The Grapes of Death (1978) User Reviews

Rollin unearths fresh rural dread in surreal zombie poem

[fertilecelluloid · 7/10 · 13 November 2005]

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.

Nice, Blood and Wine

[ed_two_o_nine · 7/10 · 26 May 2008]

Now here is a rarity. A movie I came across late at night on one of Sky's inferior movie channels (in this case zone horror) that I actually found quite enjoyable. If you are a fan of old school horror then I imagine you will enjoy this. Yes there are some ropey gore effects and some dodgy editing but overall there is a sense of menace which is greatly aided by the slow burning pace and genuinely spooky sound track. The basic premise of the film s that off a pesticide that has been sprayed on the grapes of a vineyard turn all those who consume the wine into some form of diseased zombie type. A young girl on the way to see her boyfriend at the vineyard has to deal with it. This is my first experience of French horror and of the movies of Jean Rollin and I have to say I will be seeking out more of both on this showing. You do have to take into account that this is a 1978 movie and it does show it's age but it has genuine fright moments and a real seedy scary under currant and a lot of modern horror directors could learn a thing or two about pacing a horror movie from here. A real unexpected treat. I would definitely watch this again and for fans of the genre give an extra mark.

"Finish Me Off"

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 29 November 2021]

A bleak gallic version of 'Night of the Living Dead', except that this time the victims remain horribly sentient and resemble lepers rather than zombies.

The makers probably had the outbreak of mass psychosis at Point-Saint-Esprit in 1951 in mind (which was caused by ergot in the local bread rather than pesticide in the local wine as depicted here).

Deadly Vintage...

[azathothpwiggins · 6 July 2020]

THE GRAPES OF DEATH is Director Jean Rollin's gory, gushy chemical-zombie movie. Far more grim and gruesome than most Rollin offerings, there's less nudity as well. There are no real instances of surrealism or metaphysical irony here. This is a straight horror film. The title comes in, since the trouble starts in a vineyard where pesticides turn a man into a murdering monster who attacks a passenger train. A female survivor finds herself at the very same vineyard. More terror ensues. One of Rollin's best efforts, complete with some actual chills. Great, bloody fun for the fear freak!...

Agent Orange meets Fulci with a dash of Romero with lovely cinematography n surrealistic atmosphere.

[Fella_shibby · 7/10 · 16 July 2020]

I saw this for the first time recently. The film's gore may remind viewers of Fulci. The settings may remind of Who Can kill a Child and Tombs of the blind Dead. The film has lingering shots of oozing stuff n nasty ulcers, it has nudity, a decapitation n hell lottuva weirdness. Dont worry about the oozing ulcers, we have porn actress Brigitte Lahaie, who doesnt hesitate to undress. In one scene a woman is shown wearing a red shirt n the next she is shown wearing a braless gown. The best part about this film is Jean Rollin's exquisite cinematography and surrealistic atmosphere throughout.

The best film Rollin ever did !

[macabro357 · 7/10 · 27 May 2003]

(aka: THE GRAPES OF DEATH)

And I've seen just about all of his films too, so if you're looking for John Carpenter or Jason or Freddie or any other American horror schlock, you better look somewhere else. This film takes it's time in the usual French way.

Hey this one's got good gore effects!! I like the realistic sores with puss oozing out of them. The cool scene of the puss oozing out of the guy's face on the train was really well done.

I also like the pitchfork scene where the farmer forks his daughter in an apparent fit of pesticide-induced madness. Not bad at all.

Another good scene is when the blind girl Lucy is crucified on the back door of a farmhouse and her provider comes out and chops her head off with an ax, blood spraying out everywhere...

Then the gorgeous Bridgette Lahaie appears, looking normal but really isn't. We get a nice full-frontal scene of her nude, too.

It has one of those typical 1970s-style ambiguous endings where no one really wins, good or bad, so you'll have to see it for yourself.

Excellent Synapse DVD with extras such as an interview with Rollin and Lahaie, who still looks gorgeous after 25 years. She hasn't really aged at all.

Plus there's an excellent slide-show of all the gore scenes up close.

Too bad the first reviewer below didn't wait a couple of years for this DVD to come out

7 out of 10 for keeping me amused.

