A Virgin Among the Living Dead

Rating:
Summary: Great NOT ZOMBIE movie
Review: This is one of best Franco's films: a poetical, surrealist, oneiric and tragical tale of an orphan girl who so much absorbs people's sorrow that she becomes insane and dies.
However, my review's aim is to make clear some mistakes: 1) it is NOT a zombie-film: the zombie-scenes are included in the dvd only as extras and have been shot by Rollin. So, if you are zombie-fans, avoid this film. 2) The original title was obviously different: A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD is only the producer's title. 3) Avoid the English soundtrack, because the dubbing is bad and the music, which in the original version is very beautiful, is totally different. The French soundtrack (with English subtitles) is absolutely great. 4) The film isn't uncut because when producers added the awful zombie or erotic scenes (which are not included in this dvd) they cut off other sequences or footage, which unfortunately haven't yet been recovered. Nevertheless this is one of the most personal Franco's film. It was shot for Cannes Festival, but its destiny was to be spoilt by producers, in order to sell it in the B-cinema-halls.

Rating:
Summary: Do not confuse this with Fulcis Zombie
Review: this movie is called Zombie 4: Virging among the living dead in most stores, do not be fooled into buying it. It is a slow, horrible movie that honestly goes nowhere. It reminds me a lot of "Revenge of the Dead", which is equally boring..
when the term "Zombie" is used, or "Living Dead" , one would expect zombies to play a key role in the movie, not wait until the movie is over to make thier appearance.

Rating:
Summary: Do not confuse this with Fulcis Zombie
Review: this movie is called Zombie 4: Virging among the living dead in most stores, do not be fooled into buying it. It is a slow, horrible movie that honestly goes nowhere. It reminds me a lot of "Revenge of the Dead", which is equally boring..
when the term "Zombie" is used, or "Living Dead" , one would expect zombies to play a key role in the movie, not wait until the movie is over to make thier appearance.

Rating:
Summary: It's finally on DVD!
Review: WARNING -- This is NOT, I repeat, NOT a Zombie movie. If anyone out there typed "Living Dead" into the Amazon search engine and come up with this little golden nugget Of Jess Franco weirdness, click the back button right now!

I know this movie has been re-titled "Zombie 4" and "Zombie 5" when intercut with footage from the 1980 film "Zombie Lake." But the "Living Dead" of the title refers to Vampires. The original title was "Cristina, Princess of Eroticism," but for some reason, they chose to mislead unsuspecting Zombie movie fans, as well as to reveal cause of the strange goings on we are meant to be wondering about.

I'm a great admirer of Jess Franco. I like to watch his movies, but unfortunately, it's impossible. Not only because he has made over 200 movies, and each one of them has about 5 different titles, but because the overwhelming majority of his films are crap. From what I read about Jess Franco, he would not argue with me on this particular point, because he allegedly believes ALL of his films are crap, whereas I actually like some of them.

The DVD has options to watch the film in its original language with English subtitles (which I didn't do, so I don't know what language that actually is, although I would assume it was French.) or dubbed in English. Most people probably think the preferred viewing option would be subtitles. As you can imagine, the dubbing is pretty atrocious, but there is a very specific reason why someone would want to watch the film this way. This film has been famous for several years (well, famous in a cult-like way) for being the source of many prominant and more lengthy samples on My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult's classic album, "Confessions of a Knife." Long time Thrill Kill Kult fans remember the eerie, "I hear her...she's calling me tonight.." and of course, "I'm blind, but I can see the color of souls, and yours is white," which is still used in their live show today. We've sought after it for years, and it's finally available on DVD! Although, sadly, my fellow TKK fans, the now legendary, "I'm gonna find her! And I'm gonna kill her!" sample is NOT in this film, but if you found that, don't you think you'd only end up disappointed?

Cristina is traveling to visit her extended family in a mansion, and everyone tells her not to go there, because no one lives there. Unless you blocked out the title of the movie, you can probably guess why they think this, even after Cristina arrives, and meets her family members. This movie doesn't have a lot of gore, but plenty of nudity, and general Jess Franco weirdness. The people who live in the house, and some who just hang around for no apparent reason, like to come into Cristina's room while she's sleeping. This never stops her from sleeping naked above her sheets, however, and if it did, it wouldn't be much of a Jess Franco movie.

One such person is Linda, a blind woman who says she wants to help Cristina, although it is never really explained how or why. One morning, Cristina wakes, naked of course, to find a big black dildo on her floor. When she flings it away, Linda says, "Oh, no, you've shattered the great ebony phallus! You are now doomed to eternal misery!" I haven't exactly figured out how Linda knew that Cristina shattered the great ebony phallus, since she is blind. But, since it is never mentioned again, I have to assume one of two things: 1) Linda knew Cristina was doomed to eternal misery anyway, in a mansion with the living dead, and shattering the phallus had nothing to do with it. She just put it there because she knows that a girl who sleeps naked when strangers keep coming into her room might find it useful or 2) Jess Franco wanted to shoot a scene with a naked girl sitting in front of a big black dildo, and wrote in Linda's line in a failed attempt to incorporate it into the plot.

Did I say, "plot"? I didn't mean to. Don't watch this expecting a story to unfold. Like most of his best films, it's a lot of weirdness and very little story. But if you're interested in Jess Franco enough to have looked this up, I would recommend it. It's also a must-see for Thrill Kill Kult fans.