Suce-moi vampire / Suck Me Vampire, Uncut (1975)

Description: AKA: Suck Me Vampire
Cast:
Anita Berglund plays a vampire
Béatrice Harnois
Catherine Castel non-sex, plays a vampire
Claudine Beccarie
Eva Quang plays the Asian vampire
Hélène Maguin plays the blonde vampire
Marie-Pierre Castel non-sex, plays a vampire
Martine Grimaud
Nathalie Perrey
Sylvia Bourdon
Review:
Jean-Loup Philippe plays Frédéric. Eva Quang is an Asian vampire. Notice an unlisted wonderful blonde playing a vampire (now listed as Hélène Maguin]).

The story, as told by the main character, Frédéric (Jean-Loup Philippe, who played in Le sexe qui parle), begins with Martine Grimaud, a photographer, shooting a sex scene between an Asian model and a male model who ends up in her mouth. The photographer is invited to a party by a female friend of hers. This is where she meets our narrator and his girlfriend Claudine (Claudine Beccarie), also the photographer's friend. Frédéric's attention is soon caught by the photograph of a castle which reminds him of a past night when he escaped from four female vampires dwelling in this castle. As Martine Grimaud is the author of the shot he tries to get more info about it ... And the scene cuts to Claudine Becarrie and Martine Grimaud involved in lesbian sex next to the previous models again in action until the man leaves his Asian partner to join the lesbian couple.

On the following day, Frédéric has an appointment with the photographer. She is busy shooting a scene involving Béatrice Harnois and the same male model. Fred asks about the castle while Béatrice Harnois is dressing. Martine Grimaud undresses and offers her slender little body to him while telling him that the castle has been empty for years. Yet she clearly remembers about four tombs. Fred and she have sex (though it doesn't seem to be much fun on his side!). Frédéric pays a night visit to the tombs and unwillingly wakes up the four vampires. One of the four, a beautiful blonde, pays a visit to a young man and bites him. Frédéric pays a visit to the photographer as she is busy with her Asian model, another man and a brunette (Nathalie Perrey?). Frédéric is angry with Martine Grimaud and reproaches her for letting him risk his life with the four vampires and tells her he has let them out. Martine knows nothing but agrees on a midnight rendez-vous, which is overheard by an eager ear.

On his departure, Frédéric is caught by two male nurses and taken away in an ambulance. The eager-eared man reports the rendez-vous to Clara (Sylvia Bourdon) and is told that Frédéric has been kidnapped. He will lead a raid against the vampires. Clara is sent to get some help but ends up killed by the vampires. Fred in camisole. Two vampires (the Castel sisters) free him and kill a member of the vampire hunters. Fred is hidden in a village. The vampires who terrorise the people eventually get killed for good and ... Frédéric comes into his partner's mouth (Eva Quang's) - who turns out to be a vampire too - uttering the immortal words, 'Suce-moi vampire!'.

Suce moi vampire mas made by Jean Rollin to pay for the losses that Levres de sang suffered at the box office, using footage from that film as well as hardcore scenes with some of the same actors, shot in some of the same places. Rollin uses the character Frederick to make up the alternative story: Frederic takes out an old picture book from his book shelf, and leafing through it tells the story (by voice over) of how vampirism is combined with sexual perversions.

There are several interesting things to notice for fans of Levres: The two films interact with one another, both auditory and visually, right from the start. While we see Frederick in the library we hear the cracking thunder from Levres, then suddenly, as he tells us that the story concerns a (familiar) female photographer, there is a shift of scene to a sex scene between an (unfamiliar) Asian woman and a middle aged man, accompanied by a rousing piano and drum score and added loud sighs. In the corner, however, we recognize the stereo equipment from the photographer Claudine' s studio in Levres, and, as shown by edited in scenes from Levres showing her taking pictures of the action, indeed it is her studio. But instead of her taking pictures of the (familiar) female nude model in high black boots, as in Levres, she now (by the magic of editing) seems to be shooting the new couple. She gets a call, and we understand that it is from Frederic who wants to talk with her about the mysterious castle ruins in her poster. She asks him to drop by. The scene eventually shifts to the cocktail party that opened Levres, and where Frederic first noticed how he seemed to remember the ruins on her poster from his childhood.

These scenes now act as a flash back in Suce moi. Added to these we are shown Frederic (as he is now, not the boy as in the first scenes in Levres) walking among the ruins, meeting the semi nude vampire quartet of females, thus anticipating the end of Levres. This is the sort of interacting that makes Suce moi interesting, and not only to fans of Rollin: The way of creating a cinema of forking paths should be familiar to any art house audience that knows well the intertextual tricks of Godard, Robbe-Grillet and Duras. The difference is, of course, that Rollin did not in any way make Suce moi for the sake of cinematic experimenting.

In addition to some rather pointless sex scenes with little relation to Levres, there are three more scenes which further this sort of interacting between the two films.

First we see the (familiar) scene where Claudine, awaiting Frederic, is shooting her model, then suddenly, in comes the new nude man and immediately starts to act on the model. And, as they get it on, we hear Claudine hilariously direct the scene while she is clicking away with her camera: "Great! Continue! More of that!", making (I guess...) the whole scene sound much like what actually goes on when shooting sex. The soundtrack now also shifts from the earlier rousing piano to the more modern atonal piano from Levres. The man even looks away in the photographer 's direction several times, as he might wonder: "Is this how you want it?" The whole scene thus works as a comment on the earlier, more standard porn scene mentioned above, as well as showing us quite another version of what is happening as Frederic rings the door bell. The man is gone and we see the same conversation between Frederic and Claudine as in Levres, the difference now is what happens next; as Claudine gets undressed she swiftly seduces Frederic as the piano shifts to a lush nigh club tune before letting the grunts and sighs dominate the soundtrack.

Secondly we see, as in Levres, Frederic releasing the four female vampires from their cemetery confinement. Now, however, after one of them has finished some rather strange masturbating on the coffin lid, the blonde, straying away from the others, suddenly enters through an apartment window and seduces an unsuspecting man in his bed while the thunder is roaring above. As she bites his neck we clearly sees her vampire fangs. This scene would actually work well in Levres as well.

The third interacting scene happens when we witness an orgy involving Claudine, and then out of the blue comes the fully dressed Frederic crashing into the proceedings and snatching away Claudine, trying to tell her of the four vampires he has set loose. Claudine promptly kicks him out, and then we get the (familiar) street scene where he is taken by force by the asylum crew. The difference from Levres, of course, is that now he is coming from an orgy, whereas in Levres he is coming from his ma. He has been telling the same tale in both scenes but to different dames. And here, just to add another new touch, the crew calls the doctor while he is making love, his lover runs out, and it is her that we (as in Levres) see is promptly bitten to death by the lurking vampires.

In the end we are back to the narrating Frederic in his study again. Only now we see what' s been going on while he has been telling the story, the Asian has been busy with her mouth between his legs, and, dear oh dear, has she got some fangs that should make him worry... Which completes Suce moi in a way that makes some sense, I guess, as well as adding a whole lot of nonsense to Levres. Levres de sang, however, stands out on its own as a classic. Suce moi vampire badly needs Levres to make sense.