THE GRAPES OF DEATH (Jean Rollin, 1978) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 28 June 2006]

Though not up to Rollin's ROSE OF IRON (1972) or THE LIVING DEAD GIRL (1981), this is still pretty good - forming with the latter and ZOMBIE LAKE (1980; which I haven't watched) a very loose trilogy.

Still, it's not strictly a zombie film (as the 'monsters' here aren't flesh-eaters and don't even rise from the dead!) - though it carries much the same kind of menace as LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (1974), also largely set in the countryside and displaying a concern for ecology in the modern world. As with many of Rollin's work, this is actually more of a hypnotic mood-piece with very little dialogue: languorous, often lyrical and undeniably haunting. In this respect, the dreamy cinematography (which is sometimes out-of-focus) and the simple yet agreeable score (despite the admittedly grim subject matter) emerge as indelible assets to its ultimate quality.

The film is quite gory and the ending downbeat, but Marie-Georges Pascal's bewildered heroine generates genuine audience sympathy - even if it's a fetching yet duplicitous Brigitte Lahaie (inexplicably unaffected by the plague which is ravaging the village) who steals the show with her brief but striking role!

Technically well made but awfully mundane

[callanvass · 5/10 · 19 November 2013]

It's not that I disliked this movie. It was just very dull with too many moments where I began to space out. It really does have some adroit scenes. The atmosphere was quite quaint and somewhat creepy. It has some picturesque scenery with a French feel to it. The makeup effects, while good, tend to look a little bit corny. The stuff that is on the infected people's faces looked rather lame. Characters do some really questionable things as well. There is a blind woman named Lucie, who incidentally resembles the blind female character from Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, but I digress. There is a bunch of infected zombies surrounding an area, and Lucie inexplicably goes right towards it willingly (!) They aren't really zombies either. They don't want your flesh. They just enjoy killing you in twisted ways. It's like they get an unstoppable rage that can't be stopped. At least Jean Rollin tried to be different in that aspect, as so many zombie films were coming out around the time this movie was released. It does have a decent amount of gore. I wouldn't call it a gore fest, but it does deliver. We get a very bloody decapitation, icky zombie makeup, impaling with a pitchfork, gunshot wounds, and off screen stuff as well. Not great, but not bad either. The ending was very, very odd. We get no real explanation as to why the main female lead is acting suspicious. It subtly hints that she's turning crazy, but it never gives it to you fully. Or it could be I was becoming more and more disengaged that I missed an important plot development, but nonetheless, I was confused. The acting isn't worth mentioning

Final Thoughts: It's well made, but it's quite a drag to sit through. It has good moments, but not enough of them. Worth a watch for die hard horror fans, but prepare for your mind to wander

5/10

One of Jean Rollin's Best!

[c blamer · 8/10 · 29 January 2002]

This neglected cult classic is finally available for the first time in the States, on DVD with a gorgeous looking (and sounding) transfer by Synapse Films. It looks great - probably better than it did in the theatres. Not exactly a zombie flick, but that is the closest genre you could categorize it. It follows the trials of Elizabeth, a young woman traveling by rail across the French countryside, en route to meet with her fiancé, who runs a winery. Before she reaches her destination however, she encounters a homicidal man who has just murdered her traveling companion, and whose face disintegrates before her horrified eyes as he chases her off the train. Lost in the rural expanse, the woman encounters various peasants who seem to have become trapped between life and death, driven mad by the pain of decaying alive, and more than eager to throttle her and visit various abuses upon her body (implied by the fact that any uninfected individual she comes across in her adventure inevitably takes the proverbial bullet for her - by pitchfork, hatchet, or whatever lethal tool the living `dead' have at hand at the moment). Finally, it is revealed that her fiancé has been pumping out wine tainted by pesticides, which has been consumed en masse earlier at a festival by the unfortunate villagers (talk about becoming dead drunk.). This is easily one of Rollin's most accessible films, but may not be to the tastes of anyone weaned on Empty-Vee styled horror flicks. But for the discriminating palate, this is definitely recommended -- leisurely paced, atmospheric, and with liberal dollops of gore and mayhem to boot, this is late 70's horror at its best.

