| The Grapes Of Death (1978) |
| aka. Les Raisens De La Morte ,aka. Pesticide |
| DIRECTED BY JEAN ROLLIN. STARRING BRIGITTE LAHAIE, MARIE-GEORGES PASCAL, and OLIVIER ROLLIN. |
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| I bought this on dvd blindly, having never been able to find out much about it (even on the internet!) apart from the odd vague synopsis about French farmers drinking contaminated wine and becoming incredibly mixed up zombies. I expected to find a film similar to the much later Troma release Redneck Zombies, but I discovered instead that this was a lot closer to an arthouse version of George A. Romero's The Crazies. |
| It all begins with a bunch of workers spaying pesticide over a vineyard in a quiet, sparsely populated area of France. They aren't wearing proper safety equipment, and one guy complains about his neck hurting and goes home. |
| The next scene introduces us to Elizabeth, an attractive young lady travelling with her friend on a train near the vineyard. The train is empty apart from them, and when the train stops at an equally deserted station, the guy with the sore neck jumps on. His sore neck is now covered with a disgusting looking boil that's dripping with pus. He's also gone mad , and kills Elizabeth's friend. Elizabeth pulls the emergency brake, and runs into the countryside looking for help. |
| She stumbles on a farmhouse, and meets a less than friendly farmer and his daughter. She asks to use the phone, or to get a ride into town, but the farmer suspiciously informs her that the phone doesn't work, and the car hasn't run in a very long time. His daughter pulls her aside and explains that her old man went completely nuts a couple of days ago and killed her mother. The farmer catches the two talking and after ripping his daughters clothes off, impales her with a pitchfork in one of the more gruesome scenes in the movie. |
| Elizabeth flees the farmhouse, and throughout the rest of the movie she encounters more insane wine drinkers. All of them have dripping pus filled sores over various parts of their bodies, and all behave much more strangely than your average zombie. Infected people kill, then often appear confused and even cry about what they've done. Some even ask for help, or ask to be finished off. She eventually runs into a pair of Frenchmen armed with a shotgun and dynamite who are unaffected because they only drink beer! One is a good ole' boy, and strangely the other is a bleeding heart who accuses his companion of being trigger happy. Kind of a political zombie blasting yin and yang. |
| This was a pretty interesting take on the zombie genre. The zombies in The Grapes of Death were an obvious influence on those in Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore. I've heard that a lot of people found this slow, and if you're expecting something in the vein of Dawn of the Dead, or Zombie, you probably will find it slow. But if you're after a stylish slightly oddball slice of Euro horror with a lot of atmosphere and social commentary (although Rollin gets ridiculously heavy handed in this regard at times), then this will probably fit the bill. |
| Entertainment : 3 out of 4 |
| Watchability : 3 out of 4 |
| Overall : 3 out of 4 |
| Reviewed by Blake |