Truly the worst movie I've ever seen in a theater

Sick Product of a Sick System

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Blistering performances.

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.

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.

I must admit that, unlike many of my fellow Eurohorror fanatics, I am not the biggest fan of Jean Rollin, but then, I am still far from being an expert on the man's work. Most of the Rollin films that I've seen so far reach from stylish but flawed (e.g. "Fascination") to stylish but boring (e. g. "La Rose De Fer") to plain ridiculous ("Le Lac Des Morts Vivants"). Therefore, I was very positively surprised when I recently saw "Les Raisins De La Mort" aka. "The Grapes of Death" (1977) a highly original, creepy, intelligent and overall very impressive Zombie/Gore film, which is by far my favorite of all the Rollin flicks I've seen. "Les Raisins De La Mort" is a Zombie film with a somewhat environmentalist premise: In a mountainous, wine-drinking area of France, pesticides that are meant as insect repellents for grapes, turn the population sick and murderously insane... Unlike your usual fully braindead zombies, the infected here are still (somewhat) capable of thinking, talking and having feelings, they just have the insatiable urge to murder... "Les Raisins De La Mort" has the reputation of being one of the first French gore films, and it is also a highly effective one. The cinematography and settings (beautiful French landscapes and villages) are extremely elegant, which is a quality that most Rollin films have. This one's intriguing premise and suspense is a quality that I would only attribute to this one (out of the bunch of Rollin films I've seen). Marie-Georges Pascal, who sadly committed suicide at age 39 in 1985, makes a likable protagonist as Élisabeth, a girl who gets lost in the land of the infested when trying to visit her fiancé, and Mirella Rancelot is memorable as a blind girl, a likable character whose stare into nonentity is both sympathy-evoking and slightly eerie. The film delivers what gore fans expect, the zombie-makeup (the infested begin to get moldy and rot away) is extremely disgusting, and the gore effects are bloody as hell and very well done. For a Rollin film, this one is very low on the sleaze and nudity, only the ravishing actress/pornstar Brigitte Lahaie (Rollin's favorite actress) gets naked in a supporting role. The score is pretty good and underlines the eerie atmosphere.Overall, this film delivers everything one might hope for in a Zombie film: a nice setting, suspense and creepiness, and loads of (both disturbing and disgusting) gore. Atmospheric, effective and definitely Rollin's best, in my opinion. Highly recommended!

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.