grapesofdeath

French filmmaker Jean Rollin has time and time again earned the status of autuer among his genre peers. Most of his gothic/erotic vampire material is quite similar, but even when he forges new ground as he does here and in films like The Demoniacs, his unforgettable signature style is difficult to miss. Rollin has a prominent romantic and tragic angle to all his work (his involvement on the stunningly inept Zombie Lake even shows through in this aspect). Grapes of Death is an excellent example of his dreamy style while getting away from his familiar vampire territory.

As often noted, Grapes of Death bares many similarities to the seminal zombie film Night of the Living Dead. It is admittadly difficult to watch Grapes without being reminded of Romero's masterpiece, but it is unfair to dismiss it as a knock off. The similarities lie mostly in the film's overall structure, but there are a few scenes that look to be more than just a passing resemblance. So we've established that Rollin probably isn't going to win any awards for startling originality with this one. That aside, this is still a fantastic (and vastly underrated) film. Rollin's romantic storytelling and dreamy camerawork is as present as ever, and let's not forget that this is the first role in a straight film for Brigitte Lahaie (the last being a bittersweet victory). Let's not forget that this is akin to such past Rollin favorites as The Demoniacs and future works as Night of the Hunted and Fascination as well as to Romero's classic. I like to think of this film as classic Rollin with an early Romero twist. The flavor is definately that of Rollin's work even if the structure resembles Romero's.

The film follows a young girl, Elizabeth, as she flees from a train where her friend was killed by a puss ridden madman. She makes it to a small country side she finds more plague bearers with oozing sores all over their bodies. In a particularly nasty moment, one of the infected gouls repeatedly bashes his head against a car window smearing some disgusting yellow puss about the entire time. As our heroine continues on her journey she encounters several more people, both friendly and not so friendly. Since this Rollin telling the story here, friendships are often either fleeting or extremely tragic. Rollin's trademark sentimentality takes hold frequently as the creeps are often given sympathetic roles while remaining scary. Along the way she eventually encounters my favorite person to ever grace a film negative, Brigitte Lahaie. Rollin always uses Lahaie's striking image well. She has only a small part here but she manages to steal the show as many of the film's strongest scenes occur during her short screentime.

Grapes of Death is Rollin at his best. Although it is a break from his usual bloodsucker pictures, all the necessary elements are included. His hypnotic photography is especially engrossing here. I was immediately drawn into a trance and was surprised to see how quickly the 90 minutes went by. While Rollin is in top form here, credit is also due to actress Marie-Georges Pascal for creating an interesting and sympathetic lead character to carry the film from start to finish. Also worth mention is the two beer swilling male leads (Felix Marten and Serge Marquand) who's onscreen chemistry and charisma make the films climax all the more interesting.

Another interesting aspect partly responsible for the film's effectiveness is the well done make up effects. Gore hounds are treated to crucifixion, a decapitation, a throat slicing, a face burning, and a particularly nasty pitchforking scene (all shown in explicit detail). While the pitchfork scene is quite the show stopper, the real winner here would have to be the puss oozing sores found on everyone. They are quite frankly disgusting. Something really got under my skin watching these creeps lunging at people and dripping all over the place. Perhaps its the sheer helplessness displayed as the plague eats away their brains, turning them into full fledge psychos (similar to Romero's The Crazies but a lot grosser). Rollin crafts these scenes excellently as characters struggle (usually unsuccessfully) to resist the violent urges.

Thanks to the DVD revolution, a good deal of Rollin's work is seeing wide distribution like never before. Synapse is responsible for this one, putting together a great package that any Rollin fan will consider a must have. Most importantly, the presentation is exellent. The picture and sound are as good as I could ever imagine them being. Also included is a short write up in the liner notes, a filmography and biography for Rollin, two trailors for the film, and best of all recent interviews with both Rollin and Lahaie! Rollin is quite a character and talks freely about his love of classic monster movies. Lahiae is still a striking woman, who seems very proud of all of her work. They work very well off of each other as Lahaie describes Rollin's timidness while working on porno films. He appears to indirectly confirm this with his mannerisms and his apparent disire to 'save' Lahaie from the more explicit fare (author's note: NOOOO!!!). All in all, this is a great package from Synapse and a great movie. I would whole heartedly recommend this to all fans of Rollin's work.