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Living Dead Girl, The
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| Year: |
1982
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Director: |
Jean Rollin
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| Stars: |
Marina Pierro, Françoise Blanchard, Mike Marshall, Carina Barone, Fanny Magier, Patricia Besnard-Rousseau, Dominique Treillou, Alain Petit
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| Genre: |
Horror |
| Rating: |
  6 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Some workmen are transporting a large drum containing chemical waste to a place of storage underground, which so happens to be next to a crypt. One of the men, once he and his cohort have put the drum in its proper place, decides this is the perfect opportunity for a spot of graverobbing, so orders the other to take a crowbar to one coffin while he steals the jewellery from the second one. However, just as each of them prise open the lids, there is an earthquake which dislodges the drum and releases some noxious gas - just the thing to revive a corpse...
And despite being dead two years, the corpse in question is perfectly preserved so that the actress playing her, Françoise Blanchard, doesn't have to wear any makeup to make her appear deceased. The only giveaway are the long, sharp fingernails she sports, all the better for piercing throats of course, so that the living dead girl of the title can drink the blood of her victims. That's right, even though she is supposed to be a zombie, she acts like a vampire for most of the time, the reason for that being director and co-writer Jean Rollin's predeliction for bloodsuckers.
So is this actually a vampire film in disguise? Maybe, but what it really consists of is a tragic love story in disguise as Rollin uses flashbacks to fill us in on the story behind Blanchard's Catherine Valmont and her childhood sweetheart Hélène (Marina Pierro). They pledged never to be parted, and when death did just that, Hélène was bereft, but now she receives a telephone call as she gets in from a trip away that does nothing but play a music box down the line at her. Fortunately, she knows exactly what this refers to.
She twigs that Catherine has returned somehow, and in a form of denial Hélène hopes to start their romance afresh, if only there were not the small problem that her girlfriend needs blood to survive, and pigeons won't do, it has to be human blood. From the unconvincing effects we see at the beginning, where Catherine makes quick work of the workmen who have awakened her, this looks as if it will be wall to wall cheese, but after a while it grows clearer that Rollin means to tug the heartstrings. It's just that he has a strange way of going about it.
To add to the confusion, there are an American couple, shutterbug Barbara (Carina Barone) and her husband Greg (Mike Marshall) who catch sight of Catherine wandering across a field and take a snap, then ask about the village to see who she is. The answer that it is a woman who died a couple of years back only serves to intrigue them more, but nothing is going to end well here, even as Catherine's memory returns. Unfortunately the manner in which it comes back is directly linked to how much blood she consumes, and the more self-aware she becomes the more she realises she is compulsively "evil". Hélène is having none of this, and her mind grows clouded by the love she feels for Catherine, so much so that it is she who emerges as the real villain. As a cautionary tale of how love can twist the emotions, the film is stilted and hard to believe, but by the end it's bizarrely touching, as no one meant the catastrophe to occur, after all. Music by Philippe d'Aram.
Aka: La Morte Vivante.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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| Jean Rollin (1938 - 2010)
A lifelong film fan, French director Jean Rollin worked consistently since the 1950s, but it was his horror films that would bring him most attention, starting with Le viol du vampire in 1968, a work that caused a minor riot on its initial showings. This showed Rollin the way to further dreamlike entertainments, often with a strong sexual element. Other films included Le vampire nue, Le frisson de vampires, Les Raisins de la mort, Fascination (often regarded as his masterpiece), The Living Dead Girl, Zombie Lake and a number of hardcore porn features. He was working up until his death, with his latest Le Masque de la Meduse released the year of his demise. |
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