Zombies, of a gallic nature

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 9 April 2015]

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.

Definitely Rollin's best, but not necessarily that good.

[innocuous · 4/10 · 25 January 2008]

This film is watchable, but it is hit-and-miss in several respects. The atmosphere and story are not too bad, and the gore is a bit amateurish but plentiful. My major objection to the film is the poor editing. If you are ever asked about the importance of editing and continuity to the watchability of a film, just point to this film as an example of how NOT to do it. Due to the poor editing and lack of continuity, people "jump" all over the screen and sets, showing up in one place after starting in another. One of the actresses literally walks around a corner of a building and changes clothes completely at the same time. (No, I don't believe that this was intentional.) A couple huge dogs just show up at one point (which also makes no sense), wounds change locations, and some events were obviously intended to precede other events that now appear earlier in the film.

Don't get me wrong, this film is worth your time if you're a fan, but it is definitely not a slick, finished product.

Claustrophobia/Isolation of the countryside

[damularc · 8/10 · 14 March 1999]

Rollin's "big" budget films rewards the viewer tremendously. Raisins de la Morte has been called the first French gore film, yet it is worth seeing for more than its few baser thrills. The whole movie is like a particularly convincing claustrophobic dream. Novice explorers of the European horror film or general fans of the zombie genre should be captured by the compact story of the lost girl in the near ancient village of zombies created by an uncannily debilitating batch of wine. Rollin's skill at creating the feel of a bad dream, however, is shown in the opening train scene. An extremely effective tracking shot of a nearly empty train car sets the tone of isolation and danger perfectly.

Wanderer of solitude

[henriqueac-62783 · 6/10 · 1 March 2023]

Such landscapes and general setting made it look like the characters were to small, or maybe there were so little of them that the setting really turned into something that could call my attention a lot. It is a slow paced plot and literally: slow paced zombies. European movies sometimes seems to don't actually belong to their original genre, here, there seems to be so much melancholy and finesse, that even in the violent and gory scenes, it feels light for my mind. Sometimes a caught myself thinking "man, these girls have been walking around a lot, just being scared, although nothing happened for a while now. But it is a good movie indeed. A half a century ago movie. Hahaha. Gotta love'em.

"My brains rotting up." Dull French horror film.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 31 December 2005]

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.

A winner, but lacking cohesion and tension - surreal.

[jester-30 · 1 June 2003]

Fans of Jean Rollin will not be disappointed. This film capitalizes on many of the staples that make his films unique. There is a pretty gal traveling all over the French countryside facing peril, atmospheric and lingering cinematography, a quirky soundtrack, breasts, a tragic love story, and plenty of surprises to keep viewers guessing. Add the special appearance by the lovely Brigitte Lahaie and you've got a winner, but certainly lacking the cohesion (though wildly subversive and surreal -- though not so bizarre as Jess Franco's pictures) and tension of some of his more successful ventures like La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl), Requiem for a Vampire, The Shiver of the Vampires and others.

Good fun for fans of the zombie film.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 5 October 2013]

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.

HAVE SOME WINE

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 3 May 2019]

Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) runs through a French village while being pursued by people whose skin is rotting from the local wine due to the bug spray. Their minds command them to kill, but like zombies, not each other, just those uninfected. This is a peculiar disease that makes men rip open the blouses of women before they kill them.

PLOT SPOILER: Near the end, Elizabeth is rescued by a couple of beer drinkers.

It appears the French copied the American zombie film formula but couldn't fully commit to having zombies or real rednecks.

6 stars for nudity sleaze (Mirella Rancelot, Patricia Cartier, Brigitte Lahaie- FF)

I watched the Special Edition which has a decent transfer. Mountain View Movies $2.99 The cover is Mirella Rancelot who plays a blind woman and is the only person in the film that walks like a zombie with her arms extended.

Good fun, if unremarkable

[I_Ailurophile · 7/10 · 10 October 2021]

Environmentalist horror film about the health risks of pesticides? Film borne from a cheeky play on a John Steinbeck title? A whim conjured in a wine-loving culture? Whatever the point of origin for Jean Rollin's 'Les raisins de la mort,' the premise feels inherently more common than some of the filmmaker's other features. Putting aside a few specifics, such as the setting, this could almost be mistaken for a George Romero feature - the camerawork, characterizations, blood and gore, scene writing, and overall narrative thrust all feel very familiar. Making a zombie flick feels downright ordinary - but that doesn't mean it can't still be fun.

