 Hello and welcome to another edition of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies and today we have a Patreon requested movie. This is requested by Gonzalo Valdez, he's an old school fan, right from the beginning, he's been with us. He wants us to cover La Morte Vivante, which is a French film which translates to Living Dead Girl, which came out in 1982. The movie starts off where we see like this van driving these bums, like they all get out, they're all drinking. It reminds me of like an 80s version of the standard universal movie where this opens up with the grave robber bums and show up and everything. That's right, yeah. These are just the shitty 80s version. These guys roll in all this toxic waste illegally dumping this waste in these crypts where people are buried. They also get into the coffins of these two women, start robbing them and like the one guy opens up the one coffin and he's like, oh, she's so beautiful. They're like not decomposed or anything, they're like pristine looking. Yeah, they still have like their color to them and everything, like... An earthquake happens, some of that toxic waste dumps over and starts leaking into the bodies. Her hand comes up and it takes out the guy's eyes and he's just... Oh, shit. The guy jumps up and he's got no eyes and he's like... The other guy slips and falls into that toxic waste shit and his face gets all burnt and melted all up. Just slowly wanders out of the crypt and just starts wandering the fields. There's two sort of shitty like American tourists who are just sitting in the middle of the nowhere. Yeah, he's wearing these shitty shoes too. She starts taking pictures of the field and she notices this woman walking through. Later on back in town, she starts asking the townspeople about this woman that she's caught in the photos. Oh, that's Catherine and she used to live up at that castle and she's been dead for years now. So it really starts to intrigue her more and more to the point where she's gonna start investigating. There's a realtor that's trying to sell this castle talking about the crypts and how there's people buried. Other people buying the castle with the family buried there still? Like, that's too weird. But get them all dug up and thrown in the garbage. The living dead girl wanders back looking at old pictures that she had. There's an old music box that she opens up. She starts to think back about having a friend did like a blood oath with her that they'd be friends forever. So this real estate agent is a little on the horny side and gets her boyfriend back at this castle because I guess it's a place to have some fun. It's a free spot. The camera pans and she's just totally naked. Like in one second she's just noon as quick. They start getting it on in the couch and they're super not having sex. She's like basically just humping his leg. Catherine the living dead girl sits behind this piano and starts playing it. Boyfriend gets up to go look and starts coming back and he comes in and he's all shredded up. Catherine kills the realtor on the steps of the castle. We get introduced to Helen which is Catherine's old friend. She's on those flashbacks and she's calling the castle to check on the sale of the castle to talk with the realtor. Catherine answers doesn't say anything but starts playing that music box. Catherine is that you? But there's no answer. She's not answering her so then she gets in her car, drives to the castle and sees this body laid out on the steps. Runs into the castle and sees Catherine sitting at the piano playing this kind of tune. How is this possible? How are you alive? Did you fake your death? What? He takes her upstairs and bathes her. She's covered in this blood and gets her clean and trying to figure out what's going on. Bathing her on that balcony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone can be seen this? Catherine starts to get this kind of pain, this agony. And then goes back down to the crypt and starts feeding off the blood of one of the grave robbers. Helen follows her and realizes what's going on. She needs this blood. Helen decides to help Catherine seek out the blood. Give me the blood lord! Get people in to feed Catherine. That's where we're going to end the plot. If you want to see how La Morta Vivante, a.k.a. Living Dead Girl, ends, watch the movie. This movie was directed by Jean Roland and he did quite a bit of things, but notably he did four classic vampire movies. French vampire movies in a row, like just back to back. Marina Perot stars in this as Helen and she's done tons of stuff. She's just basically a super accomplished Italian actress. Francois Blanchard plays Catherine in this, the Living Dead Girl. And again, she's done tons of stuff, but she did a lot of voiceover works for American movies that were put into French. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Popeye and Hackers and stuff like that. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being French, that'd be kind of a crazy trip. Yeah, especially all that slang like gnarly and all that. Radical, like what would that be in French? Yeah, yeah. Radical. Yeah, yes. The same thing just with an accent. Cowabunga! I wonder how they translated the scene where Casey Jones and Donatello are making fun of each other in alphabetical order. Gack face. Hose brain. But we're getting off topic. One of the first things that you'll notice about this movie is the fact that it's got an artsy quality to it. The way it's shot, the way it's lit, even the death scenes are extremely artsy, right? The way the blood splatters and the way the bodies are laid out, right? Like the woman on the stairs and the way the blood is dribbling. This specific artsy way to make it look beautiful, but horrific at the same time. To be more poignant, right? Everything about this movie is extremely poignant. And kind of beautiful. Yeah. It's a gory but beautiful movie, you know? The locations of this movie are fantastic. Like come on, that castle, it just screams character. And same thing with the crypts, those underground crypts. I love how there's always just lit torches. Yeah. Who's lighting those torches? Yeah, exactly. Who's replacing them all the time? Even the town is kind of neat, right? I'd like to drink in that town, like sit outside and have a beer and watch the town go by. Because they're having that little party in the town and everyone's drinking wine. And you're like, I want to be there drinking wine, watching that shitty band playing. Yeah, that polka band. It's super not really playing. But there's no one singing in the song? The pacing for this movie is very different. The structure of it is different than most movies. Interesting. It's not Hollywood cookie cutter pacing at all. Exactly. And they do a great job of gripping you in with the first couple of kills with the grave robbers. And then the movie sort of levels out a bit and it gets quiet. And you get a chance to learn about the characters. Hit you in the face and then it just dials itself right back. And then something else crazy will happen. Another crazy kill with all this gore. Like when the couple gets killed in the house. And then again it dials right back down when Helen finds Catherine and it just becomes all plot again. All plot and characters. And then something else happens. It's like a really big roller coaster. Everything in this movie happens for a reason too. Like the kills aren't just throw away kills, right? It leads to something more. The two main characters in this movie are really good. Helen and Catherine. And they're very interesting because there's not much dialogue to drive these characters. It's very silent movie. But it's all about the flashbacks where you learn about their childhood friendship. When Helen finds out that Catherine's not actually dead or revived from the dead. She doesn't know which. That friendship gets rekindled. Like what a bizarre friendship. They went from being best friends to best friends again. But in this weird caretaker of a dead person way. But you care for them. It's weird how you care for this dead girl. You care for a living dead girl. And you care for Helen too. I like how the characters start out being one thing. And then as the movie progresses Catherine gets more and more disillusioned with having to kill. And the roles kind of reverse. And Helen's into killing and bringing her the bodies and the blood. Give me the blood lord! That's what she wants to do. It's a really neat role reversal. She gets revived by this toxic waste kind of technically makes her a zombie. It's almost more a vampire movie because it has that vampire romanticism about living forever and drinking blood. Also having to deal mentally with the idea of having to kill forever. It's more of a vampire movie disguised as a zombie movie. It's almost the director's fifth vampire movie in a way. Yeah. Almost see this movie being a precursor to return of the living dead. The toxic waste gets dumped and revives the dead. And then also the fact that there is this pain that the dead feels. The suffering. The suffering. But in this case it's blood that eases the suffering as opposed to return of the living dead. It's the brains. You really see that connection watching this movie. Yeah for sure. It's a cool parallel. The gore and the effects are really good in this movie too. And like we had mentioned before already everything has its place. Everything's on purpose. Red for the blood is bright. Yeah that red talion. Yeah that Italian blood. Blood's too red. And the kills the way she uses her hands her nails. Her fingernails which have been growing while she's been dead. And she uses like brute force to kill. Really cool. Every kill is really bloody and gory. Which is really what it would be. And the neat thing about this movie too as gory as it is it's just as sexy. This movie is super sexy. It reeks sex. There's a lot of that sex scene. There's a lot of nudity. All the women are sexy. You see a lot of breasts. They still manage to keep it classy though. But it's not smut right? No it is classy. On a whole is pretty quiet and simple right? The dialogue for this movie is pretty damn scant. There's almost nothing. But it's just enough to drive each scene. There's a lot of quiet moments in this movie where it's just like Catherine wandering around the castle. And there's barely any music. But it doesn't need it. You don't miss the music. No. It makes you really kind of feel the deadness of the living dead girl. It's supposed to be that you feel just as alone as she does. Slowly being dead. Tough making friends. And the ending for this movie is fantastic and you won't see it coming. You expect this movie to end one way and it ends. And then there's this long panned out shot at the end. And you're just like that's how they ended it. Oh crazy. And you're like good on you for ending it like that. You feel satisfied at the end you know. It's like yes I got my money's worth on this one. So if you want a movie that's very stylistic, very sexy, gory. It's to the point. And it'll make you think. Then check out 1982's La Morte Vivante. AKA the living dead girl. That's right. And damn you Rob Zombie. I'm right here with that title now. I think of living dead girl. And on that note, keep drinking.