Enjoy this Monday with Mildred!
This is also Zombie World Tour post!
Stacy
Having decided to give Japan another stop on the Zombie World Tour I began to watch this film that had me giggling, ewwwing and rolling my eyes in equal measure. It’s a story of evolution through apocalypse. Picture, if you will, a dozen undead teenage schoolgirls in their white blouse and black skirt, bumping around a room off the walls and each other, arms outstretched like a small child pretending to be a zombie and their tongues lapping redly at the air in front of their crossed eyes. It’s not uncommon to catch the zombie schoolgirls darting a glance at the camera as they shamble.
Based on a trilogy by Kenji Otsuki “Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies”, there are several very loosely connected stories followed at once. To begin, The Scientist gives us the backstory in one interview: all girls worldwide age fifteen to seventeen will experience NDH (Near Death Happiness), a manic period during which they become enormously giggly even by Japanese schoolgirl standards, followed by sure death, from which they will arise and become a badly acted zombie. To repeat kill a Stacy you must chop her into at least 165 pieces, but the pieces will generally stop wriggling within two hours. He even says at one point, “Hell filled up so the dead come here.”
Society has adapted to the Stacys, with strict laws concerning who is legally allowed to kill them (Romero Repeat Kill Squads (a subdivision of the sanitation department) boyfriends and parents), clever merchandizing (“Buy the Bruce Campbell Right Hand 2 ultra-light chainsaw so you can kill your daughter yourself!”), funny advertising (“Kill your own daughter! Now recruiting!”), and songs. In the new normal soldiers go mad, the pre-Stacys fall in love quickly so someone will kill them, and the older women take young men to their bed.
Shot digitally, it often looks like a home movie, except during the really cool puppet story. Most of the gore is silly, but there are a couple of scenes that make up for it, if you like your zom coms bloody. There are many funny moments and I laughed out loud a few times. Either the makers of the movie or the novel author are fans of American zombies and horror movies in general because there are obvious references in both the story line and the “product placement”. Unlike a typical American zombie film, though, there are no zombie “types” like football zombie, gas station zombie, etc. They’re all dressed the same and I found that to be somewhat hilarious. I’m going to have to start using the phrase “repeat kill” because it’s a great way to describe a bewildering concept in two words.
Watch out for the end, though, because it will have you scratching your head wondering how it suddenly got so sentimental. Stacy is a fun movie that I recommend you find some time when you’re in the mood for something silly without being dumb.
LINKS:
Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies” Trailer
CFR: In Addition: Oh good grief.
Chick Flicking Reviews 