Zombie Lake & Oasis of the Zombies on Blu-ray

 

 

 

  Zombie Lake

Directed by Jean Rollin

 

One of the most bizarre films in the living dead craze of the early 1980s, Zombie Lake feasts without restraint upon the carcasses of a variety of cinematic genres: the WWII picture, the sexploitation film, gore horror, and even the romantic melodrama.

Conceived by one master of erotic horror (Jess Franco) and pseudonymously directed by another (Jean Rollin), Zombie Lake weaves the tale of a contemporary French village haunted by water-logged Nazis slain by the Resistance. With little regard for narrative subtlety, the film veers from the shamelessly exploitive (as when a women's volleyball team skinny-dips in zombie-infested waters) to the tearfully sentimental (depicting a young orphan girl's psychic connection to one of the walking dead). Beneath its garish surface, however, Zombie Lake embraces several themes that run throughout Rollin's body of work, showing that this eclectic artist could not help investing even a playful film such as this with his personal sensibilities. 

 

 

Blu-ray Features

* Newly mastered in HD from the archival negatives
* English dubbed version
* Alternate (less explicit) versions of two sequences
* Alternate English title sequence
* Original theatrical trailers
* Original trailers of other Jean Rollin films available from Redemption 

 

DVD Features

* Newly mastered in HD from the archival negatives
* English dubbed version
* Alternate (less explicit) versions of two sequences
* Alternate English title sequence
* Original theatrical trailers
* Original trailers of other Jean Rollin films available from Redemption 

 

 

Directed by Jess Franco

Once established as a master of the Euro-erotic horror film, Jess Franco continued to explore more traditional modes of filmmaking, setting familiar genres on their ears with his singular brand of reckless creativity. Made during the living dead craze of the early 1980s, Oasis of the Zombies is one of only a handful of motion pictures to explore a most peculiar subgenre of the movement: the Nazi zombie film.

In telling the story of a cache of German gold–lost in the desert, sought by a group of teenagers, protected by the walking dead–Franco demonstrated his characteristic lack of restraint, shamelessly inserting stock footage from a bigger-budget war picture, allowing his camera to dwell on the worm-eaten orifices of the shriveled undead and, of course, lacing the action with his trademark style of lyrical eroticism. The resulting film is a decadent exercise in grindhouse filmmaking that is more audacious than frightening, illuminating one of the more peculiar facets of Jess Franco's uniquely warped cinema.

 

Blu-ray Features

* Newly mastered in HD from the archival negatives
* English dubbed version
* Original theatrical trailer
* Original trailers of other Jess Franco films available from Redemption

DVD Features

* Newly mastered in HD from the archival negatives
* English dubbed version
* Original theatrical trailer
* Original trailers of other Jess Franco films available from Redemption

Director: Jean Rollin

Starring: Anouchka, Howard Vernon, Pierre-Marie Escourrou

Genre: Horror

Blu-ray SRP: $24.94

DVD SRP: $19.95

Street date: February 26, 2013