The Elegant Carnage of Jean Rollin
Jean Rollin’s Fascination isn’t just a horror film—it’s a slow, sensual waltz toward your doom, wrapped in satin and drenched in arterial spray. Set in 1905, the movie opens with Parisian women sipping ox blood in an abattoir like they’re sampling fine wine, and somehow, that’s the least unsettling thing that happens. Rollin’s gift is making depravity look chic; you half expect Vogue to run a spread titled “Spring Trends: Transparent Robes and Bloodletting.”
A Thief, Two Women, and Zero Chances of Survival
Jean-Marie Lemaire’s Marc is a petty thief with a bag of stolen gold and the survival instincts of a moth flying into a candle. On the run from his own gang, he holes up in a remote château inhabited by two chambermaids—Franca Maï’s simmering Elisabeth and Brigitte Lahaie’s statuesque Eva. They claim he’s safe, but in Rollin’s world, that’s like being told you’re “perfectly fine” while standing in quicksand. Marc, to no one’s surprise, sticks around. Of course he does—Eva offers herself to him, and subtlety was never his strong suit.
Brigitte Lahaie and the Scythe Heard ’Round the World
Lahaie’s Eva deserves her own chapter in horror history. When Marc’s former gang tracks him down, Eva flips the script—luring them into false security before unleashing a massacre with a scythe. Yes, a farm tool, and she swings it with the grace of a runway model and the efficiency of the Grim Reaper on commission. Watching her glide back into the château, gown unruffled, after decimating an armed gang, is the kind of horror moment that makes you toast your drink at the screen.
The Midnight Feast
Just when Marc might be thinking he’s dodged his fate, the Marchioness and her entourage arrive for a midnight gathering. Everyone slips into translucent robes for a “secret ceremony” that practically screams “murder buffet.” Elisabeth sends Marc off to “escape,” which in Fascination is code for “wander somewhere convenient for execution.” He learns the truth—the women have graduated from ox blood to human vintages—and the secret society drinks their prey like vintage Bordeaux.
Betrayal with a Kiss (and a Bullet)
The final turn comes when Elisabeth shoots Marc herself, not out of mercy or loyalty, but simply because his blood is on the menu. She returns to the Marchioness with the lie that Marc killed Eva, and is met with a compliment: she looks beautiful with his blood on her lips. It’s a moment that perfectly sums up Fascination: cruel, stylish, and disturbingly intimate.
Why It Works
Rollin’s direction treats every frame like a gothic painting—lingering on silks, chandeliers, and faces that promise either a kiss or a knife. The violence is swift but operatic, the eroticism is languid but purposeful, and the whole thing feels like a fever dream you don’t want to wake from. The blend of pastoral beauty and sudden, shocking brutality is Rollin’s signature, and Fascination is one of his purest distillations of it.
The Final Sip
Fascination is horror as high fashion—beautiful, lethal, and utterly unconcerned with your comfort. It’s a film where women run the show, blood is both currency and communion, and death is served with elegance. You don’t watch Fascination for jump scares; you watch it to be seduced, betrayed, and decimated—all while admiring the tailoring.
