Chances are that most people, when they read this title, don't know what movie I'm referring to, and of the few that do recognize the name, most probably recall it from the Rob Zombie song of the same name. Clearly, though, I enjoy this movie, and think more horror fans should give it a look. "Living Dead Girl" (known as "La Morte Vivante" in its native French), was made by French director Jean Rollin in 1982. I'll have my same format as usual--short, spoiler-free synopsis, then a longer, spoiler-rich recap, followed by a discussion of some of the movie's strengths and themes, and ending with some cast and crew information.
An earthquake and a subsequent toxic waste spill cause something horrible at the palatial Valmont estate. Catherine Valmont, who died over two years previously, somehow regains a semblance of life. However, she has major problems--most notably, her tendency to slaughter anyone in her sight, and then drink their blood. However, a close childhood friend, Helene, discovers what's going on, and tries to save her friend. Meanwhile, a tourist couple, Barbara and Greg, accidently see Catherine and want to investigate her strange reappearance. The bodies continue to pile up. Will anyone be able to stop or cure Catherine?
(SPOILERS AHEAD UNTIL NOTED) "Living Dead Girl" opens at an unnamed industrial factory in France. Three men drive a van to the Valmont mansion, which appears to be abandoned. They unload a steel barrel of toxic waste into a vast underground vault on the property. Once this is done, two of them enter the nearby Valmont family crypt, also located in the vault, intent on stealing jewelry from the coffins. However, an earthquake hits just then, sending a barrel crashing down, where it leaks a toxic liquid and foul fumes into the crypt area. The body of Catherine Valmont, who died over two years ago, stirs, and then she quickly kills one of the men by stabbing his eyes with her long fingernails. The other grave robber is killed when some of the toxic liquid partially dissolves his face. The remaining man investigates, and is rapidly dispatched by Catherine tearing open his throat.
The scene then shifts to a small village, where couple Barbara and Greg are staying at the local inn. Barbara takes some photos in the countryside, including one of the wandering Catherine from afar. Catherine then returns to the mansion, which is being shown by a real estate agent to an elderly couple. She enters, unseen, and stays after the agent and the prospective buyers leave. Although the agent makes plans to come back that night with her boyfriend, Louis. Catherine walks through the mansion, and as she does, memories of her life flash through her mind. Most notably, she recalls her close friendship with a girl named Helene. The two even performed a blood ritual, cementing their bond, and promising to never leave each other, even in death. At this point a grown up Helene calls the Valmont mansion, wanting to talk to the real estate agent. Catherine manages to pick up the phone, but is unable to speak. She does, though, play the music box that was an important gift from Helene to Catherine years ago, which Helene recognizes.
The agent and Louis return to the mansion, and start having sex. Catherine discovers them, and brutally kills both, again using her long fingernails. She also drinks their blood. Helene then drives up, and she's horrified when she finds the dead bodies. Catherine doesn't attack her friend, but she is mute, and seems robotic and emotionless. Helene attempts to get Catherine to leave, but she won't. So, Helene drags the bodies into the vault, and cleans up the blood. There she also discovers the three men's corpses from before. Catherine appears and starts to consume more of the corpses' blood. Helene cuts her arm, and offers her blood for Catherine to drink, which she does.
Back in town, Barbara becomes fixated on the mysterious woman she photographed. Multiple villagers say the person looks like Catherine Valmont, but they insist she died years ago. Barbara wants to solve this puzzle. Back at the mansion Helene begs Catherine to act more human and alive. Catherine manages to say Helene's name, but after this she becomes agitated and runs outside. Helene kills a bird for Catherine to eat, but she refuses it. Barbara borrows a bike to check out the Valmont estate. At the same time Helene is springing a trap. She waits on the side of the road, and when a woman stops, tricks her into giving a ride back to the mansion, saying her car ran out of diesel fuel, which is back at her house. Once there Helene shoves the woman into the vault, where Catherine savagely slays her, and consumes her blood. Barbara arrives at the mansion just as Helene has left, as she's returning the victim's car to the road where she left her own car. Barbara encounters Catherine in the attic. Catherine acts strangely--mistaking Barbara for Helene at first, and then asking for help and claiming that she's dead. Barbara attempts to call Greg downstairs, but a confrontation with the returned Helene causes her to flee back to town.
