La revanche des mortes vivantes

While a hitch-hiker seduces the driver of a milk tanker, a mysterious motorcyclist sneaks on board the vehicle and pours a bottle of liquid into the container; soon after, three young women drop dead, having drunk the contaminated milk. The three victims are laid to rest in a cemetery that just so happens to be the chosen illegal dumping ground for several barrels of industrial waste called MZ31. The toxic sludge seeps into the ground and reanimates the dead girls, who emerge from their tombs to take revenge on the living.

Despite non-stop female nudity and the occasional moment of extreme nastiness, French '80s horror The Return of the Living Dead Girls somehow still manages to be quite dull for much of its runtime, the plot dwelling too much on dreary industrial espionage and blackmail instead of gory zombie action. The script is terrible, and the acting poor, while Pierre B. Reinhard's direction is about what one would expect from a man whose movie career prior to this was... shall we say... not very demanding of style or imagination.

Trashy highlights include a woman getting a shoe heel in the eye (the wound spurting profusely), personal assistant Brigitte (Anthea Wyler) fondling herself before slipping into a jacket with massive shoulder pads, a prostitute molested by the undead before being shish-kebabed with a sword, a man having his manhood bitten off by a zombie, and a pregnant woman's stomach opening up to reveal her unborn baby. There's also fun to be had as the zombies use a doorbell before entering a house, go for a relaxing swim in a pool, and drive a car, all of which sounds daft, but can be explained by the film's twist ending, which -- trust me -- is far more ridiculous. These bits are admittedly fun, but quite a lot of perseverance is required to make it through to the end.

The French and movies about the living dead don't really seem to match together very well, do they? Remember "Zombie Lake"? Well, "Revenge of the Living Dead Girls" is almost as awful as that one, only it wasn't so fortunate to hoard a gigantic cult status and became pretty much forgotten over the years. Nevertheless, this is entertaining bad cinema in case all you're looking for is no-budget exploitation, sleaze and a handful of repulsive gore sequences. The film opens like standard zombie guff, with three recently deceased teenage girls coming back from the dead after toxic waste has been spilled on their tombs. The girls immediately go after the management of the local dairy factory since poisoned milk caused their deaths to begin with. Or at least so it seems, because the whole factory hangs together by fraud, conspiracies, scandals and bribery. There's a fairly ingenious plot-twist near the end but, until then, all we get to see is terrible acting, pointless red herrings and completely hilarious dialogues ("a little bit of necrophilia never hurt anyone"). The gory scenes, albeit amateurish, are effectively nauseating and offensive! Some woman gets her eyes poked out by high heels, another one poor soul gets a sword inserted in her vagina and THE most stomach-turning moment involves a totally random but incredibly bloody miscarriage in the shower. That was just too much! Proceed at your own risk...

Yes, this movie is a French production but it really feels and looks like one of those cheap Italian zombie flicks, from the '70's. Funny thing about this movie is that it actually got made during the late '80's, though you really wouldn't had guessed that. The movie looks so old fashioned and got put together in a clumsy way. If this all would had been intentional this would had actually probably been a good movie.

The movie seemed so completely silly and random. It has a story you just won't care about and a bunch of characters you also can't care about at all. As a matter of fact the movie doesn't even have a main character or 'hero' in it. The movie keeps switching between a whole bunch of characters without making it apparent who is supposed to be the good guy here and they basically continue to introduce new characters for the entire movie. The movie also doesn't even turn into a zombie-flick until about halve way through the movie and when it does the movie of course only gets more silly.

Don't understand quite why a 1987 French movie is trying to be like an '70's Italian horror zombie movie. It has exactly the same ingredients and not just in its look and feel. It features plenty of nudity and gore, which the fans will still get a bit of a kick out off.

It's often the editing and directing approach that makes this movie a bad one to watch. It makes the movie at times embarrassingly bad to watch and unintentionally funny.

But yes, it is also true that as far as the genre goes, this really isn't the worst movie to watch. Like mentioned earlier, fans o the genre will probably still get a kick out off it, also since they won't care much about it that the movie is lacking a real good story.

Some more originality wouldn't had harmed the movie really. Not just with its story but also with its moments. If you have seen a couple of type of movies like this one, nothing in this movie should be too surprising. Still it needs to be said that some of the gore is being good at times, which shall especially please the genre buffs. The gore and killings within this movie are also really basically its only redeeming qualities. Make sure to watch the uncut version for this though.

A bit of a clumsy made movie, that gets unintentionally bad and funny at times but the fans of the genre shall still most likely enjoy the movie for what it is.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

A terrible ultra soft core porn / horror, exploitation film. Deserves attention because it is so bad. Thrill to the awful camera work! Be amazed at the end car stunt sequence which defies all logic! Be shocked at the sequence where an actor looks directly at the camera and laughs, flouting the rules of continuity! Love the wretched story line!

REVENGE OF THE LIVING DEAD GIRLS (Pierre B. Reinhard - France 1987).

The premise of spilling some toxic waste in awakening the dead is rather similar to Jean Rollin's girlie zombie flick LA MORTE VIVANTE (1981), in this case it's the spilling of contaminated milk that awakes three slumbering girls in a graveyard instead of one. Some even suggested Jean Rollin directed this one too, and that Pierre B. Reinhard was a pseudonym. Does three living dead girls mean more fun? Well, not exactly. Now, I'm not a big zombie fan, but sometimes it can be fun, even the bad ones, but the only thing this one delivers is a couple of truly sickening - but not too convincing - gore scenes, like a woman's abortion in the shower, a sword used as a dildo and some genital mutilation. Despite this, even gore lovers or those looking for a couple of laughs, better look elsewhere. In between the occasional and quite infrequent zombie action, we're treated with a hokum storyline, wooden acting and when talking atmosphere and cinematography, Jean Rollin's oeuvre begins to look brilliant in comparison. This one is plain dull, and Brigitte Lahaie isn't even in it. The pits.

Camera Obscura --- 2/10