RELEASE DATE: 1982
RATED: Unrated
REVIEWED BY: The DarkSider
Our tale begins with a bunch of morons moving some kind of dangerous chemicals into an underground vault. The crew follows the B-movie rule that hazardous materials shall never be handled while wearing protective equipment. Rather, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt will be more than enough protection from the a potential splash from the dangerous materials.
For whatever reason, the underground chemical storage depot also serves at a basement for a mansion and a crypt for the mansion�s old inhabitants. I�m assuming space of any kind is limited in France if this is the case. Anyhow, the head guy tells his buddy that they are going to do a little grave robbing. They crack open the recently deceased woman�s crypt and her daughter�s crypt who had died years before. Here is a major problem I had with the film. A person who is dead for a few years you�d imagine would have a little decomposition on their body. Rather the young lady, who�s name is Catherine, looks like she did the day they put her in the box.
Predictable results happen when an earthquake strikes the vault knocking over a barrel of the dangerous chemicals. This causes Catherine to spring back to life in a rather nasty mood. She makes a huge mess of the guys and starts on a long uneasy trek out of the vault. Meanwhile, annoying couple of the century Greg and Barbara are taking pictures in the field next to the mansion. After the two banter away for a bit, Barbara spots Catherine walking through the fields in her white dress. Barbara shoots a few pictures of the girl and calls it a day.
Catherine however goes on a soul search throughout the castle unseen while a realtor shows the place to potential buyers. She spots an old music box which invokes old memories of her blood sister Helene. I�m not sure if they were only blood sister if you know what I mean. They seemed awful close throughout the film. Anyhow, Helene a little too conveniently calls up the house and immediately assumes the music box she hears on the end of the line is Catherine. She packs up her stuff and heads out to the mansion.
That evening, the realtor comes back to the mansion with a date. In a scene where I couldn�t figure out at times who was the guy and who was the girl, the two start to do the nasty with each other. Catherine emerges out of the mansion and quickly makes a mess of both parties. This time, she sucks the blood out of the girl and leaves her dead on the step.
Helen arrives that evening to find the mess Catherine has created. She also comes face to face with her friend and has a hard time accepting Catherine is still alive. She immediately assumes Catherine was kept out of the limelight by her parents and never actually died. She bathes Catherine from the blood and disposes of the bodies. Why, well that�s what friends are for after all. Helene also notices that Catherine has an insatiable thirst for blood.
While all this goes down, Barbara finds her photos of Catherine fascinating and she starts to ask around about her. When she finds out that she has been dead for years, Barbara gets even more fascinated. Theres nothing much more to these scenes than this other than more of Barbara/Greg�s gut wrenchingly bothersome dialog. Eventually Barbara, who isn�t the least freaked out by the fact the subject of her photos could be a walking corpse, heads off to the mansion to get more shots of Catherine. Helene arrives and hastily kicks her out.
Catherine progresses along in her dialog and eventually she comes to accept the fact she is the walking dead and a thing of evil. She begs Helene to destroy her. Helene disagrees and heads out to the local festival where Barbara and Greg are hanging out. Barbara, being idiotic again, recognizes Helene and decides to follow her later to the mansion. However, first Helene goes out to acquire another victim for Catherine. She slices up the girl but Catherine refuses to attack her.
Barbara rushes in and gets set on fire by Helene, thank whatever celestial force you believe in for that moment. Also, Greg gets an axe to the head by Helene. Meanwhile, Catherine helps the captured girl to escape and heads off to go drown herself in the marsh. Helene, who apparently never heard of just letting go, rescues her once again. However this time, Catherine repays Helene by completely mutilating her body. The movie ends with Catherine screaming, feasting and presumably off to live a life of undeadness.
Living Dead Girl is a nicely done piece of cinema by Rollin. His unique blend of eroticism and gore are both done but never to excess. Once again this type of cinematography gets blown apart to sh*t in it�s sequel, Revenge Of The Living Dead Girls. However this movie�s plot, although simple in nature, grasps for the viewer�s attention and lets the suspense take over. The downtrodden script hardly gives a sense of light but on the other hand there is a sense of a morbid humor as an undertone.
The pure absence of music and dialog simply adds to the actor�s performance which granted aren�t Academy Award winning but aren�t half bad either. I will add that having a movie with less than 5 main characters is a welcome sight. So many times while reviewing I have to play the �who is this� game. This film luckily kept it simple.
Once again, France may not be known a lot for zombie films but this one of their decent exports.
1.) Dead And Hating It - Catherine wastes several people in the film using her long nails. Apparently there is nothing more a living dead girl needs more than a manicure.