Again Helene implores Catherine to leave with her, but once more Catherine resists. Now more talkative, Catherine explains that she preferred being dead, and hates the evil murderous creature that she's become. She begs Helene to destroy her. Back at the inn, Greg disbelieves Barbara's story, but eventually agrees to drive her back to the Valmont mansion. In the meantime Helene goes to the village, and tricks a girl into driving to the Valmont mansion with a lie about her boyfriend being in an accident. Helene drags the girl into the vaults, ties her up, and slashes her repeatedly with a knife for the waiting Catherine. Catherine doesn't attack the girl this time, and again begs for destruction. Barbara and Greg arrive at the mansion, and Barbara runs ahead to the vault, following the screams. Helene then sets Barbara on fire, and Barbara flees outside, before jumping into a river with her last ounce of strength. When Greg runs up, Helene kills him with a medieval axe. Catherine releases the would-be victim, and lead her out, telling her to alert the village about what happened. She then walks into the river, intent on drowning herself. However, Helene pulls her out. Catherine implores Helene to leave her alone, but Helene won't. When Catherine implies that she'll kill Helene, her friend is calm and acquiescent. Catherine viciously murders Helene, and drinks her blood, all the while moaning, crying, and yelling Helene's name. The End.
Clearly, I appreciate "Living Dead Girl" quite a bit, but I'm certainly not claiming it's flawless. Director Jean Rollin regularly had to make do with sparse budgets, and often it shows. Most notably, the acting in it is uneven, to be kind. I'll note a major exception to this in a while, but much of it isn't great. I don't typically notice cinematography much, but even I can see how many complain about Rollin's cinematography in general. There aren't many innovative or exciting shots in "Living Dead Girl," or much camera movement--it's shot pretty flat overall. There are several glaring plot holes, too, which I'll get into later. Also, the film is undeniably sleazy--there's plenty of gratuitous gore and gratuitous nudity, some of it full frontal. So potential viewers are hereby forewarned.
The style of this film, and most of the other Rollin films I've seen, is weird. Much of it seems to be an art film, with its philosophical musings, its slow and measured pace, and its obvious low budget, almost student film-like nature. But, then you contrast that with its undeniable exploitation bent, with the nudity and gore I mentioned previously. Sometimes it's like Jean Rollin is a bizarre combination of Ingmar Bergman, Joe D'Amato, and Ed Wood. He's kind of all over the place. And, based on what I've seen of his output (6 movies), sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
One of the major themes of "Living Dead Girl" is how bad it is to be a reanimated corpse. Put bluntly, Catherine clearly hates being undead. Initially she appears almost post Romero zombie-like--nearly mindless and mute, walking around her former house without noticing much of anything. She's active and aware of humans, but only in an instinctual, predator/prey like way. But that all changes dramatically as she progresses, and becomes more aware and "human." She's miserable--at no time does she appear happy at all--even her blood feeding seems mechanical and animalistic. Among her few words are constant pleas to be destroyed, returned to being dead. She hates what she's become, regrets all the evil that she's doing, all the violence and killings. Some other vampires, or zombies, or other undefined undead creatures express regret and pathos in novels or movies, but it's seldom this drastic, and complete. Catherine can't control her murderous urges very well, and she despises herself for it. The character of Jud Crandall in the Stephen King novel and film "Pet Sematary" said, "Sometimes, dead is better," and Catherine would wholeheartedly agree, except she'd knock off the "sometimes" part.
Catherine's total regret and sorrowful nature is enhanced by the actress who played her--Francoise Blanchard. As I said, her fellow thespians' work is a bit spotty, and mediocre at best, but I think Blanchard really shines in this role. Again, I realize it's weird to gush about an actor in a film of this sort, but I was impressed. I really believed her character's anguish, even though she doesn't speak much until the end. Even as she's ripping Helene apart, I sensed her self-hatred, depression, utter despair, and guilt. It was, dare I say, peculiarly moving and poignant. (Reportedly, the crew was so struck by her acting at points that they feared Blanchard had really gone mad. Which I guess is a compliment!)
