Demoniacs.

There’s not a whole lot I can do for Starkwell and Lovelock to help them prepare for a Jean Rollin film.  They already know to expect a slow pace, a heavy dose of weirdness, and, obviously, many tits.  Will this one exceed their expectations?  Meet expectations?  Only deliver the aforementioned tits?  Who knows?  Well, they will soon.  As is the case with all releases from “REDEMPTION”, before the film even starts, we are presented with an opening of a naked gigantic fake boobied woman, covered in blood and being bitten by what we can only assume is a vampire lesbian of some kind.  It always succeeds in setting the bar so high.

[...]

[We are introduced to some pirates...  We get a headshot of all of them, one at a time.]

Lovelock: It’s like the Brady Bunch!

Starkwell: Except that they, you know, rape and kill people.

Lovelock: A minor difference.

[...]

[The pirates look around the dark beach with lanterns, for several minutes.]

Starkwell: Sooo… I guess we’re trying to establish that it’s dark… and they need lanterns.

Lovelock: Hey, Rollin… we get it.

[...]

Then they found a treasure chest, slowly examined a necklace, which the captain gave to his wench, the female pirate.  Then he felt her breasts for a while.

[...]

[Two of the pirates find two confused women walking the beach in night gowns.]

Starkwell: What’s a Rollin film without a long, drawn out, awkward, uncomfortable rape sequence?

Lovelock: Is the answer “a better movie”?

Starkwell: Obviously while the two pirates rape and kill the Night Gown Girls, the Captain’s Wench dances naked on a rock.

[Then the Captain gets naked and they bone on that very rock.]

Starkwell: Good luck with this one.

[Starkwell leaves.]

[...]

Seriously, it takes like TEN MINUTES before the pirates finally just finish killing the Night Gown Girls.  In that time, we got to see naked Captain ass, and a bunch of simulated sex and/or rape.

[...]

Lovelock: Jesus Christ, I hope it was simulated.

[...]

It immediately cuts to a bar, the Captain is hungover, and a bunch of pirates are hanging out doing what pirates do, you know, licking exposed female nipples and dancing to lame accordion music.  Starkwell came back, because he wanted to know what Lovelock was laughing so hard about.  He decided to stay.

[...]

[The Captain sees apparitions of the Night Gown Girls as they apparently haunt him in the bar.]

Lovelock: That’s why I never drink.

Starkwell: Yeah, that’s why.

Lovelock: Well, that and the calories.

[...]

[Blood drips from above onto the Captain’s hands.]

Lovelock: Why would the Night Gown Girls pour tomato juice onto the… oh wait… I see what that was supposed to look like.

Starkwell: Sharp.

[...]

The woman who runs the brothel seems to know about all sots of crazy mythology about the surrounding islands… also, for some reason, seems to have authority over the Captain.  Then the Captain FLIPS OUT and gets in a knife fight with another pirate… Starkwell and Lovelock laughed so hard that they actually started having trouble breathing.

[...]

Lovelock: Is that a sculpture of a naked woman with her legs spread hanging on the wall?  The boobs are all crooked and the artist made the vagina HUGE.  It's absolutely frightening.

Starkwell: Obviously, the bar fight was broken up by the Queen of the Brothel playing piano and singing nautical songs.

Lovelock: What year is this supposed to be, because that dude’s bell bottoms are out of this world, and seemingly quite advanced for this era of pirates?

[...]

As is the norm with much of what they have seen of Rollin's films, Starkwell had to at least commend him on the locations he used.  “The shipyard is magnificent”, says Starkwell.  But then, without skipping a beat adding in a “too bad it doesn’t help speed this shit up to at least a 'molasses' pace.”

[...]

[The pirates go back to finish off the Night Gown Girls.]

Starkwell: Wait, they aren’t dead?

Lovelock: Considering all that they’ve been through, their white gowns are surprisingly clean.

Starkwell: They just don’t make night gowns like they used to.

[Captain’s Wench fights the Night Gown Girls.  Loses.]

Starkwell: Obviously her boobs come out of her shirt.

[...]

Shit stops making sense around this point.  Wench is hurt, and then she isn’t.  She’s yelling, but then she’s passed out.  Captain is carrying her at night, and then suddenly she is chasing the Night Gown Girls in daylight.  It is a hot mess.

[...]

Starkwell: Obviously she is in the water, and her boobs are out of her shirt.

Lovelock: Look at those things… could you keep them in a shirt?

[...]

