I watched The Living Dead Girl a few weeks ago and enjoyed it. It was a solid, art-housey zombie flick that worked well for me. Shortly thereafter, in an unrelated search I came across Revenge of the Living Dead Girls. It turns out the two are completely unrelated - despite the similar title, Revenge has no pretensions of being artsy, or really being all that scary. It was promoted as being France's first gore film, and the gore aspect here is okay. Much of the promotional materials/reviews focus on the zombie-sexpots and the gratuitous 80s nudity, so if that's your thing you won't be terribly disappointed. But to really enjoy Revenge of the Living Dead Girls, you'd have to be a huge fan of being confused, because there is very little that makes sense here.
For the record, I was debating on just making this entry a list of unanswered questions - logic is not this movies strong suite. Sometimes, if the vibe of the film is right, being confusing can be kind of fun. You can just get lost in the story and/or the visuals and enjoy it. But Revenge of the Living Dead Girls just completely disregards any sort of rationality, and there isn't enough pizzazz in the proceedings to let you give it a pass. It doesn't look particularly good, the characters kind of suck, and it's rather boringly shot. Yes, there is plenty of gore and plenty of nudity. But you need *something* to hang your hat on, you know?
The story is at least accessible. A shipment of milk is poisoned by a mysterious motorcyclist. Three girls drink the milk and die. When some chemical waste from the milk factory is disposed of in the graveyard, the three girls come back to life, seeking revenge on everyone involved with their death/reanimation. That's pretty much it.
But the girls really don't follow zombie-logic as we know it. They seem way more intelligent than normal zombies - rather than just indiscriminately killing anyone who gets in their way, they seem to know (a) who was responsible for their deaths, (b) where those people live, and (c) how to get there without causing a fuss. They also crawl back into their graves at night, and only come back to life when more chemical waste is dumped back on them. Sometimes they eat people like classic zombies, and sometimes they just use whatever is around to kill their victims. (For instance, have you ever wanted to see a zombie drown someone in a pool and then just leave? This is the film for you.) They've got gross, wrinkly zombie faces, but sometimes normal hands. But the rest of their body is fine (and on display in the lesbian-zombie sex scene), maybe just a little dirty. So we're obviously dealing with non-traditional living dead, but don't hope for any explanation...
Probably my favorite thing about the movie was how it gets down and dirty into the shady business tactics in the milk industry. It seems to be full of backstabbing, sex, and corporate espionage. The milk company apparently just has an army of call girls for hire - the boss misses the days when he "didn't have to throw in a girl to make a sale." A sale of milk, mind you. Also, I don't know a lot about milk production, but I would like to think that it doesn't create toxic waste that would reanimate the dead. Another reason to be vegan, I guess. But as the cop investigating the crime says - "I've got to check out every single possibility, including milk pollution."
The gore is okay. It's not as ever-present as you may expect, but Revenge of the Living Dead Girls bills itself as a gore film... and I guess it just meets your expectations. It's more nasty in terms of what happens, rather than the visuals themselves. In the synopsis, imdb has it listed that the film has "grown into a legend as being one of the sickest and most perverse of zombie films." While I think "legendary" is overselling it, is is pretty gross at times. For example, the scene of a guy getting his dick bitten off probably ranks third in the worst "reproductive system-related horror" in the film. So even though the movie kind of sucks, it's kind of admirable in a weird way that they can top that not once, but twice. But really, those three instances are the *only* memorable parts. So it's more about "quality" than quantity here.
Otherwise, there isn't an awful lot to get worked up about. The characters are surprisingly unlikeable. Nearly everyone in this film is a bad person - everyone is either a corporate asshole, or cheating on their spouses, or taking part in some shady scheme. It'd be okay if they were interesting, but nope! Everyone is pretty one-note and unrealistic. The milk-factory scientist (the closest thing we have to a hero) is really stupid - he gets a little toxic waste on his hand, but rather than doing anything about it, he just lets it sit there for days while it slowly eats away his skin. He's also cheating on his very pregnant wife, when he's not busy violently shaking her. What a guy!
Apparently, there are a couple of different cuts floating around out there. The one I watched was listed at 90 minutes, but ran about 74. Apparently, the uncut version has much more sex and nudity - the version I watched had a fair amount, and I feel like I saw enough. BUT - in the uncut version there is a different ending (listed separately on my DVD as an alternate ending). It's interesting, in that the alternate ending changes virtually everything that led up to it. The standard ending just leaves a whole bunch of little plot holes and random questions about what was going on and why - honestly, it's a more fitting ending because it doesn't make any sense, just like the rest of the film. But the alternate ending answers a lot of those nagging questions, but leaves a GIANT plot hole in it's wake. So I don't know which is preferable. Not like you have a choice on this DVD anyways.
Overall, I can't get too worked up about this film. You read things like "zombie sexpots" and "consummate shocker of horror and sex" and get (rightfully) excited. And while the gore is adequate, it's not worth wading through all of the other stuff to get there. Sad.
I would not recommend this film.
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