English Version

There is a very bad start in "La morte vivante". Two thieves, a crypt, toxic waste that ends up on a grave awakening a dead girl. She came out from the grave she begins a bloodbath made with very bas special effects.

After the situation worsened with some pointless sex scene and naked bodies. The doubt that "Le lac des morts vivants" has shot down definitively Jean Rollin came soon, as well as the fact that the French director, once again, is in a production that crushes his ideas.
As time passed, however, "La Morte Vivante" turns the situation and goes deep, net of a poor production, of some situation useless and a direction not at the best of the performances of the French director.

Jean Rollin tells us one of his most significant stories, distressing, poetic, dramatic and bloody. A story centered on friendship and memory, a theme already developed in his previous works.
The producers wanted another zombie movie and the director that has ever loved so much the theme, transform the protagonist in a kind of vampire zombies. A poor budget and the producers that run away before the end of the production leaving Rollin with bills to pay and with a movie to complete in some way and to please audience.
The audience is really strange, they snub a movie like "Fascination" but love a movie like this in which art has to deal with the commercial aspect. The result instead is good, in the sense that "La morte Vivante" is one of the biggest Rollin’s commercial successes.

Under an aspect not so exciting, as we said, we can see a deep story well played by Françoise Blanchard (protagonist of several genre movies) and by the Italian Marina Pierro faithful actress of Walerian Borowczyk, theater actress, director and writer. A great artist that Rollin met a year before starting the filming of this work in a Film Festival in which she and Borowczyk were presenting "Docteur Jekyll et Miss Osbourne." A very good intuition of French director although the Pierro is a second choice, which comes after the resounding no (she didn’t want to work with him) of Teresa Ann Savoy.

The two women are the best and winning aspect of "La morte Vivante". The French actress is Catherine Valmont the girl who comes back to life thanks to the toxic waste. Marina Pierro instead is Helene a childhood friend of the first that finds a catatonic Catherine at home.
At first Helene thinks that her friend is not dead but it's just disappeared. But the bloodlust of Catherine that takes her toll on victims reveals the grim reality. Helene doesn’t want to lose her friend and find for her something to eat, to a dramatic and surprising end.
At this interesting narrative strand central Rollin unfortunately add the useless and boring figure of two American tourists who coincidentally discover what happened and begin to investigate. Several nude and sex scenes complete "La Morte Vivante".

The direction by Rollin is not convincing as in some of his well-known episodes and also the cinematography reflect the classic problems that have accompanied the career of the director. It’s a pity, because as mentioned above the core of this movie, it’s very attractive and the surprising ending definitely affects the viewer.