The Night Gown Girls are suddenly in a courtyard and there is a woman in clown makeup with a red afro prancing around.  She leads them somewhere.  It takes a good few minutes to get there.  We get to see all of these 'few minutes'.  It’s around this point that none of us understood what the hell was going on anymore.  I’d say something is being lost in translation, but we all speak French.  I guess we don’t speak Rollin.

[...]

[Night Gown Girls get a change of clothes.  Shorter Night Gowns.]

Starkwell: Were they not offered pants?

Lovelock: The actresses?  By Rollin? Probably not.

Starkwell: Well, I meant the characters, but, yeah… good point.

[...]

Then there was a scene where the Wench played with her breasts while the Captain cuddled and kissed a stuffed and mounted seagull sitting next to him on the desk.  He ripped the head off of the seagull, wrestled the now completely naked and screaming Wench, and then, they had sex.  Starkwell just left again.  It has been one hour and nothing has happened.  Unless, of course, you count Starkwell leaving the room twice.  Also, many sexy stuffs which, unfortunately, has not been sexy.

[...]

[Night Gown Girls get naked and walk towards the cell holding some dude.  Is it Satan?  Let's call him Mystery Man.  They are apparently going to trade their souls for super powers... I think...]

Lovelock: You would think it would be difficult to make naked women THIS boring.  But, alas, here we are.

[...]

Lovelock: In an ideal world, Paul Naschy would play half of the characters in this movie.  Also, the movie would only be twenty minutes long.

[...]

Lovelock: I wonder if in the script, it says stuff like “Character walks three feet, this should take roughly seventeen minutes.”

Starkwell: “Mystery Man has sex with each Night Gown Girl.  Show small amounts of Mystery Man’s limp side peen.”

Lovelock: You’re back?

Starkwell: A thousand times no.  But, I forgot my phone.  Later.

[...]

So, yeah, after the girls have the orgasm they are now SUPER POWERED WITH DEVIL JUICE and out for revenge.  Maybe now something will happen.  Good thing there is only twenty minutes left and it took seventy minutes to get here.

[...]

[Night Gown Girls show up in the bar and have a staring contest with the pirates.]

Lovelock: Oh for the love of shitballs, can something please just fucking happen?!??!?! Make Bosco’s head explode! Hammer someone’s face! Make the Captain melt!  SOMETHING!

[...]

[The Night Gown Girls make statues fall towards Wench in the courtyard.]

Lovelock: Totally where Lucas got the idea for the force.

[Starkwell wasn’t around to call him an idiot.]

[...]

Then the Wench was sort of crushed by a Jesus statue, but then like, was breathing heavily, then the clown was back and she was dying for some reason, and the Gown Girls started washing her makeup off, and then like random Priest dude is dead and Mystery Man is there and lost his power? Wench is alive?  I think… Fuck… I give up.

[...]

Lovelock: You wouldn’t think someone could confuse an audience so much by having so little happen.  But, alas, here we are.

[...]

Lovelock’s favorite part came near the end, when a drunken pirate tripped on the beach, landed head first into a gigantic empty bottle of alcohol he was carrying, and immediately died.  I think it was just refreshing to see something happen fast, instead of, as Lovelock put it, “PAINFULLY FOREVER SLOW”, which perfectly describes the entire movie.  Anyways, in the end, the Night Gown Girls still end up dying.  But not before Rollin shows the pirates raping them one last time.  And then Captain is possessed and kills everyone?  I think.

[...]

Lovelock: So essentially, the super powers that Mystery Man gave them, was ability to move a few statues, kind of survive ONE stabbing, and then, basically die.

Starkwell: You forgot BORING THE AUDIENCE.

Lovelock: Oh also... SUCKING!

Starkwell: Double Entendre for the win.

[Now they both left.]

[...]

I mean, what good movie DOESN’T END with a parade of random monks whom we have never seen before, followed by five whole minutes of the tide rising over a naked dead woman?  All of them you say?  You’d be right.  In conclusion, Rollin probably really drown that woman.

The Grapes of Death.

Desperate to find something by Jean Rollin that Starkwell and Lovelock might actually enjoy, I’ve decided to go with “Les Raisins de la Mort”.  Not a traditional flesh-eating zombie based movie, this is still always mentioned when people bring up zombie films from the seventies.  Oddly enough, even though the premise is very similar to that of Romero’s “The Crazies”, people don’t consider Romero's film to be a zombie film.  Even though it was a million years before this.  People are dumb.  Anyways, take “The Crazies”, throw in a dash of “Manchester Morgue”, add a famous French porn starlet, and you get "The Grapes of Death".  Let’s see what happens when we throw in a dash of Starkwell and Lovelock.

