The Grapes of Death (1978)

Just perfect...

A Disappointing Continuation

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The zombie flick starts off promisingly, with an incredibly dumb brunette abandoning a train after her friend had been murdered by a confused, slowly decomposing semi-zombie. Mind you, when I say that GOD starts promisingly, I don't mean that in a "Blade Runner" promising kind of way, but more in a decent-zombie-B-flick promising manner. However, GOD starts sinking rapidly with the appearance of Brigitte Lahaie. Don't get me wrong, it's not her fault; she gives us a splendid view of her perfect body and boobs, just minutes before being blown into bits. It's the fault of the damn script, which quickly disintegrates into bull's dung from this point onwards. Lahaie plays an uninfected villager who – somehow and for whatever bizarre/idiotic reason – acts as Svengali to the zombies around her. She helps them snatch and kill the uninfected, rather than abandon the village. There is absolutely no explanation for this; it's merely a dumb plot-device to prolong the movie or to make it forcibly unpredictable. Nor is it explained why the zombies don't want to kill her and obey her. The brunette is incredibly stupid, possibly the most dim-witted and confused movie heroine I've ever seen. One of her many foolish decisions was to refuse to tell the blind girl about the danger – as if making the girl think she is not surrounded by the living grape-dead actually makes her safe. Predictably and logically, the blind girl is appalled and confused by the lies and runs away and is murdered. Beheaded, no less; there's the French for ya, saving the most sadistic demise for a helpless invalid dyevochka. Her end is a direct result of the dumb brunette's idiotic decision-making process which dominates GOD. It's just part of a string of dumb decisions and actions she makes. A little later, the dumb brunette meets Lahaie who requests to hold the brunette's revolver only minutes after they'd met; typically for our bird-brained brunette heroine, she suspects nothing, even turning her back to Lahaie so that the chesty blond can attack her with more ease.Just minutes after she'd been betrayed by Lahaie, the awfully dumb brunette approaches her, carrying a torch. To get her revenge? To prevent another attack? Not really. Instead of attacking her, the brunette just stares at Lahaie – as if she were a dumb zombie herself; Lahaie predictably takes advantage of the situation and pounces on her. Duh. Lahaie's character is so absurd, she even has an unintentionally funny moment when she tells the two armed villagers that she "didn't hear anything" right after the dumb brunette lets out a very loud scream nearby. The two dolts predictably don't suspect anything, never questioning why she'd lie about it.GOD then even manages to contradict itself when the brunette describes the peasant's daughter as "crazy" in spite of having "only a small sore". That's the same peasant's daughter who tried to SAVE the dumb brunette from her own father and got killed in the process: she wasn't crazy at all. That's the thanks you get for trying to save a Frenchwoman! (But isn't it such a typical trait of the French to confuse sanity with insanity?) The dumb brunette shows yet more "gratefulness" (or grapefulness?) a little later when she murders two unarmed uninfected men – the same men who had come to her rescue so selflessly just a day earlier! And she is supposed to be GOD's heroine! We're supposed to root for this illogical female moron. But it's things like these that make a French movie so French; they have such a skewered sense of morality, bless 'em; it's almost comical at times. The dumb brunette actually suggests to the armed men that they go to her fiancé's wine-brewery right after they'd concluded that grapes are the culprit! That's like traveling to the Arctic just as scientists announce that a new Ice Age had started. On their way there, the trio engages in a moronic political discussion in which the military and nuclear power-plants are named as the enemy of man and society – i.e. the writer's pet-peeves. No scene is too silly for those left-wingers to advance their cretinous propaganda with; no opportunity or situation, no matter how unsuitable or daft, is missed out to harass viewers with their fanatical, logic-free ideology. Strangely enough, it turns out that it wasn't nuclear waste that turned the normally happy-to-please grapes into sour grapes of death, but her fiancé's experimental pesticide. When "The Simpsons" plays around with these kinds of dumb left-wing fantasies at least we can laugh WITH it, because it's a comedic cartoon. But GOD we laugh AT, because the film-makers try to lend "socio-political/environmental relevance" to a goofy little zombie movie. God knows George Romero had tried this and failed, time and time again, the Marxist putz. You can't preach while standing on your head. You can't preach while taking a dump. And you certainly can't preach in a zombie movie. There is a time and place for empty-headed preaching, and these three situations just aren't it.Film buffs – nearly all incurable Marxists - like to describe GOD and other movies like it as "subversive". They must mean "idiotic". But then again, they DO get awfully confused.The script is a mess in every sense of the word. So badly written is this "zombie message movie" that GOD manages to unintentionally turn its politically-correct heroes into villains and morons, while turning the supposedly narrow-minded trigger-happy hick into the voice of reason. How had they achieved this? By having the dumb brunette murder her rescuers, the writer inadvertently turns the gun-happy old geezer into the hero and smart guy, because it turns out he'd been right all along about killing everybody. This, in turn, renders his left-wing-thinking young buddy wrong/stupid because he proposed a softer approach to the zombies. Wow.

From acclaimed cult French director Jean Rollin comes this interesting and enjoyable horror film, one that could best be described as an escalating nightmare. It seems that everywhere our heroine runs, she can't find safety. There's madness all around her, and no help in sight. Rollin keeps things continuously unpredictable, delivering some scenes that viewers are sure to find delightful. It usually wasn't Rollins' style to "frighten" his viewers, or to take his movies in a commercial direction, but he successfully does these things with "The Grapes of Death".Marie-Georges Pascal stars as Elizabeth, a young woman travelling by train to be with her fiancée. She encounters a young man on the train who's rapidly deteriorating, and who attacks her. Terrified, she goes on a long run to the nearby hills, trying to seek shelter and assistance from the locals, most of whom don't act very friendly towards her. It seems that these decaying people drank contaminated wine, during a festival, but she won't be aware of this for some time. Among the people that Elizabeth encounters are blind girl Lucie (Mirella Rancelot), a farmer, a crazed gal (stunning blonde Brigitte Lahaie) who tries to work out a deal with the zombies, and a pair of uninfected men - including Paul (Felix Marten) - out to eradicate the menace.Pascal is an appealing (and lovely) actress, who's able to gain our sympathies. Lahaie is an absolute vision, whether she's parading around in a white dress or stripping down to her birthday suit. Rollins' film doesn't have much in the way of story but makes up for that with a pretty good pace, a fair deal of tension, plenty of shots of the gorgeous French countryside, and even a little bit of political / social commentary injected into the dialogue. The music by Philippe Sissman is striking and the atmosphere is strong. The makeup effects are quite colourful, with multi hued grue dripping from and peeling off of peoples' faces. The best scene involves a decapitation and is sure to be remembered by the viewer.All in all, this is engaging entertainment and a decent starting place for those cinema lovers looking to check out Rollins' works.Seven out of 10.

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.

This seemed a typical zombie flick... but as it unfolded there are a few discrepancies... The people do not die, they just get a flesh disease, they seem to actually feel sympathy... The wine connection.. The beautiful woman who was immune, could have been a base for serum was killed after being disfigured.The heroine is held by the beautiful woman, and rescued by two beer guzzling men. Her boyfriend was named "Michael" and the wine is a metaphor for the sacrament of wine in catholicism. The beer drinkers are a threat to her boyfriend, and her love of him leads to her behavior at the end. I was expecting her to reveal blisters as she drank infected wine at least twice, but such was not the case. The blood at the end also signifies a Christian belief... so I found that on the association of the events with some christian ideas this film's motives become available, and the message of the director comes through better than "Just a zombie movie". Just my association so it may not be on the mark, but if this helps you understand and appreciate the movie, so be it.