1982 (France)
Contains spoilers.
As with most low
budget eighties euro nasties I'm torn. Undoubtedly, from acting to script to
effects it's easy to pull Jean Rollin's effort apart; yet as has happened
before, dare to peer beneath the rather mediocre, sleazy and derivative
surface, and it could be argued there's perhaps quite the deep, brooding and
entirely engaging angst ridden depth to sink ones teeth into. On the surface a
tale of one child hood friend aiding and abetting a seemingly broken and
damaged other with increasing disregard for laws or morality, it would be easy
to dismiss the film as a cheap slasher with enough escalating violence and
nudity to satisfy the braying mob. Yet I think, as is the way with European
horror, to make the most of the film is to not bemoan and critique every minute
detail, but to focus on the allegory and to ponder a deep and brave
philosophical tragedy.
Take for instance
the all rather by the numbers opening sequence; of toxic waste, incompetent
handling and the inexplicable resurrection of star of the show Françoise
Blanchard as Living Dead Girl Catherine Valmont followed by all the gory,
excessive and highly choreographed blood shed you'd expect from a continental eighties
video nasty. It has a certain nostalgic
charm but its amateurish, shoddy and all rather derivative to the point of
being easy to dismiss and deride. But I'm going to come to its defence. If one
posits, as I do, that film is only really about Catherine, her child hood
friend Hélène (Marina Pierro) and their increasingly twisted and morally
transient relationship, it's ok that the background is grey and maybe
deliberately immaterial and poor. Maybe I'm thinking too deeply, and too
forgiving of the rather cheap and throwaway extra characters (especially US
model Carina Barone as Barbara Simon and her lover Mike Marshall as Greg) and
all the awkwardly drawn out superfluous scenes and sequences, but the core
philosophical narrative encourages deeper thought, and it ensures the poignant story isn't lost
in all the blood soaked noise.
Catherine and Hélène
are more than best child hood buddies. With a blood oath theirs is a friendship
that will defy and survive even death. Thus when Catherine reaches out and
Hélène comes running it's only a matter of time until she's happy to be complicit in
all that it takes to satiate the dead girls gruesome demands. For a fan of the genre the
film is a fascinating study in deadness
in a physical and hunger driven sense and deadness
in a conscious ethical framework. Catherine comes back from the dead as a blood
hungry zombie without will, conscious checks and balances and I'd argue no
cognitive ability other than when the time is right to recognise her one true
love (though I'd argue she'd have even attacked her the moment she returned.)
Hélène contrary, is alive, human, and fully reasoning, yet has her own issues, as drawn to Catherine's side
she's immediately forced to make increasingly morally dubious snap decisions, in a surreal
whirlwind of emotion and consequence. Their
relationship, and the philosophical conundrum the film presents, is that with
each brutal death and feeding, Catherine regains some of her will and self. Her
memories, consciousness and conscience begin to return bringing with it an existential crisis and internal moral conflict as she comes to terms with the monster she's become. Counter to this,
Hélène close to having back the friend that was lost; is increasingly desperate and single minded to the extreme in her determination; but she's also
increasingly numb and ambivalent from and to the pain and death she's
responsible for. I'm sure there's a fitting quote from Nietzsche I could use here, something about monsters and the abyss; save to say by the end Rollin's exquisite moral tragedy had come together with resonance and ambiguous devastation.
Living Dead Girl
will perhaps be remembered for it's extremely graphic and shocking ending; a
drawn out scene of zombie cannibalism more excessive and sobering, yet emotional and heavy than anything
else I've seen. It will also be remembered for its ample nudity, though I'd
argue it's not only rather more tastefully handled than Rollin's other films, notably
Zombie Lake, it's even aesthetically and narratively coherent. For most it will probably be
remembered but ultimately dismissed for all the above plus its amateurish
eighties euro trash credentials; of poor acting, bad effects and awkward
dialogue. However, I'd personally like it to be remembered for the audacity of Rollin to
try and play with humanity, love and death in a deeply nuanced,
respectful, unique and beautiful way - 8/10.
Steven@WTD.
cracking film
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