The filming locations are gorgeous. The makeup artists did fine work, essential to realizing the appearance of the zombies. Simple and uncomplicated as the narrative is, it flows freely, never lagging; the length goes by quickly. Those few practical effects that are employed look great, and while the feature is painted over with a very even, flat tone in even the most bombastic moments, scenes are still duly unsettling and fun. Though not especially remarkable, the cast perform well in bringing their characters to life.

It's not particularly exceptional in any way, and there's not really anything about 'Les raisins de la mort' that makes it stand out compared to other genre pictures. Unless you're a diehard Jean Rollin fan, or a horror-loving wine aficionado, there's not an express reason to seek this over other features. Still, this is a well made, suitably entertaining movie, and it's worth checking out if you have the chance.

This movie goes absolutely nowhere

[Johan_Wondering_on_Waves · 1/10 · 14 October 2015]

You know I was going to try to be nice because the movie does have nice visuals (considering landscapes not in the make-up department because that was absolutely awful)and even though the nudity thrown in was quite gratuitous it was a welcome distraction for an otherwise dull experience. According to some the nudity however is quite few and tame for a Rollin film. I wouldn't know since I haven't seen other films from this director and I doubt I will after watching this. I'm not demanding that everything is explained but the actions of pretty much the whole cast including the female protagonist are either weird, questionable or stupid. In other words the director had no clear idea what he wanted to do, which direction he wanted to take this film. Also the happenings are quite repetitive, female protagonist getting helped by a female but that helping hand ends up dead with clothes ripped showing naked breasts. The killers are the village people mostly men infected by some pesticides as we find out in the end. It doesn't make them zombies even though they do walk just as slow but relentless killers. However why they do leave that blonde girl alone and why she acts as some kind of leader to them, not explained. But they do kill the poor blind girl half-nude nailed to the door with her brother beheading her and screaming he loves her. And all the heroine does is watch it and scream. Just like the dad killing his daughter after ripping her blouse open, it shows how the director wants to disturb rather than make an interesting film. Maybe the way the protagonist acted in the final scene wasn't so weird considering she and others been doing ridiculous things all film long. Still that was the final nail in the coffin for me to give it a bottom score.

Surprisingly good French zombie flick!

[The_Void · 9/10 · 31 March 2006]

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!

One of the Better Films Directed by Jean Rollin

[Uriah43 · 6/10 · 8 September 2015]

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.

Abysmal

[The_Eighth_Passenger · 1/10 · 4 November 2009]

I got the DVD of Grapes Of Death for free with a magazine and still managed to feel ripped off after enduring its painful 85 minutes. I am no zombie film enthusiast by any means and I had never before seen any of Jean Rollin's work but I went into this expecting to be at least entertained by a dumb fun gore flick in the vein of Zombie Flesh Eaters. Instead I was treated to a poor attempt at an art-house film. You may say my expectations were what let me down and that 'Grapes' has more going for it than I was prepared for. If that's the case then may I be stricken by lightening this very day, because what I saw was not only a complete and utter failure in every aspect but also one of the worst films I have seen in my life.

The plot, for what its worth, revolves around a young woman who, after surviving an attack from a diseased man aboard a deserted train, finds herself lost in the French countryside. She stumbles across a farmhouse and encounters more diseased people and the film progresses in the usual manner until the big showdown at the end. It's worth mentioning at this point that although the film bills itself as a zombie film it's really not. The infected have been poisoned by the grapes which grow locally and are more 'insane yet aware' killers than 'roaming braindead' flesh eaters.

There's no need to say anymore about the plot as with this type of film you know what you're getting yourself in for and to reveal anymore would only to be explaining scene by scene what takes place.

