Movie Review: Zombie Lake (1980)

You know, the French love to act and think they’re above the rest of us. With their snooty cuisine and upscale museums and nudie ‘art’. Well I’m here to tell you they’re just a bunch of big pervs, like the rest of us, because 50% of this film could have been used in my Jr. High sex ed classes. My evidence? I submit to you: Le Lac de Zombie.

Zombie Lake is about a quaint little town in France. I don’t remember the name and honestly, do you really care? A young woman stands in a gazebo, possibly waiting for her lover. More likely just standing in weird postures so the camera can get a great angle of her tits and ass. She decides to go skinny dipping in a lake where a sign is posted with a giant skull and cross bones as a warning of some kind. But what does she care for rules? She eez franch. When she is killed by a one-eyed zombie that rises from the lake, we all point and laugh.

Movie Review: L’immortelle (1963, Blu-ray)

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet

How can one accurately review a film that is inherently beyond criticism? The screenwriter behind the prototypical art-house snoozer Last Year at Marienbad (1961), Alain Robbe-Grillet bravely goes beyond mere cinematic syntax to drag the viewer through a series of tableaux that are by themselves beyond comprehension. Seeing that this probably wouldn’t have sold tickets, Robbe-Grillet had the good sense to hire the frostily beautiful Françoise Brion and hinge the story on “kind of, sort of” sexual acts. 

A morose-looking professor (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) arrives in Istanbul. He’s glum and forlorn, a Stranger in a Strange Land. Aforementioned pretty lady (Françoise Brion) gives him a lift. He informs here that he is in Istanbul for the next two years. They go to a party. The camera drifts over several people, they get and leave, the camera is obscured by people walking in front of it, etc. We learn that the professor’s name is Andre. Not knowing anyone, he asks his newfound female friend to translate Turkish. “I don’t know a word of Turkish,” she says, and then turns around and uses perfect Turkish to a tour guide. The professor confronts her and she says something to the effect of “I don’t know Turkish, I only know how to speak Turkish when I talk to the Turks.” I have no idea.

Movie Review: Baise-moi (2000, DVD)

Review By: Rob Sibley

Leave it to the fine folks at Arrow UK to release one of the most controversial French films and give it an all star treatment. This is the first time the film has been presented in widescreen! To that I raise my glass and say bravo Arrow for giving the film it's best release yet! Baise-moi which in French literally translates to English as “Fuck Me”. Was attacked by critics and film goers upon release back in 2000. One could say it started the “new wave” of French films that packed a punch and dealt with pretty nasty material. It's interesting to think how viciously this film was attacked. If only brilliant films like Xavier Gens' masterpiece “Fronteir(s)” or Pascal Laugier's “Martyrs” would have come out that year. French film critics would have had a heart attack.

So the big question is does Baise-moi really deserve all the controversy that surrounded it upon intial release? Even more important is the film good enough to break through it's exploitation roots and become something more grand? To think that this film is still banned in Australia and it's considered a criminal offense if you own it is down right silly.