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With just a hop skip and a jump from our last destination in Italy, this month's edition of Foreign Fear Friday lands in France to celebrate the work of gothic horror artiste Jean Rollin. A polarizing figure no doubt, Rollin fosters a kind of love-him-or-hate-him following (or boycott) that only seems to compound his international celebrity. Born Jean Michel Rollin Le Gentil on November 3, 1938, the French auteur was welcomed and nurtured by a family of actors and performers who exposed him to such varying influences as German expressionist film, American horror serials, comic books, surrealist art, etc. A mosaic cultural result developed in his work, often referred to as the French cinematic genre known as Fantastique.

Fantastique is basically a hybridization of sci-fi, horror and fantasy. And while Rollin has dipped his hand in many a genre, those cinematic tenets remain stitched throughout his entire directorial canon. In the fantastique genre, unexplained phenomena and supernatural forces are usually prioritized with high-artistic photography and stylized ambience; doing so in a way that usually places story and plot on the back burner. Resolution is hardly a concern, it's much more about an overall experience, a luscious blend of beauty with a morass of unmitigated macabre.

Taking the motif further, Rollin might be best known for his wildly erotic vampire pictures that were produced in the late '60s and early '70s. With polemic titles like The Rape of the Vampire or The Nude Vampire, it isn't difficult to understand what kind of films he makes. In fact, amid hard times late in his career, Rollin was intent on the relegation of staging hard-core pornography in his movies, ones that by and large remained intact with the vampire subgenre. We'll skip all those entries for now, and instead focus on Rollin's direction of one of the most ground breaking French horror films to ever be released.

Rollin's 1978 release of Grapes of Death is widely canonized as the very first legitimate French 'gore film.' Also perhaps Rollin's most palatable picture, The Grapes of Death focuses on a woman who discovers that a noxious pesticide dousing vineyards in a rustic village is turning townies into frenzied, voracious zombie killers. It's the 'infected' type of zombie picture though (a la 28 Days/Weeks Later), as opposed to necro-resurrection we associate with most when considering films of this ilk. Either way, Rollin's takes a lean, economic visual approach that on one hand has a dream-like chimerical lull, and on the other a blunt, straight forward depiction of violence - the result leaving the viewer jarred, entranced; even oddly captivated.

When a young woman (Elisabeth) is chased from a train by deranged face-melting psychotic, she soon deduces anyone in the countryside who imbibes fresh wine or is in direct contact with the deadly toxin becomes morphed into a maddened and fevered murderer. With swollen boils and puss ridden cankers oozing bloody gunk from their faces, the contaminated 'zombies' will stop at nothing short of consuming the entire village alive. It's up to Elisabeth to fend for her own survival and reunite with her lover (who may or may not be infected). If this sounds like an international retread of Romero's work (The Crazies in particular), in terms of plot it's not too far off. Except Rollin establishes his own visual style, a woozy surrealism met with intense grime and grue that not only lends a distinct European flavor, but is emblematic of Rollin's filmic mien as a whole.

For it's time, Grapes of Death featured a staggering amount of gore. Early on we see an infected farmer lance his infected daughter with a pitch-fork to the body; a definite high mark as Rollin keeps the camera on the victim, avoiding the instant cut-away. Later, we see a sadistic crucifixion end with a savage decapitation; some gnarly Marquis de Sade type carnage. And just the look of the infected, with bubbling lesions and bleeding sores that lace their bodies, while low budget, does a nice job heightening the overall look of lunacy to the zombies. The films denouement has a fun twist that ultimately circuits the audience as a full-blown surrogate to Elisabeth, and to only identify with her character just adds to the level of claustrophobic panic. The last 10-15 minutes are pretty damn terrifying! For any a zombie cinephile or just fans of international horror in general, The Grapes of Death would make a very worthy addition to your collection.

Jean Rollin turns 70 in November of this year, perhaps directing his final effort in 2007's La Nuit des horloges (his 59th directorial credit). That's it for this month, be sure to check in next time, or you can easliy review past editions of Foreign Fear Friday!

Peep the trailer for The Grapes of Death below:

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