not as good as all the hype

An absolute waste of money

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

When settling down to watch a Jean Rollin film, the viewer is fairly sure it will contain either nude/semi-nude vampires, a beach scene, two young girls as main characters and/or much surrealist atmosphere. Such things are the staple of the prolific French director.It's something of a surprise then, to find none of these elements here. At first, two girls appear to be the film's main double act, but one of them is killed a couple of scenes later in one of many shock twists this tale has to offer.This is Rollin's most straightforward horror film. And it is truly frightening. Of course, there are scenes that border on the dreamlike, such as a blind girl dressed in white tiptoeing unknowingly into the path of many zombie-like creatures that literally stumble out of the shadows.There also appears to be a decent budget here, one that provides a realistic beheading (another unexpected moment), many explosive effects and some truly repellent make-up for the many characters infected by the 'grapes of death'. The scenery is breath-taking and beautifully shot – often in conditions so cold, that apparently the putrefaction make-up would freeze to the actors' faces.Through it all, seemingly immune to the virus, is Elisabeth (Marie George Pascal) – well, until the final scene; the film is open-ended, open to interpretation. I would recommend this to anyone new to Rollin's work.My favourite scene involves a decaying man who chases Elisabeth back into her parked car, which naturally fails to start. As she locks the doors, he head-butts the glass to the front door, leaving much of his dissolving forehead on the glass as he recoils to butt it again. Truly stomach churning.

I've had this film in my collection for yonks, so I thought I'd get round to watching. Please note, I like my euro films loud and quick and full of gore, and although this film had gore, the loud and quick parts were sadly lacking. PLOT? Wine = being a zombie. That's that. There's this French chick trying to get to her fiancé and basically we're here to watch her try and get there, and the outcome of what happens there, like. But you're a busy person. You don't want the f*ckin plot, because you know it already. You're question is, is it any good.Answer: Kind of. It's nowhere near as horrible as Zombie Lake, and does contain moments of greatness, but there's an awful lot of places in the film where everything slows to a crawl just because our heroine is very slow on the uptake. I paid three pound for it. It was worth it. I think I paid 11 pound for zombie Lake, and have been unable to stay awake through it long enough to review it.

Chased from her train by a bloodthirsty madman sporting a face of decaying flesh young Élisabeth flees into the desolate and bleak French countryside.Unbeknownst to our heroine an experimental pesticide has tainted the region's grape harvest and all imbibers of the local vintage have been viciously mutated into deranged zombie-like killers.It's hard to classify "The Grapes of Death" as a zombie film,mainly because it features living people driven into murderous rage by contaminated wine.As the most of Jean Rollin's works "The Grapes of Death" is set in an eerily isolated and lifeless landscape loaded with empty fields,misty bridges and crumbling houses.There is a good deal of gore including particularly gruesome decapitation and lovely full-frontal nudity scene provided by Brigitte Lahaie.8 out of 10.

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!