La morte vivante (1982)

Directed by: Jean Rollin

Writers: Jacques Ralf, Jean Rollin

I can't think of many film directors that go about ruining great ideas with such enthusiasm as Jean Rollin. His films always feature interesting scenery (you know, country, nature, old castles, that sort of crap), vampires, zombies, some kind of implicit or explicit lesbian romance, gruesome killings etc... and all of them are mind numbingly boring. Honestly, I don't remember ever watching one of his movies without wishing to be somewhere far away, like Siberia or something.

 

Takes this one for example - there's this castle somewhere in France (I guess) and it contains this crypt where some people are buried. But lo! - some thieves accidentally spill some toxic waste in there and all of a sudden this young girl comes to life (you know, she was kinda dead before that, hence the title of the movie). There's also this dead old woman who for some reason doesn't come to life, despite being treated with the same toxic waste. So what does our newly alive friend do? Well, naturally, as in all Jean Rollin films, she has to drink blood to survive (even though she's actually dead - notice the paradox?).

 

But there's a "twist" - long time ago, this living dead girl was involved with some other girl, they were great friends, blah blah blah, actually I think Rollin implies that they were lovers, but of course we don't see any hot makeout session to convince us. Anyway, the zombie (vampire?) girl telephones her "friend", and she immediately comes to the castle and starts picking up unsuspecting victims to feed her friend/lover. This leads to some hilariously cheesy killings, but in between them Rollin insists on torturing us with some zombie lesbian introspective drama crap which I'm sure nobody gives a crap about because there are simply no steamy lesbian scenes to keep us interested. "Oh, I'm alive!". "Oh, I'm dead!". "Oh, life is so cruel!". "Oh, death is so cruel!". I mean, as Guns 'n' Roses would say - back off, bitch! We don't care!

 

As this semi-lesbian "drama" never develops into anything substantial, our only source of entertainment are the horribly directed murder scenes. Lots of people die and near the end of the movie I think some of the main characters (an irritating photographer and her even more irritating jerk of a boyfriend) also die and I think that the living dead girl decided that she's dead after all, but don't hold me on that, I don't remember the ending too clearly. I've already forgotten many things that happened here, and if I'm lucky, I think I might be able to completely erase this movie from my memory by the end of the year. You can do your part by not watching it in the first place. If I ever find a Jean Rollin movie that's not completely worthless, you'll be the first to know.

Android (1982)

Directed by: Aaron Lipstadt

Writers: James Reigle, Don Opper, Will Reigle (idea)

It may come as a shock after reading the movie's title, but this one is actually about an android (!), but... wait for it... an android being aware of his own mortality and wanting to escape it, if it's all hum..., sorry, androidly possible. Now where have we seen that before... oh yeah, that obscure Ridley Scott movie that conveniently appeared in theatres just a few months before this one. I'm sure it was just one big coincidence.

 

Be that as it may, Android is a film about Max, who's an android. I'm not exactly sure exactly at which point of the movie are we supposed to realize that, because someone told me that just as the movie started. But anyway, once you see his walk, there's no doubt anymore. Anyone who walks like that can be nothing but android. The movie credits even outrageously claim that Max is played "by himself" (meaning - by a real android), but after checking the IMDb I realized it was not the case - it was actually Don Opper, one of the writers. Darn you, guys, you almost had me fooled!!11

 

Where was I? Oh, yes. Max works and lives on a distant space station where his boss and creator, an excentric dr. Daniel, played by Klaus Kinski, conducts some illegal experiments related to the creation of artificial human life or something (read: androids). For some reason, the good doctor is in a desperate need of a fresh living human female, but those incompetent uneducated bastards from Earth don't know the first thing about science, so they refuse to make the delivery and the good doctor's project is on the way to its demise.

 

Klaus Kinski actually wants to create a female android more perfect than Max, because he belongs to a series that has a slight defect, causing its members to start killing and raping women and stuff. After the successful creation of the female robot, he would shut Max down. However, Max overhears his monologue about this.

 

In the meantime, a group of runaway convicts appears and seeks refuge in the station. Kinski is at first pissed off that Max has let them in, but gets all sweet when he realises that one of them is a woman. After spying on her while she was changing, his instruments show that she's an almost perfect match for what he needs (we are never told what exactly it is). Then various bad stuff happens and many people die, which illustrates the fragility of human life.

 

As you may expect, the acting is mostly horrible, Don Opper and his front teeth look absolutely ridiculous, but at least he gives us a few laughs along the way. The story is unspectacular, but it does the job of keeping you awake and also serves a major plot twist towards the end about which we don't give a rat's ass because we don't care about any of the characters anyway. There's great sexual tension which unfortunately never fully develops into anything concrete, but there is some pointless nudity to make up for that.

 

My favorite thing, of course, is the portrait of the future technology. Serious science fiction films suffer a great deal for that aging thing - as you can't create new technology, you have to use what's available at the moment, even when a movie takes place in distant future. No matter how inventive you are, your film will look ridiculous after twenty years or more - the most obvious example being, say, movies that take place in 2000's in which computers don't appear because the movie was made 30 or 40 years ago. However, I think low budget B-movies actually profit from this, as it adds to their goofy charm. Look at how Max plays a space shooter video game with graphics straight from the early 80's, how the doctor doesn't use a laptop or anything similar but keeps his notes in a good old-fashioned notebook, look at the clothes they're wearing, the portrayal of spaceships, etc. Android is a rather silly movie, but one you'll probably enjoy.