaking markets has been notably fluid, with the original French title translated into at least six different versions: The Shiver of the Vampires, Sex and Vampires, Strange Things Happen at Night, Terror of the Vampires, Thrill of the Vampire, and Vampire Thrills. This proliferation of titles reflects the film's positioning across different genre markets, from erotic thriller to gothic horror, and underscores how the work has been variously packaged and perceived across international audiences over the decades since its 1971 release.