an underground tremor causes a chemical spill in a mausoleum under a country house, the two lazy men responsible 
for stashing their barrels down there (and who have no qualms lifting valuables off the dead bodies) get a nasty surprise. The recently deceased Catherine (Blanchard) rises from her coffin with dagger-like fingernails, mutilates the pair, and returns to her ancestral home. Equipped with only vague memories of her existence among the living, she mournfully devours flesh and blood to survive, including two teenagers who happen to wander into the house for a little privacy. Catherine telephones her childhood friend, Helene (Pierro), with whom she had made a devotional blood pact as a little girl. Helene immediately comes to Catherine's aid and, in an act of extreme friendship, procures girls from the local village to satisfy her soul mate's bloodlust. 
(shades of Vampyres or Demons) about two American tourists whose paths eventually lead straight to the deadly girls, though even this has a satisfying punchline.
subtitled version of this film appeared courtesy of Redemption in the UK on VHS, minus several minutes of gory footage (most notably during the climax and a lengthy torture sequence). An uncut presentation of the same transfer appeared on Dutch laserdisc from Copper Sky, complete with a Rollin commentary in halting English, the French trailer, an alternate German track with different music, and the trailer for Rollin's The Iron Rose. For its DVD premiere, Image and Redemption supplied an uncut, flat letterboxed version in nice condition from the negative with optional yellow English subtitles. As with most of Rollin's other horror output, the Dutch company Encore also issued a three-disc edition with a multitude of subtitle options (and French and German audio options), a fleeting Blanchard intro and selected scene commentary, video interviews with Rollin and Blanchard about the film, and a half-hour interview with regular Rollin collaborator Jean-Pierre Bouyxou and another with D'Aram, both of them essentially unedited. Also included are three completely disposable deleted filler scenes, a gallery, and a soundtrack CD for the third disc. Meanwhile the film's reputation (bolstered by the fact that it inspired one of Rob Zombie's best songs) continued to soar. 
always appeared to be in excellent shape, a rarity for a film from the era with such a low budget and no major studio distribution. The French audio sounds excellent, and as usual, optional English subtitles are provided. 
brief video intro to the film (basically saying it was his second gore title and did well in Europe), but the extras really begin with a hilariously colorful interview with Bouyxou (distilled skillfully from his longer ones), who speaks for almost seven minutes in very ripe terms about the parallels between gore and porn, Blanchard's shamelessness in showing off her body, and Rollin dubbed the voice for one actor, among other topics. He returns in the next featurette, "The American Version," a tantalizing explanation of the film's "versione Americaine" credit; apparently someone named Gregory Heller was on the set with another camera, using the same cast and crew to make the same film in English, and that version has apparently been lost somewhere in the vaults. It's an amazing concept to contemplate, to say the least. "Music by Philippe D'Aram" is a very welcome streamlined eight-minute chat with the composer, who explains how the lack of funding for an orchestra led him to experiment with instruments like the zither and a music box by way of a synthesizer. "When I Was Seventeen: An Homage to Benoît Lestang " is a wonderful 11-minute interview with the make-up and special effects artist who died way too young at 43 and got his start on this film before moving on to the likes of Bitter Moon, Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and perhaps his all-time masterpiece, Martyrs. (Bouyxou also appears here, too, in interspersed comments offering some context for the artist's remarks.) Next comes a 36-minute series of video highlights from Rollin's 2007 appearance at Fantasia in Montreal, first doing a quick interview upon arriving and then Q&As for the audience to tie in with screenings of Shiver of the Vampires and Night of the Clocks. Lestang briefly does an introduction as well, and a quick coda has Rollin at a restaurant and on the street chatting a little more about his career. A separate interview with Rollin offers almost three minutes of additional excerpts from Fantasia, talking exclusively about The Living Dead Girl, its emphasis on the past, and making the switch from vampire movies. 
Finally you get trailers for all the Kino and Redemption Rollin titles to date: this one, The Rape of the Vampire, The Nude Vampire, Shiver of the Vampires, Requiem for a Vampire, The Iron Rose, The Demoniacs, Lips of Blood, Fascination, and Two Orphan Vampires. The 12-page insert booklet contains liner notes by Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas, who draws comparisons between the two films and offers some thoughts on 
the performers, the critical reception of both, and their placement within the Rollin canon. 
American release, plus the selected scene 2005 Blanchard commentary (25m59s) and a new commentary by Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby comparing elements of this film with The Grapes of Death and The Night of the Hunted, the issues with the chemical spill kick-off, the unusual elegaic tone driven by childhood memories, echoes of Countess Bathory, and much more, including a nice surprise quote from our own Rollin interview at one point. The Encore release's 2005 Blancard intro (26s) and Rollin's 1998 intro (1m44s) can also be played before the film. Though it isn't advertised, there's also an option to watch the German-language VHS version of the film (with optional English subtitles), Scare, which has a different, Goblin-flavored music score. 
going through after her brother's death that pushed her into acting, her films before this, and the process she used to create an indelible and sympathetic horror character as well as working with other directors like Jess Franco. "Deliberately Absurd" (24m47s) is a new edit of a 2005 archival interview with Bouyxou talking more generally about his experiences with Rollin, Franco, and his adoration of cinema, and "Sound Bites" (17m26s) is a new edit of the 2005 interview with D'Aram about his extreme enjoyment working with Rollin, his affinity for playing all of his instruments himself, and his approach to crafting the sad childlike tone of this film's music. D'Aram also appears in the 2012 interview "La musique de La morte vivante" (14m47s) honing in more specifically on the arranging and composition of the music for this film after Fascination and making crazy sounds with tom-toms and edges of cymbals. "Benoît Lestang, 17 ans" (24m40s) is a new, much longer edit of the 2012 interview with the young special-effects artist, Alain Petit, and Bouyxou separately discussing the creation of the film's gore concoctions and the dearth of genre product in France outside of Rollin that made for a great opportunity for a teenager eager to get into the business. "Dead or Alive" (15m33s) is an updated look at the now-lost English-language American cut with Bouyxou of The Living Dead Girl including a tie to Zombie Lake, followed by the usual outtakes (1m41s). In the new "Convulsive Beauty" (33m52s), Stephen Thrower
tackles the presentation of the English-speaking tourists, the rise in slasher films that affected horror moviegoing, Rollin's constant struggles to get his work made and exhibited, and plenty more, all very much worth a listen. Also included are the theatrical trailer and galleries of promotional material (74 images) and behind-the-scenes photos (20 images), while the limited edition comes with an 80-page book featuring a new essay by Will Sloan, archival writing by Rollin on the making of the film, an archival Rollin interview with Peter Blumenstock, and an extract from the film’s pressbook.INDICATOR (UHD)
WICKED VISION (Blu-ray)
KINO LORBER (Blu-ray)
Encore (DVD)