Another major theme is friendship, and what the limits of it are. Catherine and Helene seemed incredibly close as girls--best buddies to the extreme. And in some ways, Helene's devotion to Catherine is almost admirable--she's willing to do almost anything to help her out. But of course, the lengths she goes to are way past the line that almost everyone would consider reasonable. I have many friends that I love, but I'm not willing to cover up the murder of innocent people, or even kill more innocent folks myself! (Let this be a note to my friends!) But there's another dark side to Helene's crazy love for Catherine. Catherine is clearly deeply unhappy, and wants to be destroyed, but Helene can't or won't do it. For the longest while Helene refuses to acknowledge the obvious fact that Catherine was dead, and is undead now, unnaturally. It seems selfish--like she's putting her own need not to lose her friend again over the friend's happiness and well being. Despite the murderous cost. Which also makes me wonder about something--were Catherine and Helene that close as older teenagers and adults? All the memories of them together are when they're about 10-12 years old. Had their friendship faded a bit as they aged? Was that the reason for Helene's unhealthy obsession? Was it guilt, and then she saw a second chance to have her friend back? (I know, I'm almost certainly reading way too much into the characters of a grotty little undead flick, but hey, that's me.)
I found the way that the movie portrayed death interesting as well. Catherine reports that it was "fine," and that "everything was blurred. Just fleeting sensations." Which sort of makes it sound like a dream. A dream, not a nightmare. It's not a state of punishment, like Hell, nor is it an awesome paradise, like Heaven. It seems to be a third alternative, which is relatively tolerable and acceptable. But, of course, this was for her death after her (apparently) normal life. Will this change for her eventual second death, after she's killed so many people? Will Catherine now be sent to a negative, Hell-like existence, to pay for her new sins? And if not, this has huge ramifications for the rest of humanity--mainly, whatever kind of person you were in life, everyone gets the same okay, relatively benign afterlife. Which is disturbing to contemplate.
As I mentioned, Rollin usually didn't have a big, or even decent budget for most or all of his films. But, to give him credit, he did take advantage of France's countryside and historic locales. The Valmont mansion, called a castle by the characters, and it practically is, is a great, picturesque place to set most of the movie, with its huge rooms and cool antique furniture. And the (real?) vaults and crypt area are neat looking, too. These locations (I couldn't discover their actual names and history, but I can't believe they were sets or sound stages) added a lot of production value, and really helped the effectiveness of this movie.
There's yet another obvious theme expressed in "Living Dead Girl," and that's environmental concerns. The whole plot is set in motion because an evil corporation didn't dispose of its toxic chemical waste in a conscientious, safe fashion, presumably because it would cost more. The factory employees note that the waste used to be dumped in the river, where it killed fish and negatively impacted the environment. So, really, the main villain of the film is the factory. Who has evidently been doing this crime for quite a while, since there were already about ten barrels of toxic waste in the vaults before the workers add another in the beginning of the movie. At least three of the factory workers got a karmic comeuppance--one of them actually dies from contact with the toxic waste itself!
Overall I thought the gore effects were handled pretty well in the movie. The eye-gouging effect was a bit weak, but the other carnage was fairly convincing. The many throat piercings and tearings were competent and effective. And kudos to the stunt person who wore the firesuit while playing Barbara during her final long run to the river while aflame. That one looked especially dangerous!
One big question remains--what was Catherine Valmont, exactly? She certainly seems more like a vampire, since she's undead, and craves human blood. But there are problems with this classification--she clearly wasn't bitten by another vampire, or revived with an infusion of vampire blood, as is the case in most vampire tales. The toxic waste is the trigger for her "rebirth," which is more reminiscent of a Romero-style zombie. But, unlike a zombie, Catherine becomes smarter and more aware as the days pass. She seems dumb, and is mute at first, but she progresses, much to her chagrin. Also, unlike most zombie and vampire stories, her victims never become undead themselves. So I don't know how to label her. She's kind of a combination of a both of these creatures, somewhat akin to the evil Knights of the "Tombs of the Blind Dead" series (see my post of March 21, 2020 to learn about them).
