Jean Michel Rollin Roth Le Gentil (3 November 1938 – 15 December 2010) was a French film director, actor, and novelist best known for his work in the fantastique genre.

[1] His films are noted for their exquisite, if mostly static, cinematography, off-kilter plot progression, poetic dialogue, playful surrealism and recurrent use of well-constructed female lead characters.

When he was 16, he found a job at Les Films de Saturne, helping write invoices while earning some money though he wanted to be involved in cinema.

La vampire nue also became notable in that it introduced Catherine and Marie-Pierre Castel, twin sisters who frequently collaborated with Rollin during the early years of his career.

Following La vampire nue, Rollin found himself in a financial crisis and having suffered an accident during production which left him traumatized, the circumstances took a positive turn when he met with producer Monique Nathan, owner of the Films Moderns company.

The story follows two young lovers (Françoise Pascal and Hugues Quester) who meet at a wedding reception and agree to go on a date, for which they decide to take a walk in an enormous cemetery.

The film was shot in the city of Amiens over a four-week period and premiered at the 2nd Annual Convention of the Fantastique in Paris in April 1973 and was initially met with a negative reception and as a result, Rollin was unable to find anyone to back his future personal projects.

The story follows two young women who have been involved in a shipwreck and are brutally raped and murdered by a group of rogue pirates, only to be resurrected after making love to the devil so that they can seek their revenge.

Further problems would arise including the working title, Les diablesses, having to be changed as the copyright was not free of charge and with the Castel Twins being unavailable for the roles of the avenging ghosts, the parts where offered to inexperienced actresses Lieva Lone and Patricia Hermenier.

[Note 3] Between 1976 and 1977, his work consisted strictly of hardcore pornographic films as there was a lack of money and producers reluctant to fund any new mainstream projects due to his previous commercial failures.

Jean Rollin returned in 1978, when he wrote and directed Les raisins de la mort (The Grapes of Death) which has been considered the first French gore film.

Following the negative reception and commercial failures of his previous films and having to direct pornographic pictures, Rollin eventually gained financial backing to produce his next mainstream feature.

There she discovers that the local residents who occupy the village have been transformed into mindless zombies by a dangerous pesticide which contaminated the grapes growing at the vineyard following a wine festival which occurred some days before.

Rollin stated that Les raisins de la mort was his "first traditional, almost conventional, production" which was because the film acquired solid finances with made a change and with special effects supplied by Italian experts.

[Note 5] Rollin's story of Fascination differs slightly from that of Lorrain's novel, in that, in the year 1905 a group of wealthy Parisian women arrive at an abattoir to drink the blood of an ox as it is believed to be a curative for anemia.

Lahaie portrays the character of Elizabeth, a young woman discovered wandering around in the rain on a dark night, by a man named Robert (Vincent Gardère).

Prior to production, which was intended to take place in La Défense district, she was involved in a serious car accident which left her unconscious with a broken leg and she died within one week from her injuries.

It marks a departure to the usual horror tones which his films are notable for, and here mixes drama with elements of adventure, thriller and crime, while maintaining erotic and poetic themes and remains a distinctive and unique piece of work from Rollin.

Les paumées du petit matin unfortunately failed to receive a proper theatrical in 1981 which resulted in it being one of the most difficult Rollin films to find in future.

Again with a limited budget an issues with the script, Rollin stated that there were many problems with the production right from the beginning; that it was "an incredible mess", filled with "clichés and platitudes of melodrama."

It is highly influenced by Rollin's childhood passion for old serials as it contains themes of adventure, crime and mystery, comic-book fantasy and is inspired by the 1932 Boris Karloff classic The Mask of Fu Manchu.

On a limited budget, and again working with producer Lionel Wallman and cinematographer Claude Becognee, the production of Les trottoris de Bangkok was filmed in several locations, many of which were not given permission to; the Chinese Quarter of Porte d'Italie and on the docks where goods from Asia were unloaded, an abandoned den near the Champs-Élysées, and on part of the French railroad.

[Note 9] Rollin received minor work following Les trottoirs de Bangkok; in 1985, he resumed his pseudonymous work as "Michel Gentil" with a non-pornographic feature, the slapstick comedy, Ne prends pas les poulets pour des pigeons which reunited Brigitte Borghese and Gérard Landry from his previous film, and included French actor and comedian Popeck.

It was difficult to find distribution for independent and exploitation pictures in the late eighties as in a time of revolution and change, distributors would only pick up more commercial and high-budget film.

[Note 11] Initially, Perdues dans New York was to be the final production of Rollin's canon as he has become ill during this period, and he expressed gratitude to his many fan by paying homage to his early works.

Despite his intentions to retire from directing following Perdues dans New York, his final film of the 1980s, Killing Car (working title Femme dangereuse) was produced in 1989.

Initially intended to be a softcore production under the Michel Gentil pseudonym, Rollin attached his own name to the project and made it one of his most personal and self-referential of all his works.

Killing Car gives nod to previous Rollin works including Tsang emerging from a grandfather clock (as did Dominique in an iconic scene from Les frisson des vampires).

Rollin was initially required as a screenwriter for the production due to the fact that he was to replace producer Marc Dorcel's in-house auteur Michele Ricaud, who has just recently passed away.

The leading roles were offered to two inexperienced actresses, Alexandra Pic and Isabelle Teboul, whom Rollin choose while answering a newspaper ad they had printed.