Grapes of Death (3 Stars)

The last time I watched this film I gave it a four star rating, commenting that I was possibly being too generous. I've lowered my rating to three stars this time, despite being a big fan of Jean Rollin.

Despite having similar characteristics to his other films, "Grapes of Death" is unique among Rollin's films. His films usually concentrate on beauty, but this is a zombie film, so it's about death and decay. One of the plot devices is that the women don't look as bad as the men after being infected, but the film still has too much ugliness. I don't like the look of zombies, so I won't print any screenshots here. I refuse.

The film's main character is Elisabeth, played by the late Marie-Georges Pascal. She's travelling to the small village of Roubles to visit her fiance. Roubles is hardly a village, it's just a collection of stone houses built around a vineyard. The vineyard itself is deserted, and everyone in the village stumbles around trying to kill her. That's what zombies do.

She meets two men from a nearby building site who have decided to take the law into their own hands. They're shooting everyone they see. They know the reason for the zombie attack. The grapes have been treated with a new pesticide which has contaminated the wine. The two men are healthy because they only drink beer.

Logically, Elisabeth should rely on the men to help her, but the situation is confused when she finds out her fiance is a zombie. Which side is she on?

I'm fascinated by the filming location for the fictional village of Roubles. It's a collection of stone houses built on a cliff, most of them in ruins.

The information about the filming location is very vague, but I believe that it was filmed partly in La Couvertoirade, partly on a hillside settlement to the East of La Couvertoirade.

This is a screenshot from Google Maps. La Couvertoirade is a former fortress which now has a population of 180. Some houses are intact, some are ruins. It would be easy for a cameraman to only show the ruined houses.

Here's another picture courtesy of Google Maps. It's a lovely little village that lives from tourism. It looks like a beautiful place to visit, but an awful place to live. It doesn't even have a cinema!

Jean Rollin tells an interesting story about this scene. Brigitte Lahaie had to take off her clothes on the steps to prove that she wasn't a zombie. It was filmed in the middle of the night and the temperature was -20 C (which is -4 Fahrenheit). The scene had to be shot many times over, because it was so cold that Brigitte was unable to speak her lines.

If there had been more nudity and less zombies I might have rated the film higher. If you're a dedicated Jean Rollin fan -- like me! -- you'll want to add it to your collection. For the rest of my readers, it's a curiosity that you might want to check out if you can find it on a streaming channel like Shudder, but I doubt you will want to pay for it.