There are at least a couple of glaring plot holes in "Living Dead Girl." First, the corpse of Catherine's mother is very near her daughter's, in the next alcove down in the crypt. Some of the toxic liquid even affects the guy robbing the mother's coffin, and the toxic gas cloud was also surely about. But Mother Valmont doesn't become undead. Even though her body might be more recently dead than her daughter's (it's kind of unclear). Anyway, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Additionally, the film's events play out over several days, maybe up to 3 or 4. So why doesn't anyone from the factory investigate the disappearance of three of its employees, or at least three of its hired independent contractors? They've been dumping at the Valmont estate for a while, surely the location is well known. And their bodies are still there, and the van is apparently still parked in the open. At least we don't see Helene get rid of that vehicle. I know, it's a cheap horror movie, but maybe they should have tried to explain these discrepancies.
(END OF SPOILERS--SAFE FOR ALL READERS) Director Jean Rollin, who also wrote or co-wrote most of his movies, had a long career, stretching from the 1960's to 2009. (He died in 2010--RIP.) He's kind of polarizing--he definitely has a rabid fan base, but it's rather niche. Even his most successful films weren't blockbusters or anything, even in his native France. Unlike the other directors I've covered, Rollin's career went to extremes--he directed his share of hardcore pornographic movies, even sometimes under his real name. Anyway, he's best known for his vampire movies--"The Rape of the Vampire" (1968), "The Nude Vampire" (1970), "The Shivers of the Vampire" (1971) and "Requiem for a Vampire" (1971). Other films on his resume include "The Demonaics" (1974), "The Grapes of Death" (1978), "Fascination" (1979), "Two Orphan Vampires" (1997) and "The Mask of Medusa" (2009). And also one of the most staggeringly inept zombie movies, "Zombie Lake" (1981). Of the six Rollin I've seen, "Living Dead Girl" is arguably his most coherent and accessible to audiences. (It should probably go without saying that I'm using the English titles--in France they not shockingly had slightly different titles, in French.) (Also, in case you were wondering, at least one of Rollin's porn films was about vampires--the guy was really into this supernatural monster, obviously!)
As for the cast, most of them will be unknown to audiences, except for maybe some older French viewers. Marina Pierro (Helene) appeared in such films as "Behind Convent Walls" (1978), "Immoral Women" (1979), "Dr. Jekyll and His Women" (1981), "Art of Love" (1983), "Love Rites" (1987), and an uncredited role in Argento's classic "Suspiria" (1977). As I mentioned before, Francoise Blanchard played Catherine Valmont. Other career highlights include roles in "Caligula and Messalina" (1981), "The Tellier House" (1981), "Revenge in the House of Usher" (1983), "The Sidewalks of Bangkok" (1984) "Chasing Barbara" (1991), and "The House of Clocks" (2007). Greg portrayer Mike Marshall was also in such movies as "The Phantom Planet" (1961), "The Day of the Jackal" (1973), "Moonraker" (1979), "Grand Larceny" (1987), and "Neuf Mois" (1994). Otherwise, Carina Barone (Barbara Simon) has 34 listing on IMDB, most of which seem to be French television shows. And the second burglar was played by Jean Cherlian, who's IMDB page has 114 credits, so clearly he had a busy career, too.
To sum up, then, I recommend that discriminating horror movie fans who have an appreciation for older movies to give "Living Dead Girl" a try. It's no frenzied, action-packed, jump scare-a-thon or anything, but for some it'll be an interesting, meditative take on the undead. As I talked about, it's a bizarre mix of an exploitation horror flick and an almost pretentious art house film. And if you like this one, maybe some more of Rollin's other, more dreamy and unstructured movies will appeal to you as well. Just don't make it a family film movie night offering--even Rollin's non-porn films are still distinctly for adult audiences only!
