The Firelight Shocks DVD Review Section

Fascination Distributor: Salvation Region: 0 Ratio: 1:55:1

Set in the 19th century (and made in 1979), Fascination opens at a slaughterhouse and showcases a young woman rubbing cow blood upon her lips. From there, we are introduced to a group of bandits - one of which decides to double cross the others and take off with a bag of loot (and a female bandit as his hostage). After turning down the female bandit's offer of sex, the rogue happens upon a towering castle inhabited by two beautiful young women (Jean-Marie Lemaire and Brigette Lahaie). Unable to escape due to the fact that his understandably pissed off acquaintances are waiting for him outside, the chap strikes it lucky when the perpetually horny Lahaie (after indulging in some lesbo action) decides she needs some man meat... so far so good then. Unfortunately, Fascination is set on the night of a gathering of vampire women. Inevitably, with this being a Rollin film and all, the whole shenanigan ends with tragedy and half the cast dead. So is it any good then? Well, certainly not in a traditional sense. Indeed, I suspect that this might cause most viewers to laugh their heads off. Yet, regardless of the laughable plot and hamfisted 'poetic' dialogue, this remains, occasionally, a visual treat with Rollin proving, as he so often does, that a low budget and limited space does not mean a film has to look bad. The gore effects may be dreadful but viewers might be most interested to know that Paul Verhoeven most definitely saw this film before making Basic Instinct, with that film's most controversial slaughtering (Sharon Stone astride her lover with an ice pick nearby) nabbed from none other than old Mr Rollin!

EXTRAS: A Rollin film has never looked better to be honest. Wingrove and co have done a great job as far as picture quality and sound go. The film is letterboxed at a slim ratio of 1:55:1 and features crisp, clear subtitles that you can turn off if you speak French. The DVD features a stills gallery, behind the scenes stills (sadly, none of which feature Rollin ogling his naked starlets), a handful of posters and video art and some advertising materials. There is also the theatrical trailer which is in surprisingly good nick. It's not a great deal but it's better than nothing. However, that said, Redemption would perhaps be best advised to charge less for their titles as twenty quid is quite a lot for this slim package.