[...]

Starkwell: If it is possible for a guy to have both the worst hair and the worst moustache, I think that guy has done it.

[...]

[Ugly Guy is not feeling well, foreman says, “Back to work, we get new airtight masks tomorrow.”]

Starkwell: Why would they be working without airtight masks?

Lovelock: Times were tough, not everyone can afford such luxuries.

[...]

[Ugly Guy runs into our heroine on the train.  His face is melting.]

Lovelock: You think she’s running away from him because his face is melting, or because his hair and moustache make him look like a rapist?

Starkwell: Probably a little bit of both.

[...]

The pace was, deliberate, at best.  As Elisabeth flees the train into the French countryside, she stumbles upon a farm house, where the farmer has a melty hand.  I should mention Starkwell was angry that many shots appeared to be out of focus.

[...]

[Farm Guy kills his daughter after she tries to help Elisabeth.]

Starkwell: Obviously he had to rip her shirt off first.

Lovelock: Well… yeah to show that she had sores just like him…

Starkwell: Obviously the sores were next to her breasts.

[...]

Lovelock: The French countryside looks lovely… well, except for the melty homicidal maniacs.

[...]

Starkwell and Lovelock weren’t saying very much.  It’s hard to have much to say when not much is happening on screen.  That being said, I wouldn’t say they weren’t still somehow enjoying it.

[...]

[Elisabeth runs into wandering blind girl.]

Starkwell: Oh yeah, blind girl that needs constant help and talks loud… that’s not going to get old real fast.

[...]

[Blind Girl finds her husband.]

Starkwell: His “sores” look more like runny crepe batter.

Lovelock: Well he is French, maybe he’s not sick, maybe he was just whipping up a batch of crepes…

[He nails her to a door, topless, chops off her head.]

Lovelock: Scratch that.  Unless he needs her head for his crepes.

Starkwell: Of course she’s topless.

[...]

[Brigitte Lahaie strips down to prove to The Vigilantes that she has no sores.]

Starkwell: Obviously…

Lovelock: Hey, just be thankful that it’s Brigitte Lahaie and not a dude.

Starkwell: I love that even the on-screen characters are like "you didn't have to strip, you know."

[...]

Starkwell: Lesson number one, if the fake severed head looks that fake, probably would be wise not to have such a long close-up of it.

[...]

Lovelock just fell asleep.  The Two Dudes that rescued Elisabeth and are now bringing her to her vineyard.  Somehow, they manage to IMMEDIATELY figure out, EASILY, that all of this must be caused by the wine… as if it was somehow obvious.  It wasn’t.  Well, not to the viewers anyways, unless you've read the back of the box.

[...]

[Gun Dude shoots Elisabeth’s fiancé, because his face is melting.  Elisabeth then decides to kill Gun Dude.  All of the noise wakes Lovelock up.]

Lovelock: I guess I’m still half asleep, everything looks all blurry.

Starkwell: No no, that’s still just the terrible camera work.

[...]

Then the movie ends.

Zombie Lake.

Well, the time has already come to attack another Rollin film.  Granted this one isn’t actually credited to Rollin.  It’s credited to some kind of Rollin-Laserna hybrid called J.A. Laser. Anyways, “Le Lac des Mort Vivants” a.k.a. “Zombie Lake” is supposedly the worst of the Aquatic Nazi Zombie movies (yes, it is actually a recognized sub-genre), but we’re here to find out if there is any truth to that claim.  It’s a pretty dismal playing field from what we’ve seen, so being the worst would be quite an accomplishment.  Let’s do this.  At least we won’t need subtitles because of our aforementioned French speaking capabilities.  Oh yeah, this was produced in 1981…

[...]

[Movie opens with a girl stripping and swimming around, until a Nazi zombie drowns her.  I know that it’s a Nazi because of the movie’s title.  If not for that, I would assume he was a witch from a bad children’s’ television program, or Lou Ferrigno.]

Starkwell: Why would the zombie need to take such a big breath when he pops up… isn’t already dead?

Lovelock: Maybe he was silently roaring?

Starkwell: Seems like they made this movie as an excuse to film naked women with an underwater camera.

Lovelock: Was that a criticism?

Starkwell: That’s the worst looking zombie I have ever seen.

[...]

[Zombie bites a girl’s neck.  Villagers take the dead body to the Mayor.]

