The Grapes of Death (1978) Les raisins de la mort
The Grapes of Death (1978)
DVDRip | MKV | 664x480 | x264 @ 1244 Kbps | 90 min | 880 Mb
Audio: Français AAC 2.0 @ 126 Kbps | Subs (srt): English, Italiano, Arabic (العربية)
Genre: Horror
DVDRip | MKV | 664x480 | x264 @ 1244 Kbps | 90 min | 880 Mb
Audio: Français AAC 2.0 @ 126 Kbps | Subs (srt): English, Italiano, Arabic (العربية)
Genre: Horror
Director: Jean Rollin
Writers: Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (story), Jean Rollin (story)
Stars: Marie-Georges Pascal, Félix Marten, Serge Marquand
The polluted wine produced for a village's annual Grape Harvest Festival has left all but a few rabid with some chemically- engendered form of zombiism. They may saunter about like sleepwalkers, but these are not the zombies of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968); they are, rather, oozing transmitters of an impassioned insanity that can only be termed anarchy.
It seems an odd boast to make for one title in a plentiful filmography devoted to vampires, ghosts and other undead, but THE GRAPES OF DEATH (Les Raisins de la mort) is Jean Rollin's most frightening movie. It was never really the goal of his previous films to frighten, and it is the unsettling, progressively chilling quality of GRAPES that makes it unlike anything else in Rollin's poetical canon. Watching it, one is almost surprised that Rollin would–or could–direct a film to such a successfully commercial end, but THE GRAPES OF DEATH unfolds like an ever-expanding nightmare whose noose is drawn all the tighter by the efforts of its young heroine to escape it.
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.
(click to enlarge)
The Grapes of Death (1978) Les raisins de la mort
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