Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies

A film named after me??! How cool is that?! I decided to go for this DVD having heard it contains 3 of my favourite things - zombies, chainsaws, and young women dressed as schoolgirls.

Typically Japanese over-the-top gore comes in dribs and drabs with more than a passing nod to greater horror flicks such as 'Day of the Dead' and 'Dawn of the Dead.' The plot is sadly lacking, and the film is pretty slowly paced, although there are some fun moments to be had, particularly with the 3-girl anti-Romero repeat kill squad. I liked them.

If you're gonna get yourself a decent Japanese zombie/gore flick, then do yourself a favour and buy 'Versus' or 'Junk' instead. THAT'S how to do it properly.

The DVD from Synapse is pretty good, with a very nice anamorphic transfer and Dolby 2.0 stereo sound with player-generated subtitles. However, I would only buy it if you're a hardcore zombie fan or collector of crazy and bloody Japanese flicks.

4/10 for some good gore scenes and a couple of chuckles.

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!

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!

Part millennium movie, part post modern 'Evil Dead', this bloody tale of the wonder and terror of schoolgirls aged 15 - 17 is surely uniquely Japanese, and yet is also able to trigger a more basic response.

It's literary origins give it a seriousness, that it's cartoon like visuals of young girls ripping into the flesh and innards of their victims seems at odds with and yet…..

From the first day of 2001, we are told, girls of these ages are first dropping dead and then returning as zombies that twitch and turn till they are sliced into 165 pieces and all search to be killed by their lover.

Extreme, odd and colourful!

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.