Starkwell: The bite mark is on the opposite side of where the Incredible Hulk bit her…

Lovelock: Who needs continuity when you have Nazi zombies and boobies?

Starkwell: Obviously NOT this film’s production team.

[...]

Lovelock and Starkwell fell asleep during a long love sequence.  There were boobies and everything, but as Lovelock said, “if I want to see a simulated sex scene, I will watch a soft core porno that doesn’t feature green Nazi zombies slurping ketchup off female necks”.

[...]

[They woke up from horrible overly French music, and just into time to see a large group of girls going skinny dipping in the lake.  Nazi zombies are on the prowl.]

Starkwell: At least someone is having fun.

Lovelock: That Nazi kicked the other one in the head.  It clearly moved his green bathing cap. They’re still taking breaths before they go underwater…

Starkwell: So… much…nudity…

[...]

[Nazi zombie walks into house and gives a little girl his necklace.]

Lovelock: What the… ? What is this fucking movie!?!?!?!

Starkwell: Based on the story, acting and quantity of nudity, it is a porno.  Sadly, the lack of actual pornography in it just makes it a terrible movie.

[...]

[Zombies rise out of the water and attack the cops.]

Starkwell: Holy shit, one of them just adjusted their fake nose.

Lovelock: Are they attacking that cop or making out with his neck and face?

[...]

The zombies came out of the water and started tearing up the town.  By tearing up the town, of course, I mean gingerly pushing chairs over at the local watering hole.  I should mention that in this montage of zombie action (I use that term loosely) we see many more pairs of French breasts.  Starkwell definitely has one foot out the door.  The novelty of this film wore off of Lovelock about ten boobies ago.  Considering how they just rose from the water in those thick army jackets, “they all look remarkably dry”, noted Starkwell. The villagers form a posse to take out the Nazi zombies.

[...]

[Posse is formed.]

Starkwell: Is it just me, or is the posse made up entirely of old people, and winos, and pussies?

Lovelock: Well, it is France.

[...]

[The zombies are shown underwater in the lake.]

Starkwell: Apparently the lake has an underwater light on its concrete wall.

[Zombies rise from the water.]

Lovelock: Either that is the exact same shot as before, or that one zombie can’t seem to keep his nose on.

[...]

[Who the hell knows what is even happening anymore, but apparently necklace girl can save everyone with a bucket of blood.]

Lovelock: That blood looks like tomato soup.

Starkwell: This is the dumbest plan I’ve ever seen.

Lovelock: But look!  It worked!

Starkwell: Unlike this movie, which doesn't.

[...]

Then there were some of the worst fire effects ever committed to film, and then it ended.  When the highlight of a zombie film is the early eighties eurosex/ nudity scenes, it is safe to say that you have a bad zombie film.  This is one of the worst movies that I have ever seen.  Case closed.  Well, actually, the soundtrack was pretty rad.

The Living Dead Girl.

Infamous French director Jean Rollin is definitely an acquired taste.  Whether or not I have acquired this taste remains to be seen, but I figured now was as good a time as any to expose Starkwell and Lovelock to some of his work.  “La Morte Vivante” is presented here in widescreen on this ‘Redemption’ release.  We speak French, so subtitles are not necessary.  When you tell it to play the movie, we are immediately presented with a shot-on-video ‘Redemption’ intro of a naked large breasted woman, covered in blood, whose implant scars are clearly defined, being, well, molested by some kind of vampire thing… This had better not be an indication of the quality of the movie.

[...]

[Grave robber falls and hits his head, worst acting ever, chemicals spill on dead girl, she reanimates, pokes his eyes out.]

Lovelock: That’s why I don’t rob graves.

Starkwell: Wait, that’s why?

[...]

[Wannabe Actress, who claims to be an aspiring photographer, throws temper tantrum.  No one seems concerned that a random girl in a night gown is walking around slowly in a field.]

Starkwell: Wait, so that didn’t strike her as odd?

Lovelock: What do you mean? She took out her big zoom lens.

[...]

[The real estate agent, in Dead Girl's house, investigates a noise, realizes that it’s a rocking horse that is moving on its own, she simply smiles and stops it from further rocking.]

Starkwell: The characters in this movie don’t seem to question things all that much.

Lovelock: Yeah, it’s called realism.

Starkwell: Wait, what?

[...]

In true Rollin fashion, the movie is moving now at a snail’s pace.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s well shot, the music is adequate, and the atmosphere is as eerie as it gets.  One might say that the movie oozes forward at a deliberate pace.

[...]

