Les raisins de la mort

I must admit that, unlike many of my fellow Eurohorror fanatics, I am not the biggest fan of Jean Rollin, but then, I am still far from being an expert on the man's work. Most of the Rollin films that I've seen so far reach from stylish but flawed (e.g. "Fascination") to stylish but boring (e. g. "La Rose De Fer") to plain ridiculous ("Le Lac Des Morts Vivants"). Therefore, I was very positively surprised when I recently saw "Les Raisins De La Mort" aka. "The Grapes of Death" (1977) a highly original, creepy, intelligent and overall very impressive Zombie/Gore film, which is by far my favorite of all the Rollin flicks I've seen.

"Les Raisins De La Mort" is a Zombie film with a somewhat environmentalist premise: In a mountainous, wine-drinking area of France, pesticides that are meant as insect repellents for grapes, turn the population sick and murderously insane... Unlike your usual fully braindead zombies, the infected here are still (somewhat) capable of thinking, talking and having feelings, they just have the insatiable urge to murder...

"Les Raisins De La Mort" has the reputation of being one of the first French gore films, and it is also a highly effective one. The cinematography and settings (beautiful French landscapes and villages) are extremely elegant, which is a quality that most Rollin films have. This one's intriguing premise and suspense is a quality that I would only attribute to this one (out of the bunch of Rollin films I've seen). Marie-Georges Pascal, who sadly committed suicide at age 39 in 1985, makes a likable protagonist as Élisabeth, a girl who gets lost in the land of the infested when trying to visit her fiancé, and Mirella Rancelot is memorable as a blind girl, a likable character whose stare into nonentity is both sympathy-evoking and slightly eerie. The film delivers what gore fans expect, the zombie-makeup (the infested begin to get moldy and rot away) is extremely disgusting, and the gore effects are bloody as hell and very well done. For a Rollin film, this one is very low on the sleaze and nudity, only the ravishing actress/pornstar Brigitte Lahaie (Rollin's favorite actress) gets naked in a supporting role. The score is pretty good and underlines the eerie atmosphere.

Overall, this film delivers everything one might hope for in a Zombie film: a nice setting, suspense and creepiness, and loads of (both disturbing and disgusting) gore. Atmospheric, effective and definitely Rollin's best, in my opinion. Highly recommended!

This film is watchable, but it is hit-and-miss in several respects. The atmosphere and story are not too bad, and the gore is a bit amateurish but plentiful. My major objection to the film is the poor editing. If you are ever asked about the importance of editing and continuity to the watchability of a film, just point to this film as an example of how NOT to do it. Due to the poor editing and lack of continuity, people "jump" all over the screen and sets, showing up in one place after starting in another. One of the actresses literally walks around a corner of a building and changes clothes completely at the same time. (No, I don't believe that this was intentional.) A couple huge dogs just show up at one point (which also makes no sense), wounds change locations, and some events were obviously intended to precede other events that now appear earlier in the film.

Don't get me wrong, this film is worth your time if you're a fan, but it is definitely not a slick, finished product.

A bleak gallic version of 'Night of the Living Dead', except that this time the victims remain horribly sentient and resemble lepers rather than zombies.

The makers probably had the outbreak of mass psychosis at Point-Saint-Esprit in 1951 in mind (which was caused by ergot in the local bread rather than pesticide in the local wine as depicted here).

Jean Rollin's "Grapes of Death" is a refreshing living dead poem, and an effective low key horror film from France's gentleman auteur.

After Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) encounters a rotting man and the corpse of her traveling companion on a deserted train, she flees into the countryside where she must battle a plague of the sad, tortured dead. The "grapes" of the title relate to the cause of the spreading problem.

Rollin's films have always found horror and dread in rural landscapes and crumbling architecture; in "Grapes" the fascination with these elements continues and is intensified by suitably evocative photography. Despite some ropey focus and action sequences that don't quite cut smoothly, this is the director's most technically polished work and an important addition to French "cinefantastique".

Although the plot line bears some similarity to Romero's "The Crazies" and the visuals pre-date the recent dead-on-arrival French "Revenants" (see review), Rollin does not run this show along traditional genre lines. Instead, he has the heroine Pascal encountering a blind woman who is oblivious to the contagion and a recluse (Brigitte Lahaie) who may be her savior in a white nightie. Elizabeth's final reunion with her boyfriend has a sad, tragic quality that becomes, like the rest of the film, quite surreal.

There is sporadic gore and the violence is shockingly sudden in parts, but Rollin's trademark dream-like pacing and social commentary are there to be enjoyed and appreciated.

Rollin's "big" budget films rewards the viewer tremendously. Raisins de la Morte has been called the first French gore film, yet it is worth seeing for more than its few baser thrills. The whole movie is like a particularly convincing claustrophobic dream. Novice explorers of the European horror film or general fans of the zombie genre should be captured by the compact story of the lost girl in the near ancient village of zombies created by an uncannily debilitating batch of wine. Rollin's skill at creating the feel of a bad dream, however, is shown in the opening train scene. An extremely effective tracking shot of a nearly empty train car sets the tone of isolation and danger perfectly.