Title: The Grapes of Death (1978)
Director: Jean Rollin
Cast: Brigitte Lahaie, Marie Georges Pascal, Mirella
Rancelot
Review:
I am quickly learning there are various elements one can
come to expect from a Jean Rollin film: girls, nudity, lesbians, gore, shock
value, heavy atmosphere and blood, blood, blood; all great elements if you’re
making a horror film, which is what Rollin specialized in. I am quickly
absorbing many of Rollin’s films and I have to say, I have an affinity for
them. I really like all that he achieved with so little money. I understand the
kind of films he made, and admire him for making such beautiful looking films
on such low budgets. How did Rollin achieve so much with so little? Well,
basically, Rollin spent a lot of his time as a pornographer. For example, the
film he made before The Grapes of Death was something called Hyperpenetrations
(1978) and the one he made after it was called Discosex (1978). But the artist
in Rollin wasn’t just satisfied with making porn, he wanted more! So he often
times suggested his producers to fund a real film with the same amount of money
it costs to make a porn film. He would use porn stars for his films; and you
know how that goes: you give a porn star the chance to be in a real film and of
course they’ll jump at a chance to do it. It is a step up for them; it’s
something they can finally show their mom. This is no longer just porn, this is
a real film we’re talking about here! So this is the reason why Rollin always
had such sultry looking ladies in his films, this was also the case with The
Grapes of Death, a film filled with luscious looking women running from the
undead.
The film starts out with these men spraying pesticide on a
crop of grapes. One of them doesn’t feel so good, but his boss tells him to
continue working no matter what. We are then presented with these two girls
traveling on an eerily empty train, their destinations are different, yet they
travel together for companionship. On one of the train stops, the sick man who
was spraying the crops, boards the train and sits next to one of the girls. At
first there is nothing weird about him save for his awkward behavior. But soon,
his face starts to degenerate and blood starts coming out of his pores! He is suffering
from some sort of infection! The girl, terrified, gets off the train looking for help but she
only ends up stumbling upon more sick people, worst part is they are not only
sick, they are violent as well! What the hell is going on? Why is the world now
populated by violence, death and destruction? Elizabeth will soon discover the
truth about The Grapes of Death!
So again, what I enjoyed about this film is what I have
enjoyed about all of the Jean Rollin films I have seen: the atmosphere, the mood, the ambiance. Rollin
shot these films for very little money, so he did what any low budget filmmaker
would do to make the most of his films: he shot in amazing looking locations. Great
chateaus, abandoned locales, places with ancient architecture; he really
exploited the use of interesting looking locations. Add a bit of mist, the
howling sound of the wind and voila! Your movie is instantly creepier. This is
something Rollin understood quite well for The Grapes of Death is a film in
which the wind is blowing all of the time. This is something that a lot of
directors don’t understand, but the sound the wind makes is something that adds
a great level of spookiness to any horror film. Fulci used this sound effect a lot;
Fellini used the hell out of it too and Rollin uses it to great effectiveness
here. The localizations he used for the
film add a tremendous feeling of isolation, starting with the lonely train, followed
by these beautiful (yet spooky) looking landscapes and finally, the eerie
village where most of the action takes place in. So this is a great example of a director making a film better simply because he has an eye for beauty, something that is often times taken for granted by modern filmmakers.
Most of the time, Rollin specialized in making vampire films
like Requiem for a Vampire (1971), The Rape of the Vampire (1968) or The Silver
of the Vampires (1971). Sometimes his films would be a strange hybrid between a
zombie film and vampire film like for example The Living Dead Girl (1982), where
I wasn’t quite sure if it was one or the other and sometimes he’d venture into
the zombie genre. I personally didn’t like Zombie Lake (1981), I consider it a low
point in Rollins career, but with The Grapes of Death he made a full blown
zombie flick that I found completely satisfying. The Grapes of Death is something
along the lines of The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974) where people
are infected by some kind of toxic that makes them violent and crazy, the same thing
happens on The Grapes of Death; it’s the
pesticide used on the crops that turns people into zombies. The zombies in The
Grapes of Death degenerate both psychologically and physically; but they don’t completely
lose consciousness, they know what they are and what is happening to them, they
just can’t control it or their violent urges. So these zombies are unique in
the sense that they are conscious of their decomposing state and they hate
themselves for it.
As a zombie film, I’d say this is a very satisfying one. It
has a strange eeriness to it; things slowly creep up on you until you are right
smack in the middle of zombie chaos. Rollin’s films are deliberately slow
paced, building up on the atmosphere, but then at some point you can rest
assured that Rollin will flat out shock you. Rollin’s loves to take you by
surprise! In terms of gore, the film is pretty impressive! If there’s something
that distinguishes a Rollin film it’s a well orchestrated gore scene. On this
one we get one of the best decapitations I have EVER seen on any film. I
remember The Living Dead Girl delivered the best scene of a vampire/zombie
feeding on human flesh…well, on this one we get an extremely memorable decapitation
by axe that will leave you gasping for more. In conclusion, I have to say this
was a great zombie flick, I loved many things about it and practically found
nothing I didn’t like, another plus being that we get beautiful girls left and
right! Brigitte Lahaie, one of Rollin favorite actresses and all around muse
returns looking as sensual as she always did in Rollin’s films. Highly
recommend this French zombie film, it shows you don’t need a lot money to make
a satisfying and entertaining film, all you need is talent and if you ask me,
Rollin, with his artful eye, had it to spare.
Rating: 4 out of 5
4 comments:
Excellent Review! I've been meaning to revisit this flick for a while now and I think you just inspired me to finally take it on again. I loved it the first time I saw it, so I'm looking forward to pulling it out of the collection and giving it another go.
Glad you liked the review, I'm seeing all these Rollin films for the first time, so to me it's all brand spanking new, but I'm loving them, I will continue watching and reviewing as many of his film as I can get my hands on, thanks for the kind words and for reading.
I love the still of the head chopping! This is a great movie... slow pace, for sure (after all, it is a Rollin film), but it is a really great piece of work...
I'm also just recently watching a lot of his stuff for the first time. I definitely have a different eye/mind for them now, than if I were to have watched them ten or so years ago.
Keep 'em comin'!
Yeah, that decapitation scene is really something!
I will be reviewing more of his films, next up is Requiem for a Vampire, keep your eyes peeled for it!
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