Format: Streaming video from AMC through Amazon Prime on Fire!
There are conversation, often heated, in the horror community, about what technically makes a zombie movie Your absolute purists are going to say that what most people call “zombies” are actually ghouls, flesh-eating, reanimated corpses. Zombies are specifically reanimated by Voodoo. A lot of people will say that Romero’s Dead films are zombie films—they feature reanimated corpses. 28 Days Later, by that argument, is not a zombie film because the monsters are merely infected, not resurrected dead. I bring this up because on the Zombie sub-list of the They Shoot Zombies list, the distinction seems to be about how the creatures act, not their source. It’s why The Grapes of Death (or Les raisins de la mort and more rarely Pesticide) appears on the list despite our creatures being infected, not reanimated.
I am of the opinion that it’s more about behavior than anything else, which is why I don’t really object to films like Night of the Comet and Pontypool being classified as zombie films, or at least zombie-esque films. The Grapes of Death certainly falls into this gray area, since we’re going to be dealing with people who are suffering from a sort of fungal infection to turn them mindless and murderous, a sort of precursor to The Girl with All the Gifts. In fact, I would suggest that Romero’s The Crazies, which predates this by about a half decade, is the inspiration for much of what happens in this film.
Things start with a quick tour of a vineyard where pesticides are being applied to the grapes. One of the workers falls ill, but is told to keep working, clearly a presage of what is to come. We then move to a train. Élizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) is heading to Roublès to be with her fiancé Michel (Michel Herval). She meets Brigitte (Evelyne Thomas), and things seem completely normal. Eventually, Brigitte excuses herself—we see her encounter a vineyard worker, who then sits by Élizabeth. It’s a shock when the man reveals a massive, ulcerous growth on his neck that starts oozing. Élizabeth flees, finds the dead body of Brigitte, and leaves the train.
Sadly for Élizabeth but beneficial for the movie is the fact that this infection is widespread through these parts, and everyone seems to be suffering from it. The infected patches on people—arms, faces, etc.—frequently ooze and also drive the people into a fury. It is this that makes the film feel like The Crazies. Our zombies have become mostly mindless and very murderous because of their infection. The bulk of the film is going to be us following Élizabeth as she attempts to find anyone who isn’t infected who can get her out of this rural hell and hopefully get her to Michel.
What’s most interesting to me here is just how much of this film appears to be an inspiration for a number of movies that have followed it. It’s possible to draw a straight line from this to films like the previously-mentioned The Girl with All the Gifts, but also Train to Busan. This is also very much a “Man meddling with nature/trying to be God” story, which connects it to films like Black Sheep and Isolation. It’s also fairly episodic. The film follows Élizabeth’s journey, which tends to involve her meeting someone, that person dying, and her moving on, the same structure as Stake Land.
It's a decent film, that feels a lot more influential than it should in a lot of respects. The idea is a fun one, and one that demonstrates a bit of horseshoe theory. A strong right critique of the film will conclude that the problem here is science; if those smart, educated people had just left well-enough alone, none of this would have happened and everyone would have been fine. A far left critique would suggest instead that the problem is not the science, but the clear abuse of the environment that leads to that environment fighting back. Which is the case? Hard to tell, honestly. Perhaps a bit of both.
Additionally, as would be expected for a European horror film from the late ‘70s, there’s a bit of nudity here. The majority of it features a good amount of weird pustules, though—it seems to be a requirement for the nudity to exist, which is also very much a hallmark of director Jean Rollin. The plot is surprisingly coherent, given that the vast majority of the characters are completely insane. In fact, that excuses a lot of what might be problems in other films.
If nothing else, a plague winery is a fun idea.
Why to watch The Grapes of Death: There are a lot of ideas here that show up in a lot of other, better movies.
Why not to watch: Is it a zombie movie? If that’s important to you, you’ll be frustrated.
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