[A couple enters the empty house in order to make some sex.  But, hold on a minute, Living Dead Girl is inside!  And she’s playing the piano!  Eventually she slays them.]

Lovelock: I guess it wouldn’t be a Rollin movie without full frontal nudity.  Unfortunately, this time male frontal nudity is also included.

Starkwell: So wait, they hear a piano sound and assume it’s nothing?

Lovelock: See, that’s why I don’t go and have sex in abandoned castles in the French countryside.

Starkwell: Wait, that’s why?

[...]

It’s hard to imagine why it would be necessary for the girls in this movie to be naked all the time, or why they would need to show one girl washing the other naked with her bare hands, or what would drive a person to cover up a double homicide for her weird bloodsucking mute lesbian lover, the Dead Girl, or how someone could react so calmly to everything that she is witnessing, but all of it is happening at breakneck speed.  Well, that is if breakneck means super slow, which it doesn’t.  And then Lesbian Lover lets Dead Girl suck her blood.

[...]

[Wannabe Actress finally starts asking around about the creepy girl she photographed in the field.  Her boyfriend Professor Mustache, a.k.a. Captain America, pretty much makes fun of her.  Nonstop.]

Starkwell: Nancy Drew is on the case!

Lovelock: Dead Girl’s kill count is shamefully low.

Starkwell: This movie should be called the Boring Dead Girl.

[...]

[Lesbian Lover pretends to be stranded on the roadside in order to get a meal for Dead Girl.  Good Samaritan, who pulled over to help stranded Lesbian lover, starts freaking out when Lesbian Lover gets all crazy on her ass.]

Lovelock: Now that’s why I don’t help people stranded on the road with a broken down car.  Somewhere in the middle of nowhere in France.  In the early 1980s.

Starkwell: Yeah.  That’s why.

[...]

[Dead Girl tears Good Samaritan apart.]

Starkwell: The scream sounds completely different from one cut to another.

Lovelock: The screams sound different from upstairs.  

Starkwell: But it  sounds like a completely different voice!

Lovelock: It’s called realism.

[...]

Then there was an incredibly awkward cut, where Dead Girl shakes her head and screams, and then it immediately replays the same cut over again, in slow motion, with a lot of reverb on her scream.  I think some milk shot out of Lovelock’s nose.

[...]

[After her encounter with Dead Girl and Lesbian Lover, Wannabe Actress runs away, top speed.]

Lovelock: Good thing she’s wearing that track suit.

Starkwell: Why didn’t she just get back on her bicycle?

[...]

[Dead Girl asks Lesbian Lover to kill her.]

Starkwell: Oh for the love of God, please do it!

Lovelock: Put her out of her misery, and, as a result, put us out of ours.

[...]

[Randomly the movie then cuts to a French folk band called the Fireflies.  It goes on for a really long time.  Let’s assume the band were friends of Jean Rollin’s.]

Lovelock: Did you change the channel?

Starkwell: Well, for starters, it’s a DVD, and secondly… why would the other channels be in French?

Lovelock: There's never anything good on anymore.

[...]

As the music video continues playing out, Lesbian Lover searches for a lonely vulnerable woman to feed to Dead Girl.  Lovelock and Starkwell continue to search for a reason to keep watching. Lesbian Lover kills the woman to feed Dead Girl, making sure to expose the victim’s enhanced breasts.  Rollin makes sure to focus on these breasts at great length.  This is not helping Lovelock and Starkwell’s quest.

[...]

[Wannabe Actress’ face is set on fire, and she practically explodes, and then dives into the castle's moat.  Captain America gets an ax to the face.]

Lovelock: That was honestly the best thirty seconds I’ve had in a long time.

[...]

[Dead Girl finally eats Lesbian Lover.]

Lovelock: Is it just me, or did this movie turn out amazing.

Starkwell: If Lesbian Lover really would be willing to do all of that for Dead Girl, and doesn't want to live without her, then where the Hell has she been for the last twenty years?

Lovelock: Are you not watching this lengthy flesh eating scene?  Seriously, does anything else really matter at this point?  Oh shit, she ate her finger!

[...]

While there was a little too much bad acting and random screaming throughout the movie, overall, it was alright.  Lovelock wants to re-watch the last scene again, but with the sound off.  Seriously, half of this movie is women screaming.  I think a quarter of it is people looking confused.  At least one eighth is boobies.  In any case, both Lovelock and Starkwell have expressed interest in seeing more from Jean Rollin.  Starkwell is still wondering what happened to Wannabe Actress' bicycle.  Maybe they were planning on a sequel.