Absolute Horror Film Forum

What a lovely title for a film - and that's only the English title, in the original French it made me smile "Les Raisins de la mort." Shot in 1978.

Now I admit that when I watched this film I thought it would be the usual exploitation movie with copious amounts of female nudity - and I was wrong. Even though there is nudity including the great body of Brigitte Lahaie, what I also got was a pretty good and original story - for a Zombie flick, that is.

It's time for a wine festival in a little French village to celebrate the harvesting of the vines. the only trouble being the pesticide used to kill the insect population has a bad effect on the human populace. Here's the thing it doesn't make them into raving Zombies straight away, it starts to rot their bodies from the inside, effecting the brain and turning them into raving killers.

Elizabeth, the main character of the story is heading, via train, to the winery when one of the infected boards the train and kills her friend. panicking she pulls the emergency stop and takes off through the countryside - the wide open spaces do little to make you feel safe, they decidedly make you feels very alone.

On her trek across the French plains she encounters normal and infected people and the fun ensues, until she finally reaches her destination and her fiance, who owns the winery. I will not spoil the ending for you though (I hate when people do that).

Among the highlights of the film are two deaths - one by garden fork, if you look very carefully when you zoom across the prone figure, it is hard to make out if it's really special effects, especially when the couple of bubbles pop around one of the forks tines. The other is a beheading. I liked this because, unlike so many Hollywood & bigger budget films, the cut, that severs the neck isn't straight. And when the killer walks around with the head, it hard to tell that it's fake. The rest of the highlights are in the cinematography, some of the shots are gorgeous in their prevailing horror.

Well, I hope that you head out and try to find a copy - and please try to find it in it's original language (with subtitles) - sometimes dubbing can add comedy when it's not required - look at any kung-fu movie

An 8/10.

Come join me - We ALL float down here.

Pennywise.