Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies

I watched this film thinking I was going to see another terrific, no holds barred, Japanese gore fest. Japan seems to have no problem starring 15-17 year old children in extreme horror films. I was ready for anything.

I wasn't ready for the spectacular performance by Natsuki Kato. She slips easily through extreme emotional states . I wasn't ready for the wildly off beat humour thrown in by the Drew Ilegal Repeat Kill Group. I was also quite touched by the heavy handed lecture on how society has failed its children. I don't know, maybe I'm getting old.

The viewer should make no mistake, this is a B-movie. It's over the top in its execution, but flows nicely...well except for the 5 minute puppet show! There is a lot of blood. Sadly, much of it looks like dried paint. There were some great scenes of gore. Not all of them realistic, but effective nontheless.

And I really like the bunny outfit. What a great touch. This is a film that doesn't take itself too seriously, but has a rather serious social comment. I loved it.

In the best tradition of Japanese low-budget mayhem, this film delivers everything a zombiefilm should have. Splatter effects, good one-take acting, and most of all the absolutely BEST explanation of the reason zombies exist in any zombieflick to date.

The hilarious, over-the-top characters only add to the completely bizarre tone. Then there are all the references to other zombie-classics; if you're a Romero fan you _must_ see this movie!

While there is no point comparing this movie to Japanese horror, like "Dark Water" or "Oodishon" - it isn't scary for one second - it delivers everything a zombiesplatter should have.

A good round of hearty laughs!

Naoyuki Tomomatsu's "Stacy" of 2001 is a messy and confusing, but highly entertaining and amusing humorous gore flick like it will only be made in the Land Of The Rising Sun.

In the near future (beginning of the 21st century), girls between 15 and 17 suddenly fall victims to a mysterious epidemic plague. After a period of gratuitous "Near Death Happiness" ("NDH") , the cheerful girls die, only to rise from the dead as flesh eating zombie-schoolgirls, commonly referred to as Stacies. These Stacies infest the streets with their desire for flesh, until they are "repeat-killed". In order to repeat-kill a Stacy, she must be cut in 165 pieces, a task which is performed mainly by the "Romero Repeat-Kill Troops", Swat teams in trucks specialized on Stacy-disposal...

When watching "Stacy", I couldn't help but laugh my ass off almost throughout the entire film. The plot es absolute nonsense, and there is no suspense at all, but it is (besides the excessive gore) exactly the absurd story that makes this movie such a joy to watch. "Stacy" is furthermore a tribute to Zombie-Classics, as the whole movie is full of references to movies like "The Evil Dead" or George A. Romero's 'Dead' films ("Romero Repeat-Kill Troops", a popular chainsaw called "Bruce Campbell's Right Hand, etc.).

The performances range from bearable to awful, but since this is a movie with a twinkle in the eye, that has to be seen with a certain sense of humor, the terrible acting is not really bothersome. As mentioned above, the gore is extreme, which is the movie's main purpose, and which should serve as a recommendation to my fellow gore-fans. "Stacy" may be pure nonsense, the plot is unbelievably odd and confusing at times and the acting is terrible, but the movie is certainly quite amusing for a fan of splatter flicks. Recommended for a good, gory laugh.

There is something endearing about a film that wears its influences as openly as Stacy does. There are several nods to George A. Romero, a very cool homage to the Evil Dead franchise with a running gag about a "Bruce Campbell" chainsaw and even a random shout out to Drew Barrymore with a Charlie's Angel-esquire kill squad who name Drew as their idol. The director is obviously well schooled in the horror genre, providing an entertaining mix of pop culture references, black humour and bloody carnage.

The film's basic premise is that girls between the ages of 15 and 17 begin dropping dead, only to arise as flesh hungry zombies - known as "stacies". There is no explanation or mythology behind this unusual turn of events, although I assume it is simply an excuse to fill the screen with perky Japanese girls in school uniforms. There is something a bit twisted about a film that basically involves the slaying of school girls but I'm not complaining. In order to eradicate the "stacies", death squads roam the streets. Some of the funniest moments come from TV advertisements for the death squads, my favourites include the "Join the Squad and kill your own daughter!" advertisement and the Bruce Campbell chainsaw infomercial with the crazy bunny woman.

The film follows two distinct plots; one involves a medical student who has joined a death squad with the goal of saving his "pen pal" Momo, while the other is a slightly disturbing romance between a middle aged puppeteer, Shibu-san, and Eiko, a girl in the final days of her pre-zombie state. The first mentioned storyline is responsible for the film's gore content. There are sufficient acts of dismemberment, flesh eating and general carnage to please horror fans. Unfortunately, while the quantity of the gore is impressive, the quality of the gore effects is uneven at best. The decapitations are very unrealistic and one axe victim is quite clearly a mannequin. The film manages to overcome these shortcomings with injections of black humour, from the awesome "Drew" death squad to our hero declaring the zombified Momo as "my lover".

The other plot line is less entertaining but far more innovative. The scene in which Shibu-san uses puppetry to tell Eiko a story about a toy cat is mesmerising. There is also a wide underbelly of black humour derived from Eiko's manic pleas to be "repeat killed" and her most thoughtful chainsaw gift. Natsuki Kato does a great job as Eiko, making her a very sympathetic prospective zombie. The film attempts to tie these two story lines together with a cheesy conclusion but personally, I could have done without the sappy epilogue.

Stacy is an enjoyable zombie film from a promising director. Genre fans familiar with the quirks of Asian cinema will not be disappointed.

Japanese weirdos…you got to love them! Not one nation's cinema industry proved itself so eccentric and imaginative during the last ten years as the Japanese one! Especially in the field of violent cult and spooky horror, the young Japanese directors rule with an iron fists. `Stacy' a.k.a Attack of the Schoolgirl zombies is one hysterical bunch of nonsense, but oh so fun to look at. For no particular reason, girls aged 15-17 years die and metamorphose into gut-munching zombies. Preferably, they should be re-killed by their loved ones and cut up into 165 (!) pieces. How about that? Naturally, the plot is inferior to the huge amount of splatter madness and sadistic humor Stacy is filled with. I'm practically sure the scriptwriters of this film were hooked on some kind of vicious drug! How else would you explain some of the silly stuff they're presenting us here? But…you got to hand it to them: they know their classics! The multiple references and tributes to milestone zombie-films are priceless! The chainsaw brand their using, for example, is called `Bruce Campbell's Right Hand', the zombie-squad members are referred to as `Romero' (as in George A.) and the sleazy scientist is some sort of Baron Frankenstein replica with artsy pink glasses! Terrific trivia stuff.

Nonetheless, `Stacy' won't ever join the list of Japanese cult-classics-to-be which already includes titles such as Battle Royale, Itchi The Killer or Ringu… It's just too goofy and amateurish to be highly memorable. Unlike the exiting topic of zombie violence, Stacy contains a couple of boring moments, lousy acting and – worst of all – way too many `what the f**k'-moments. Several monologues and sequences simply don't make any sense and they seem to be made up by illiterate monkeys. Luckily for the viewer, those dull moments are almost always followed by wild and nasty zombie action, so it remains bearable at all times. Therefore, I recommend `Stacy' for what it is…a refreshing and light-hearted gore galore that'll make you laugh for a good 80 minutes. No more, no less! The absolute highlight of absurdity: the amateur-Frankenstein scientist separates a girl's head from her body and by doing so, he pulls out her entire spinal column with it…You have to see it to believe it!