The films of Jean Rollin are a feast of perverse and exotic imagery shot in the soft-focus style of a David Hamilton photo essay and paced as languidly as a Terence Malick film…but with sudden eruptions of grand quignol gore worthy of Herschell Gordon Lewis and lots of beautiful and bloody nude bodies. via
Sure. That's one way of putting it. I always thought Jean Rollin films were just low-budget ways to showcase a lot of blood and fine European boobies, but poetic language makes them sound all classy and shit.
Here's a documentary from British television (Eurotika on Channel 4, I believe) about the many booby-filled films of the great French horror and exploitation director Jean Rollin.
I can't believe how much nudity they show on British TV.
Another zombie movie. I mean another "infected people" movie. I've seen The Grapes of Death in the past and it didn't blow my skirt up so I decided to watch it again to see if my opinion of it had changed. Nope. It's still not one of my favorite "zombie" films. It's strange though because while I'm watching the movie, it actually seems like a pretty decent film and then later when I think of it, I remember it sucking. So there you have it. It's a good film while you're watching it.
Pesticides used on a vineyard are turning people who drink the wine made from these grapes into zombies. (That was a pretty awkward sentence but I don't care.) They aren't really zombies because they're still alive and don't eat people but their flesh oozes and falls off and they get really angry and kill non-infected people.
And so, a young woman named Elizabeth and her friend are traveling by train to this small French village when they are accosted by one of these infected. The friend is killed and Elizabeth desperately runs across the countryside in search of safety and to find her boyfriend who lives in the village. Her world becomes a nightmare as the non-infected are just as disturbing as the infected. Life sucks for Elizabeth.
"Gimme' head till I'm dead."
What this film does have going for it is Brigitte Lahaie who will certainly be one of the future Girls of Grindhouse here on Beasts in Human Skin. She does have a nude scene although it is quite brief. That's another thing. Since The Grapes of Death was directed by Jean Rollin and features adult film star Brigitte Lahaie, I was expecting a lot more nudity. Oh well.
Violence Rating: 3.5ish or maybe 4 out of 5 Booby Rating: 2.5 out of 5
