French film maker Jean Rollin has died (Dec. 15). He was known for his erotic, surreal, blood-splattered horror films. While I found some of Rollin’s movies an uneasy and often tedious mix of high and low art, there is no denying that Rollin had a poetic touch and transgressive sensibility that transformed even his lesser films into compelling experiences of varying degree.  Imagine a collaboration between Bergman, Radley Metzger and Herschell Gordon Lewis. There was always something memorably bizarre in all of Rollin’s work.

Film enthusiast and former member of legendary punk pioneers The Flesheaters, Chris D. posted this brief eulogy for Rollin on the New Texture blog:

Director Jean Rollin died today. He was responsible for many incredibly beautiful, poetic images in French films and was looked down on/ignored by the French film industry for decades as only a purveyor of trash. He didn’t direct any unqualified masterpieces, but he was a poet and a visionary and deserves to be remembered fondly for creating some of the most beautiful, simultaneously melancholic, creepy, haunting images of pure poetry in French cinema from the mid-1960s to the present.”

While Rollin’s best films, in my opinion, involved vampires, The Grapes Of Death (1978) is an unusual approach to the world of zombies. Unlike most zombie flicks, Rollin has crafted a film in which zombies are emotional creatures who actually feel remorse for their actions.

As is usually the case with any film directed by Jean Rollin, The Grapes Of Death has sumptuous cinematography and sexually charged imagery. Enjoy.