Pluskylang Great Film overall

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Stevieboy666 A young horny couple go to what must be one of the largest cemeteries in France for a bit of hanky panky during the day but end up getting locked in after dark & struggle to find their way back out. Unusual for a Rollin film of this time there are no vampires to be found, instead this film centres around fear, sex obviously & a poem. It didn't make a whole lot of sense but then this is a Jean Rollin movie. It's well filmed, making great use of it's location & a dreamlike sequence featuring a nude Francoise Pascal is one of the highlights. Visually a good movie but unlikely to appeal to those unfamiliar with 1970's French cinema

Bonehead-XL Opening on the beach that must be familiar even to casual Jean Rollin fans, "The Iron Rose" might be the director's most acclaimed film. It's a very pure movie, with an even more simplistic story then you'd expect, not a single naked vampire in sight. Two lovers meet at a Halloween party. The next day they go for a train ride and end up in an old cemetery. While making love in a crypt, the gates are closed and the two are locked in.At night, the cemetery becomes an otherworldly place. There is no escape. The boy searches helplessly for an exit while the girl quickly goes mad. She warms up to the idea of death, holding a skull up over her face, laughing. Earlier, the boy falls into an open grave, the camera spinning around him as he looks up as his girlfriend. The two characters represent conflicting ideologies. Early on, they discuss religion, the boy being a strict non-believer while the girl isn't sure. After the madness sets in, she accepts death as a natural thing. He fears it, rebels against it. Given the fixed location and small cast, the movie plays more like an allegory the longer it goes on."The Iron Rose" has gorgeous Gothic atmosphere. The cemetery is a fantastic setting, with its huge gravestones, looming crosses, dusty crypts, and cobweb strewn statues. The film is based off a poem, which explains the dreamy tone, but the graveyard had to have been the real inspiration. How could anyone resist making a horror film in this setting? The sparse music is composed of whispering voices. The only moment of unintentional camp comes when the girl opens her mouth to releases an odd, unconvincing scream.It's a good thing the movie looks so good because the story is a drag. After night falls, the film breaks down into a clear pattern. Guy tries to escape, girl rambles on, guy's attempts are frustrated, repeat. Unusual for Rollin, the film is dialogue-heavy, many semi-poetic monologues about life and death being batted around. Both characters are slightly annoying, the girl coming off as manic and the guy coming off as kind of a jerk. Honestly, the best moments are the ones that have the least to do with the couple. A sad clown drags a handful of roses through the gravestones. An old woman leaves a flower pot on a crypt door. The girl frolics on a beach in the nude, pushing over iron crosses. I suspect this would have made a fine short, given its fantastic setting, images, and nicely poetic ending. As a feature, it quickly becomes repetitive. I maintain that Rollin's goofier, vampire-filled, nudity-and-imagery driven films are his best.

rogerjdkemp Girl meet boy. He asks her out. His choice of places is somewhat unusual. First they visit what appears to be a graveyard for old steam trains (a joy for the train spotters I should think), then off to the local cemetery, because it is quiet.The girl is somewhat scared when he wants to enter a tomb, and he seems to enjoy this. Then she agrees to join him in the tomb, and they make love.And we are treated to a fully-dressed clown wandering around the cemetery, like they do not. What on earth is that supposed to be about? I think it was Chekov who said that when you have something in a short story, then it must have to be there. So if you have a gun, it has to go off. And when you have a clown, the clown has to do something, be a pivot for something. This appeared to be pointlessly weird.Essentially this is an over-long short story. There is something in it, but the central point is not wholly clear. If I were to have a stab at it, I would say the boy was trying to frighten the girl , then she becomes more fascinated by the whole experience than he is, then he becomes terrified. Has he driven her mad? Was she mad already? To that extend it was similar to Hamlet, but only to that extent.Not a lot happens for much of the film. Early on , I guessed where it was going, save for the very last part. Quite what it was about is that clear, but strangely that is a good reason to watch it again. It is not rubbish, and certainly very odd.

The_Void Jean Rollin is best known for his lesbian vampire films. I have seen five of said films and all of them were rubbish. If The Iron Rose were another lesbian vampire flick, I would never have seen it; but strangely, the non-lesbian vampire efforts I've seen from Jean Rollin (The Living Dead Girl, The Grapes of Wrath) were quite good so I figured maybe his work outside of his favourite genre might be decent, but on the strength of this film; I have to say that I think I was wrong! The Iron Rose takes the atmosphere from Rollin's lesbian vampire flicks (often the best attribute) and fuses it with a bizarre plot that sees a couple trapped in a graveyard. Nothing about the film makes any sense; the way they meet is unlikely, the way they get to the graveyard is stupid and what happens in the graveyard is pointless. Rollin was clearly trying to make some sort of sexy/surreal drama but what we end up with instead is a load of depressing nonsense. The location shots are nice, with the graveyard itself being a particularly outstanding place to set a horror movie with its Gothic gravestones and foreboding atmosphere so it's a shame that Rollin couldn't make more out of it. The film feels like it should have some profound and deep message but if it did, it's buried so far under the boredom that I wouldn't know where to start looking for it. The film is also poorly edited and badly shot, the latter point being a major shame considering that the graveyard is really the only good thing about it. Overall, I can't recommend anyone sees this film; mercifully it is quite short at seventy five minutes, but that is seventy five minutes that could be better spent elsewhere. Avoid!