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.

~Spoiler~When it comes to Euro-horror, there are two types of fans. Those who get Jean Rollin and Jess Franco, and those who don't. Well...I DON'T! I have seen enough of both to know they aren't for me. Jean Rollin's The Grapes of Death is no exception. I rented this based on the fact it was the only movie to receive a high level of praise from Jamie Russell's Book of the Dead that I hadn't seen. Maybe I missed something because this seemed worthy of no more than a blurb in the back of the book. The film is set in the French countryside where wine is turning the people into crazed "zombies" and one girl has to fight her way through to reach her lover. It's no more than a retread of ground Romero already covered in The Crazies (and covered much better I might add). Like The Crazies, the villagers in Grapes are not really zombies. They're just crazy people with purple lesions. I found the movie to be very droll and completely without action. But, judging from the high level of acclaim, those other horror fans I was talking about earlier...you know, the ones who like Rollin...apparently love this film. So, decide which type of fan you are before seeing The Grapes of Death, or any other Rollin movie for that matter.

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.

I just saw this Synapse DVD last night and enjoyed it quite a bit, but I have to add a different perspective on the decapitation scene that everyone seems to enjoy. The most shocking and significant part of the scene is the crucifixion, but the head-chopping itself . . . well, it's about as believable as Herschell Gordon Lewis. It's one of those things where a limp, soft, human actress instantly turns into a stiff wooden or plastic mannequin coated with paint. You can even hear the wooden chunk of the hatchet going through! You can only laugh. And the editing of that scene looks like a hatchet was used there too. It's like the director or producer thought he needed a "money shot." That's the most unconvincing moment in the movie, the low point of an otherwise pretty decent, paranoid, nicely photographed nightmare with character touches and subversive elements.By the way, my favorite element is the fact that the baddies aren't real "living dead" zombies and they don't want to eat the living. They're just people with a disease that drives them mad, but they can be killed in any ordinary way and they don't get up again. That makes it a bit more like "The Crazies" or "Rabid" or "Blue Sunshine" than a traditional zombie movie.