Stacy
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Movie Reviews of Stacy
Movie Review: Gory, Gross, and... Romantic?
Summary: 4 Stars
I was suprised by this movie. I went in expecting total shlock, and I did get that, but I also got a rather nice movie. The gore is extreme, and the action almost non-stop. And there are zombies. Rather gross looking zombies. But that isn't the main draw to the movie... at least not for me. The main draw was that in all of this gore (which was enjoyable none the less) were characters. And characters who actually were likeable! These people are just that, people. And it shows that one of the greatest powers, that can even raise the dead, is love. Odd for a horror movie, but for some reason it works. And the thing is... it has a happy ending. Suprising I know. Not for everyone, but... if you are in the mood for something diffrent, something odd, than go for this.Movie Review: Classic Japanese!!
Summary: 4 Stars
i have lived in Japan for awhile so when i watched this i knew what i was getting into. Believe or not, alot of japanese film makers want to make the viewers find the point of the movie or leave you wondering instead of handing the plot lines and meaning on a plate for you.
Yes the special effects are cheesy, and if you dont know jack about japanese culture you might as well grab a cup to put your money in for cursing cause you will be saying WTF, and WTF was that bleep bleep bleep....get my drift?
anyways i liked it. i understood the plot and the meaning. I gave it a 4 because thats typical japanese story development.
Movie Review: In all honesty...
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is a guilty pleasure if there ever was one. It ranks right up there with ABBA Gold in terms of guilty pleasures. While not the best movie ever made it does have some strong points. Frankly it could have been an honestly moving and heart-wrenching film had it not been so badly acted and silly. From what I understand the movie "Stacy" has nothing to do with the book on which it is based except that girls are dying and returning from the dead to consume human flesh. Go ahead and lay down some bucks for this film and try to be open minded while watching it. Hey, its better than that crap from French film maker Jean Rollin.Movie Review: An interesting new twist on the Zombie horror subgenre
Summary: 3 Stars
"Stacy" is a movie that few people who watch it seem to really "get," and I can hardly hold that against them. It does hold a very interesting concept underneath its mindless gore and bizarre characters.
A strange phenomenon is causing girls age 15-17 all over the world to die and come back as flesh eating zombies. Before they die, they are overcome by something called NDH (Near Death Happiness) which causes them to run around acting giddy and lovestruck, and giggling with delight at everything they see. After they die, their friends and family members are asked to chop them up into little pieces before they are brought back to life as something called a "Stacy."
I'm not a great fan of Zombie horror. However, I can appreciate this as a new take on the whole thing. The zombie gore is fun, if you're into that sort of thing. But what made this movie so interesting to me was the whole reason why the teen girls became zombies, and that's that part that's easy to miss. Near the end, the mad doctor studying the "Stacies" says, "I finally know what brings you to life. It's love." If it sounds like I ruined the ending for you, I haven't. This seems like a big explanatory scene near the end of a horror film, except that it makes no sense whatsoever. But as you may know (and you probably do, if you looked up this title), Asian horror doesn't usually have an explanation for everything the way American horror does. And Stacy is no exception. There's much more to it than just that.
The image of a young woman in a school uniform represents an idealized image of female sexuality that doesn't exist. The disease these girls suffer from is caused by (male) society's obsession with a feminine ideal. When the girls first become infected, they act like mindless bimbos, giggling and professing their love for any man who walks toward them. This goes on for a while, until this cultural stereotype kills them, and they are reborn, transformed from nearly mindless bimbos into literally mindless zombies. As it is stated over and over again in the film, the girls have a natural desire to be loved. As if forced by evolution, the girls move toward the mindless state that will allow them to be loved. In short, this film is a metaphor for idealized images of submissive women, and how dangerous those images can be to girls.
Having said all that, this movie is incredibly goofy. I wouldn't blame you if you watched this and failed to see the depth I just described. But that's what I came away with. There are some fun zombie scenes, and the unusual premise makes for some wacky characters. By far my favorite were the three teenage girls who formed an illegal "repeat kill" agency they named after their idol, Drew Barrymore. They contact families who can't bring themselves to chop up their dead daughters, and do it themselves, for a fee. Their goal is to save enough money to pay their favorite star to "repeat kill" them after they die. The girls want to die by the hand of someone they love. When one of them giggles, someone makes a remark to her about "NDH," and she gets very defensive and belligerent. I interpret this, not so much as a fear of dying, but a defiance of what is happening to her. Despite the fact that this comes from a desire to be "loved," she does not want to become what a male dominated society wants her to be. NDH may be a certain "happiness," but she would rather live as a real person with real feelings and ideas. And since she can't, she wishes to be repeat killed, instead of living in a mindless state.
I quite liked this film, although I can't give it a very high rating, because sometimes it just gets way too silly. The "I think I'm at my prettiest" speech just makes you go, "huh?" All in all, this is much better than average cheap, gross out special effects zombie movies. If you're one of those zombie purists who hates zombie movies that don't stick to the arbitrary zombie movie rules, stay away. But if you want a low budget movie with something different, I'd recommend it, because horror movies don't get much more different than this.
Movie Review: Weirdest. Zombie. Movie. Ever.
Summary: 3 Stars
Stacy (Naoyuki Tomomatsu, 2001)
It's official: the Japanese really do do everything better than the Americans when it comes to horror movies. They even make bad ones better. And make no mistake, Stacy (also known as Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies, depending on whose DVD you happen to be watching) is a bad, bad movie. But at least it recognizes its own badness and plays accordingly. And despite its badness, the amount of care put into the script here easily rivals most decent mainstream movies in America.
Before I get round to apologizing to the rest of the world for the American film industry, let me get back onto the subject. Stacy opens with the premise that, a few years before, schoolgirls between the ages of 15 and 17 all over the world started dying of a mysterious illness and coming back as zombies. Which allows both the schoolgirl-uniform fetish and zombie fetish their full reign. But that's beside the point. There are two main stories we follow. The first, and more "important" in the greater scheme of things, concerns high school girl Eiko ("my name is spelled with the character for eternity!"), played by Battle Royale II's Natsuki Kato. Convinced she's going to die soon, she seeks out someone whom she can trust to put her down when she rises as a zombie. She stumbles upon Shibukawa (Toshinori Omi of The Drifting Classroom), a puppeteer whose business has gone south in the wake of the epidemic. Their story is your basic love story. The other involves the Romero Repeat Kill troops, who are charged with putting the zombies down and disposing of their bodies. This is where the movie gets its blood (and most of its comedy) from. It's a sort of weird cross between Day of the Dead and Men Behind the Sun.
The movie never makes the mistake of taking itself seriously. It's drenched in pop-culture references, most of them American (how can you not love a movie that shows commercials for the Bruce Campbell Right Hand 2 chainsaw?), and off-kilter homages to other zombie movies. But again, the difference between a no-account Z movie like this in Japan and one in America is almost shocking. These are (for the most part) at least competent actors, and they're playing a good script; Eiko and Shibukawa's story is a little out there at times, but it works on some fundamental level. Compare this to American direct-to-video (and some theatrical) low-budget horror flicks (and some major ones; The Haunting, anyone?), and the difference is immediately obvious.
Not the greatest, but an amusing way to kill an hour and a half. ** ½