"The Living Dead Girl" review

The Living Dead Girl (1982)

Directed by Jean Rollin
Writing credits Jacques Ralf Jean Rollin

Marina Pierro....Helene
Françoise Blanchard.... Catherine Valmont
Mike Marshall....Greg
Carina Barone.... Barbara Simon

Toxic waste revives a blonde girl from the dead. She becomes "The Living Dead Girl". It also gives her razor sharp fingernails of death. By merely poking someone with her nuclear nails, she can puncture throats with blood gushing efficiency. Unlike other cinematic zombies, she has perfect skin and is naked a lot. If the Living Dead Girl is not naked, she is in her nightgown. Either way, she's the best looking zombie I've seen.

Her childhood friend Helene shows up. They declare their love for each other. Helene can't figure out why her childhood friend is so stand-offish. Then it hits her, her friend wants blood! Helene is a good friend and supplies victims to The Living Dead Girl. Blood, guts and lots of bleeding throats follow.

On the one hand, I appreciated the heavy duty exploitation elements in the movie. Naked woman, blood soaked naked woman, lots of throats gushing blood and other scenes of mayhem. But the Living Dead Girl is so unhappy in her situation that it tends to drag the movie into zombie melodrama land. Not a happy place to be. Once the Living Dead Girl learns to speak again, she won't shut up! Whining and complaining about how she should be dead, she doesn't want to live anymore, blah blah blah. Here you have your best friend getting you all the blood you can chug and all zombie girl can do is bellyache. Fortunately, the blood and guts scenes were evenly spread out with the complaining zombie scenes.

SCORE 2.5 out of 4 zombie girls with fingernails of death