A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD

Christina travels to her father's villa for the reading of his will. She has been in boarding school for most of her life, so she barely knew her father, not to mention the aunts and uncles who live there. Upon arrival, Christina notices something odd about her relatives, they're...odd. The late, great Howard Vernon plays uncle Howard, Anne Libert is the blind Aunt, Britt Nichols is a "friend," and Franco himself plays the creepy mumbling mute Basillio.

While Christina unpacks, she overhears Vernon and Nichols arguing, saying odd things like "you still act like a whore" and "i won't dig the maggots from your corpse again." That night, Christina has a nightmare in which her father (Paul Muller) appears with a noose around his neck, warning Christina to leave. These bizarre dream sequences are among the highpoints of the film. Effectively capturing the real essence of a nightmare. (yes, i have had nightmares after watching this film, but maybe it was all that cough syrup.)

The next day, while skinny dipping in a funky looking pond, Christina meets a young man who bears an uncanny resemblance to John Cougar Mellencamp. She invites him back to the chateau, but he insist that no one lives there. He tags along anyway, only to be chased off by mean old Uncle Howard. Uncle Howard gives Christina a good old fashioned bitch smack and scolds her for bringing strangers into the house. Christina runs off to find dead bats in her room, then barges in on her aunts having twisted blood smeared scissor sex.

Eventually they get around to reading the will, which plays better in the English language print as the lawyer rambles on in monotone for several minutes while Franco appears to be falling asleep, Christina is willed the house and everything inside it.

Well this pisses every one off, and leads to Christina being raped by her uncles. Maybe i'm sick, but the way this scene is framed is really cool. Christina is sacrificed in front of her father's ghost, and there's all sorts of psychological sybolism like Basillio breaking the arms of the clock, etc. then we see Christina tossing and turning in bed, a doctor gives her an injection and assures us that if she wasn't dead, she is now. Then we see her in bed back at the hotel, dead. The final scene shows the family gathered beside the pond, Christina is lead into the waters and the family follows, disappearing below the surface as a chilling vocal plays on the soundtrack.

In a very short running time, and with a thread bare plot, Franco creates a stylish and haunting film. Bruno Nicholi's score is very effective and adds a lot to the punch of the film. The actors all give good performances, in particular Vernon and Franco.

I first saw this on video as Zombie 4, complete with all nudity fogged out, and really bad zombie footage ham-fistedly edited in. his footage, which was supposedly shot by Jean Rollins, was added to pad out the running time by Eurocine' after the success of George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead. It really screws up the pacing, but even in that form i found it fascinating. A few years later i got a hold of the original untampered with version and i was blown away. Highly recommended, by all means seek this one out, you wont be disapointed.