French Zombies

MUTANTS-2008-Gory full of its self 28 DAYS LATER inspired horror film from France. Sonia (Helene de Fougerolles), a doctor and her boyfriend Marco (Francis Renaud) hide in some kind of medical building while an airborne virus turns The French populace  into zombies. Sonia, who seems to be immune to the disease gets a message from NOAH, a military/scientific recovery group that they are on the way to rescue the pair. Unfortunately Marco becomes infected. He gets weaker and weaker, his hair and teeth fall out and he vomits blood. Finally he becomes a raving lunatic that pisses blood. Sonia decides to kill him but relents at the last minute and locks him in the basement (so don't go in the basement...). Later two idiots Franck and Nico show up. Sonia and Frank go to an underground radio base so she can send an SOS while Franck fights off some (unintentionally comical) mutants with a machete'. They return but Frank and Nico beat her up until a pack of mutants attack (they seem to have been called by Marco, still in the basement). The finale is a sick CGI video game inspired drawn out chase/battle. 

Director David Morlet obviously thought he was doing something great and by the reviews I've seen he wasn't wrong. It must be me....

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Round and Round

THE IRON ROSE-(La Rose De Fer)-1973 -A couple (Francoise Pascal and  Hugues Quester) meet at a wedding. After running around some railroad cars they decide to take a stroll through a cemetery. They have a picnic there and talk about death and graves and morbid subjects. It's a scary looking place that has some unusual visitors like a guy in a long cape and a circus clown! The two find an unoccupied underground mausoleum and have sex there. When they're done night has fallen. Soon they discover they can not find their way out of the graveyard (kind of like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT). The rest of the film has them going round and round, their panic and fear growing until they literally begin to fight each other (although they do find time to make out among old bones and skulls). Later the girl (possessed or insane?) locks her lover in the underground grave, does a ballet dance around the still dark graveyard then joins him in the tomb. Hmmmmm???

Cult director Jean Rollin (ZOMBIE LAKE) was known more his nude sex vampire movies (all three of which are missing in THE IRON ROSE) but this is more of a well photographed art film with horror trappings. It's not terrible. Just something you might not be expecting if you settled in to watch a film by a director known for things like CAGED VIRGINS, LIPS OF BLOOD and CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD.

I thought the clown would show up again!

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