Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

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.

Witchfinder General 666 I cannot claim to be a connoisseur of the man's work so far, but personally I do not even nearly understand the enthusiasm that many of my fellow Eurohorror/cult fans seem to have about the films of Jean Rollin. Since this film is not one of his countless lesbian vampire flicks, but supposedly a Gothic chiller that many of Rollin's fans seem to regard as his masterpiece, I was looking forward to the film. Sadly, "La Rose De Fer" aka. "Rose of Iron" (1973) turned out one of the most nonsensical and insufferably boring European Horror productions (if one can even call it Horror). At least Rollin's lesbian vampire films were entertaining and made up for a lack of substance with gratuitous female nudity. "La Rose De Fer" is almost event-less. In one aspect, however, the film is phenomenal: The film is fantastically shot in a an old cemetery, which is arguably one of the most beautiful, eeriest and most fascinating Horror settings of all time. The film is visually overwhelming, thanks to this fantastic setting and a beautiful photography. Yet, a mesmerizing setting is no excuse for making a film in which NOTHING happens! The film begins when a creepy-looking guy and a pretty girl fall in love and make arrangements to go bike-riding the next day. They stop at an old cemetery, fail to find their way out and get locked in. As night falls, both of them begin to act strangely (or should I say: annoyingly)...As said above, the film's setting is fantastic, eerie, and unspeakably beautiful, and I would certainly like to visit the depicted cemetery some day. This is arguably why so many people seem to love this film - it is visually flawless, the trees and the beautiful tombstones and grave statues create a wonderful, fairy-tale-like atmosphere. The stunning visual style may overwhelm, but I cannot imagine whose attention it is going to uphold for the length of a film. "La Rose De Fer" is only 77 minutes long, and yet it seems endless, since there are no real events, just a compilation of weird, but nonetheless boring nonsensical sequences. Everything the protagonists say is nonsense, everything they do is nonsense, and the fact that the nonsense takes place in a great setting only makes up for a tiny part of the boredom. There is no suspense, no blood and very little nudity to make up for the lack of a plot. The film is apparently based on a poem by Tristan Cobìere, which may be the reason that people call it 'poetic'. "La Rose De Fer" may be watched for the stunning visual style, but its lack of events makes it one of the most boring affairs I ever sat through. In fact, it took me three takes to watch the complete film since I fell asleep twice. I'm giving it a rating of 3 out of 10 ONLY for the fantastic visual style, otherwise the film is a disaster.

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) I'm a delightfully reformed proto-Goth who used to take great solace on barren nights back in my college days by securing a healthy dose of alcohol, couple of smokes, a bag of Andy Capp cheddar fries and then off to the cemetery with my Tom Waits tape at about 2:30 AM. If you listened carefully you could hear me singing drunkenly about being in the cold, cold ground ... There was something quietly reassuring about being there, knowing that you weren't exactly alone and if you minded your P's and Q's the dead might actually enjoy the company, and a moonlight serenade.Eventually I grew out of the phase but if there is one thing that I did know during that time it was to NEVER bring a date to the cemetery. I know for a fact that the world is populated by gormless Goth chicks who get into the whole death trip & have a macabre side to them that might make it conducive to try scoring with them amid the tombs (and will probably love this movie). But see, the cemetery was a place for peaceful solitary reflection, and at the time was relatively safe since nobody in their right minds would walk out into a cemetery at 2 in the morning to look for someone to mess with.So right away in Jean Rollin's NIGHT IN THE CEMETERY (which is a much better title than ROSE OF IRON) the guy blows it when he picks a dalliance in a local overgrown run down French cemetery as the place to bring a young lady he meets at a wedding party. Not exactly the brightest bulb in the lighthouse mind you, but she's a fetching lass and he gets to score with her down in a crypt that just happens to be unlocked. Later, they realize it's gotten dark outside and they find themselves lost within a cemetery that actually looks like several bone yards that have been combined into one using clever cross cutting.This is actually where the film gets interesting, because there literally is no end to the place. It's also wonderfully overgrown with rusted iron fencing, crumbling monuments and statues. But it's also about here that they start going a bit batty, the girl in particular. She starts to imagine herself as being at one with the dead and preferring their quiet, peaceful non- existence to the hustle & bustle of modern day life. Which is exactly the point of hanging out in the cemetery in the first place, though you'd think they would have brought plenty of extra booze and some Tom Waits.Eventually she goes completely to pieces and decides that death is more favorable than life itself. The two find themselves back in the tomb which becomes suddenly airless and capped off by an old woman's vase of flowers. The whole movie is like a weird, perverse nightmare complete with a scene where the pair copulate on a pile of bones in an open mass grave. Others are right on the money when they comment that not much happens in the film and I for one actually wish that even less happened. There is a languid, poetic nature to the proceedings that are wonderfully lyrical in their juxtaposition of death & decay next to young fleshy breasts. How come people can't make movies like this anymore? The one thing I kept thinking of was how you simply couldn't make a movie like this in 2008 no matter how you tried. There would need to be a subplot about gangsters or a love rival, maybe a car chase and a couple of big special effects sequences where the ghosts rise up to dance with the young lady as she frolics amidst the headstones. Jean Rollin is not my favorite of directors and this isn't quite my favorite of his films -- try FRISSONS LES VAMPIRES for some real fireworks -- but it's got something going on that's quite unique even amongst his catalog of work. He knew what he was after here and got it, pure and simple. There's something to be admired in that.7/10