viscaoccitania

I'm a lifelong and ardent fan of Robert Merle, the writer who thought up Malevil, genre close to "Les Hommes Protégés" when he wasn't writing his historical classic saga "Fortune de France". The story I used to read many times over is something I was always curious about how they'd put it on celluloid... khmmm... coulda been far better... I think the main problem is that it lacks any real background to the main characters, their 'previos life' their place in the micro-society of the typical rural France countryside.

A spicy choice of brilliant actors (Trintignant as Fulbert, Serrault the Squire and Villeret as Momo) should've been given MUCH more credit than this. I just don't know why this movie went awry - looooong, boring and leaving holes unanswered in the story - maybe it was only intended to be a cheapo TV-film, poorly budgeted variant. If you see the movie first you'll never want to read the book, if you read the book first you'd be disappointed by the movie.

I must admit the idea in itself is HIGHLY original - buncho bikers on the loose for the gilt... the script's tragically eyewatering as well as the shoot - in a shell : militarily untrained, sociopath hooligans kill trained VC/NVA troops by the dozen, at the very rate of ONE cartridge wiping out THREE enemies, ehhhhh, LOL I say, have seen the pattern in auld soviet patriot WWII movies where an entire SS panzer division is annihilated by a single weary gunman ... good for a Saturday- night flick, but have a straight bottle of anything handy to pass it on high spirits. Maybe the 80's Angels' pop-culture heaves this movie to a pedestal but man, go see some platoonlike movie if you want the real McCoy's angle on Vietnam. So, as good as a one-night-stand but easily forgettable... Casting was really good (maybe lured some real Angels to share the part?) but way too theatrical.

Only one thing might save this movie - a less important, but nevertheless lacking feature in other remakes of this classic theme - which is a relatively credible background of why and how zombies became zombies. All the other stuff: acting of both living/dead, script and continuity is so full of potholes even a mindless zombie would be crying his/her (rotting) heart out over the final product. Events are too predictable, save for the key role of the undertaker (played by Mr Sid Haig) that even steals some humor into the action. The end credits make me smile too, but alas, they'd come too late to get me feel I spent these 70 minutes of my life worthly to remember - so, try to avoid it and better re-watch the classic and Romero versions instead.