La revanche des mortes vivantes

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

This is one of those films that "irresponsibly" intermixes extreme sex and violence. This doesn't bother me, however, because the two things are like drinking cold beer in a hot tub--both are enjoyable but for completely different reasons. And just as no sane person is going to start bathing in cold vats of beer or drinking hot tub water, these kinds of movies aren't going to make gore erotic and sex repulsive, however much they mix the two. The real problem with THIS movie though is that it fails miserably both as a sex movie AND as a splatter movie.

Three nubile young girls die and come back to life as zombies either because some misguided environmentalists poisoned their milk with chemical stolen from a chemical company OR because the same chemical company is pouring toxic waste in the graveyard--the incompetently plotted movie never quite makes up its mind on this. The zombie girls have dessicated faces and hands but perfectly firm young bodies when they disrobe (which is very often). They are thus neither very sexy nor at all scary. Maybe this was meant to be an absurdist comedy, but I sure wasn't laughing. The non-zombie girls aren't much more appealing (how do you say "sleazy skanks" in French?). They kind of look like refugees from "Traci, I Love You" (Traci Lord's French-made, only-legal porn flick) except that their acting is not quite up to the level of 80's Euro-porn.

The splatter scenes are very puerile in their attempts to shock the viewer, resembling more the shot-on-video, sold-to-suckers-over-the-internet efforts of modern-day amateur filmmakers than the European horror masters like Argento and Fulci (or even the European horror hacks like D'Amato and Mattei). The director, another hardcore-porn refugee, apparently went on to helm the "French Lolita" (hardly a necessary film in the "zank 'eaven, for leetle girlss" French cinema).

Not a good film in any sense of the word , but if you're still interested contact me--I'll sell it to you, CHEAP.

I really don't know why this film has gotten such a bad rap. I personally had a blast with this one. It's total trash cinema at it's "finest" and after reading all the horrible reviews, was surprised to find how much I enjoyed it.

DEAD GIRLS is a strange combination of exploit style horror/crime caper. The town's milk supply is tainted with a chemical that causes those that drink it to die. Three girls fall victim to the bad milk and are buried in the local cemetery. Meanwhile, the sleazy chemical plant manager is paying to have toxic chemicals dumped and the guy doing the dumping chooses the same cemetery. The chemicals cause the dead girls to come back to life and they want revenge...

DEAD GIRLS is a fun, gory, sleazy "zombie" film. The best part (other than the high-heel-eye-gouging, penis-munching, undead-orgy-vagina-stabbing, and spontaneous-shower-miscarriage...) is the "twist" ending that really comes out of nowhere and is sure to throw the audience for a loop. The zombies in this one aren't your average, no-brain flesh eaters - these girls plan, hide, go for a swim, and even drive cars...and in the end, you'll understand why. Definitely not high-brow art, DEAD GIRLS is pure goofy sleaze at it's finest. 8/10

Revenge of the Living Dead Girls (1987)

*** (out of 4)

Ohhh...how I love a good French horror and this one here offers up three beautiful French whores. Incredibly bizarre, surreal and sometimes disturbing film that sounds dumb but manages to pack quite a little punch. A company, not wanting to pay for their chemicals to be dumped properly, put some into a truck of milk, which eventually kills three girls. The girls then return from the dead to seek bloody revenge. There's a lot of political overtones that get somewhat tiresome but the real reason to seek this film out is due to the incredibly violent and sexual nature of the film. Men and women's genitalia are torn to shreds, eyes ripped out, beautiful naked French ladies and there's even a foursome between a prostitute and the three dead girls. The film is certainly campy but there's some terrific atmosphere. The alternate ending on the DVD is a jewel.

The title of this film alludes to it possibly being a sequel and the only film I could think of that it could be a sequel to is one of the two good Jean Rollin films, 'The Living Dead Girl'. This film actually has nothing to do with said film and has no relation to it beyond also being French; but Pierre B. Reinhard's film is at least bad enough to have been made by Jean Rollin. Like Rollin's other good film, The Grapes of Death, this one focuses on a food supply being contained, except instead of grapes it's milk. Three girls fall victim to the contaminated milk and end up dead. Then, the same company that infected the milk pours toxic waste on their graves and the trio returns from the dead for revenge. The plot is thoroughly amateurish and ridiculous and this is carried on throughout the whole film. The only real reason to see it is for the gore and sleaze and the film does feature plenty; culminating in scenes that feature eye-gouging and necrophilia. The zombie make-up is terrible and the make-up department either couldn't be bothered or was doing the effects badly on purpose. The film is slightly original on the zombie front, as the ones featured are your average lumbering corpses; but that's hardly enough to make up for the rest of the pitiful film. This one comes highly not recommended.