These type of films really rely on either being funny or just damn scary to keep us interested. 'Grapes' spectacularly fails at both, although I concede it was only aiming for the latter. Atmosphere? None to be found here, as Rollin's idea of conjuring up any kind of mood is to have repeated far away shots of our girl (yes, I've already forgotten the "characters" name and I can't be bothered with finding it out) walking through the hills, then, when she gets close, stick the camera another 100 metres away and let her get close again. As I mentioned before, Rollin's seems to be trying to make an arty film here but it really doesn't work and he should have just gone all out and made it a ridiculous gore fest. The gore that is here? I'll admit at times the weeping facial sores were pretty sickening but for the most part it looks fake. Budget constraints you might say? Work to your budget, I say. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead barely has any gore (for a zombie flick) and is an absolute classic. Gore isn't needed, and if your budget can't afford you good effects then don't bother. Try and tell a decent story instead. Oh dear, I just contradicted myself. What do I want Rollin to do? Make a gore fest or a story driven film? Maybe even combine the two? Hmmm, I suppose that he should have just donated the money to charity and done us all a favour. The music is typical synthesiser rubbish that you forgive when a film is good but when the film is bad it just makes you want to burst you own ear drums. I was reaching for a knitting needle...

The acting is bad, although that is no real surprise given the genre and budget. When the script is good and you are engaged this is the kind of thing that won't bother you too much but obviously that is not the case here and if there's one thing worse than bad acting it's bad acting in a foreign language. When you can't understand them and still know that they're terrible then it's not a good sign. Horror films tend to have more than their fair share of annoying characters, those dumbasses who are just begging to be butchered, but the main girl in this is so dense that she makes the average slasher movie chick look like Stephen Hawkins. As for the blind girl character, if I ever hear the name 'Jaques' again I think I will turn more insane than the infected in this film. She stumbles aimlessly around saying it for at least 15 minutes of this films over drawn length.

And over drawn is what this review is becoming. I could rant about this dog turd of a film for hours but it won't make a bit of difference and I feel I have already wasted far too much of my life on it. Suffice to say I cannot recommend this to anyone except... actually I cannot recommend it to anyone. Judging by the other reviews on this site I seem to be in the minority but as far as I'm concerned this is one of the most boring films ever made.

Creepy and Original 'Environmentalist' Zombie Gore Film by Jean Rollin

[Witchfinder-General-666 · 8/10 · 6 May 2010]

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!

Zombies - or an infected movie? Either way I liked it

[Stevieboy666 · 7/10 · 28 January 2019]

Pesticide being sprayed in French vineyards are infecting the locals, turning them into rotting killers. This film is regarded or promoted as a zombie movie but in my opinion it is an infection movie. Either way it has all the usual Rollin ingredients - gore, beautiful women, nudity, superb use of French rural locations and lashings of atmosphere. Among the highlights are an extremely graphic, though fake looking, decapitation, plus Brigitte Lahaie shedding her clothes. The conversation between two male members does tend to drift off topic a few times in the second half, just a minor gripe. Not my favourite Rollin movie but it is still a great example of his work and of 1970's Euro horror.

The Pesticide Side Effect

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 1 September 2022]

Elisabeth (Marie George Pascal) is traveling on vacation by train to Roubles, in the countryside of France, to meet her fiancé Michel (Michel Herval) in the vineyard where he works. The wagon has only one passenger, the also young woman Brigitte (Evelyne Thomas) that Elisabeth befriends and goes to the restroom. When the train stops at a station, a passenger comes on board and when Elizabeth looks at his face, she sees an ulcer with blood and flees from him to the corridor. She stumbles upon Brigitte's body, stops the train using the emergency break and runs through the land until she enters into a small farm house. She stumbles upon a crazy farm with ulcer and his daughter, and she succeeds to escape driving his car. She reaches a small village near to Roubles, meets the young blind woman Lucie (Mirella Rancelot) and discovers that the place is crowded of zombies. What has happened to the locals?

"Les raisins de la mort", a.k.a. "The Grapes of Death", is a reasonable zombie movie with a messy lead character. Elisabeth takes wrong attitudes along the story and the terrible conclusion indicates that she is also infected. The ecological plot is not bad and the reason for the epidemics is well explained as the pesticide side effect in the wine. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "As Uvas da Morte" ("The Grapes of Death")