Simply Perfect

Sadly Over-hyped

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

While taking the train from Paris to a small village to see her fiancé, "Elisabeth" (Marie-Georges Pascal) is attacked by a zombie and forced to pull the emergency switch in order to escape. Upon reaching the nearest house she is again attacked by another zombie and again barely manages to escape into the countryside. Soon she finds the village where her fiancé lives and is horrified to discover that zombies have taken it over and that she is one of the very few people who happens to be uninfected. Now, some people might suggest that technically these people weren't actually zombies and they would probably be correct. Even so, the director (Jean Rollin) managed to bring the same ghastly features one would expect to see in a zombie movie and for that reason I figure the comparison isn't too far off. In any case, I enjoyed this movie and consider it as possibly one of the better films directed by Jean Rollin. Be that as it may, although it's certainly not a great film by any means I liked it and for that reason I have rated it accordingly and recommend it to all zombie enthusiasts.

French director Jean Rollin is best known for his messy erotic vampire films, but Zombie Lake aside; he's actually a lot better at zombie films. Along with The Living Dead Girl, The Grapes of Death represents one of the few successes for the cult director. This zombie film stands out for its morbid and surreal atmosphere, and for the fact that, as zombie films go, this one is quite original. The title doesn't suggest a good film, but it refers to the movie's main plot point; namely, the fact that it's the French tradition of distilling wine that is to blame for the zombie outbreak. It's points like this that make the film profoundly French and despite the fact that France doesn't seem like the ideal country for a zombie outbreak; the plot and location blend together rather nicely. Naturally, the main character is female; and we follow her as she makes her way to her home town of Roubles; a wine producing estate. The journey turns awry when a man infected with the zombie virus boards the train, and our heroine finds her travel companion dead...and that's just the start of it! The plot takes the familiar Night of the Living Dead style idea of the living trying to stay clear of the dead, but Rollin makes the film his own with a fine variety of weird and wonderful characters, and it usually turns out that these are more dangerous than the zombie hoards. The rural setting provides a nice base for a zombie movie, as it's quite different from the usual urban setting, and this also blends well with Rollin's morbid atmosphere. The film is also very surreal, and the director continually gives the viewer the impression that there's something nasty lurking just around the corner. Many of Rollin's films feel cheap and nasty, but this one doesn't; the cinematography is beautiful, and the acting isn't too bad either; both of which give the film a higher quality feel than the plot, by rights, should have. The only time there's a lapse in quality is the awful commentary on French politics towards the end…but it's not enough to spoil it entirely. The film is quite erotic, and even though it's quite different to his usual stuff; you can still tell that it's Rollin in the director's chair. The ending is really good, and comes as quite a surprise; and I've got to say that I loved the final message; I agree, beer is superior to wine. Recommended!

Les Raisins de la Mort, or The Grapes of Death as it's more commonly known to English speaking audiences, starts on a French vineyard called Roubles. One of the workers named Kowalski complains about feeling ill... Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) & her friend Brigitte are travelling across France on a train when it stops at a station & Kowalski gets on, he appears to have some sort of disease. He kills Brigitte & attacks Elizabeth who stops the train & flees in terror into the French countryside. Elizabeth comes across a house where she ask's for help, unfortunately the occupants are also infected with the sickness & it quickly becomes apparent that the mysterious infection has spread throughout the French countryside & Elizabeth must fight off the hordes of crazed villagers & find safety...This French production was co-written & directed by Jean Rollin & if you don't like his style of film-making then Les Raisins de la Mort will do little to change your opinion, it certainly hasn't changed mine. The script by Rollin & Christian Meunier seems to have been heavily influenced by Goerge A. Romeros The Crazies (1973), in fact they have much in common. It is also very slow, dull & frankly boring. It has a decent central premise that had potential but the film is just lethargic & the infected villagers themselves totally disappear for the final twenty odd minutes & they are just really slow. The story, character's or situations just didn't grip or engage me & I found myself becoming more & more disinterested in what was, or in the case of Les Raisins de la Mort, what wasn't happening.Director Rollin as usual spends more time on the visual look of the film rather than the story. There is hardly any dialogue which is expected & he likes to let his images to do the talking. Les Raisins de la Mort has a nice visual look, the bleak stark French countryside with it stone house village's makes for a nice isolated location although it does become monotonous eventually. Contray to what you may have heard the gore is quite tame & the special make-up effects are generally poor as the infected villager's look like they have bits of pizza stuck on their faces. There is one gory moment when someone has their head cut off with an axe, other than that there is a poor looking slit throat, someone is stabbed with a pitchfork & a few splashes of blood, that's it. For a Rollin film the nudity is surprisingly low with just two instances.Technically the film is OK, it looks nice enough but the effects are a bit dodgy looking. I can't comment on the acting as the dialogue is spoken in French, so don't watch it if you don't like reading subtitles as I don't think an English dub version exists.Les Raisins de la Mort was disappointing as far as I'm concerned, I'd have preferred a zombie film with intestine eating & blood drinking rather than the infected villager's type thing we ended up with. I found it boring, dull & went nowhere. Even Rollins usual visual dream like surreal style seems to be absent. Average at best, not worth making any real effort to watch.

Jean Rollin's "Grapes of Death" is a refreshing living dead poem, and an effective low key horror film from France's gentleman auteur.After Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) encounters a rotting man and the corpse of her traveling companion on a deserted train, she flees into the countryside where she must battle a plague of the sad, tortured dead. The "grapes" of the title relate to the cause of the spreading problem.Rollin's films have always found horror and dread in rural landscapes and crumbling architecture; in "Grapes" the fascination with these elements continues and is intensified by suitably evocative photography. Despite some ropey focus and action sequences that don't quite cut smoothly, this is the director's most technically polished work and an important addition to French "cinefantastique".Although the plot line bears some similarity to Romero's "The Crazies" and the visuals pre-date the recent dead-on-arrival French "Revenants" (see review), Rollin does not run this show along traditional genre lines. Instead, he has the heroine Pascal encountering a blind woman who is oblivious to the contagion and a recluse (Brigitte Lahaie) who may be her savior in a white nightie. Elizabeth's final reunion with her boyfriend has a sad, tragic quality that becomes, like the rest of the film, quite surreal.There is sporadic gore and the violence is shockingly sudden in parts, but Rollin's trademark dream-like pacing and social commentary are there to be enjoyed and appreciated.