Living Dead Girl (La Morte Vivante)

This is one of those movies I've been meaning to see for years but somehow kept missing. Well, last night I was feeling very unmotivated about housework, laundry, etc., and decided to mosey down to Mondo and see what I could see. And once again The Living Dead Girl's blood-spattered face gazed out at me from the shelf, and finally, I let her have her way with me.

And boy, did she work me over! The crisp cinematography, the beautiful chateau, and the lovely French countryside lulled me into a sense of calm. Is this going to be a sweet and lyrical tone poem to love and loss? I thought to myself. As workers transport and store barrels of nuclear waste in the basement of an abandoned chateau (!) and decide to break into the family crypt to steal the jewels from the former lady of the house's body, a frisson runs down my spine. They break into the lady's coffin (remarkably, she hasn't decomposed at all), and slowly break into the one of her also-deceased 20-year-old daughter, who is a picture of unsullied purity in white lace. At that moment, an earthquake hits, causing a barrel of toxic waste to crash to the floor, break open and spill its contents through the ground into the crypt. As a nasty gas fills the space, one of our unfortunates peers closely into the young girls' coffin. But not for long as his eyes are gouged out by her well-manicured and extremely sharp fingernails. The other gentleman gets a nuclear waste facial that promptly melts off half his face. And so our lovely tone poem to love and loss begins.

More victims will become dinner for Catherine (the titular Living Dead Girl played with great sensitivity by Françoise Blanchard) along the way with lots of the red stuff spurting and staining her (invariably) white garments as she gouges her fingers into throats, torsos and other soft places. But the real story of the movie is her slow return to consciousness as she eats more people and begins to realize that she is dead. This realization is aided by the arrival of her best friend from childhood, Hélène (Marina Pierro), who follows a very interesting arc as she progresses from joy when she believes her friend was never really dead to disbelief when Catherine begins talking and assures her that she really did bite the dust to revulsion at Catherine's gruesome eating habits and finally to cold-blooded instinct as she becomes an expert killer in order to protect Catherine from a nosy photographer and provide her with fresh victims.

As Catherine feeds, more and more of her memories and personality return to her, and she becomes repulsed and depressed by who and what she is, less inclined to violence, and more resigned to dying again. At the same time, Hélène's fierce devotion to Catherine spurs her on to more extreme and nasty acts in order to protect and preserve her friend. She is determined not to lose her again. The strength of this central relationship gives the film its real dramatic weight and makes the conclusion all the more tragic.

The film might not be for all tastes as it combines serious drama with rather extreme bloodletting (even if some of the effects are a bit hokey by modern standards). But for daring viewers who don't mind a bit of gravitas with their gore (or vice versa), The Living Dead Girl can be highly rewarding.

Fast-forwardability: 10% (many of the "comic relief" scenes with the American couple of photographers could have been shortened, and you will probably clap when they meet their brutal demise)

Drink: Wine (red, of course)