Writers: Shungicu Ushida (manga), Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Yoshihiro Nishimura has been one of my favorite directors ever since I saw the wonderful Tokyo Gore Police. I definitely prefer him to his colleague Noboru Iguchi, who (with the exception of The Machine Girl, which I loved) reaches for vulgar toilet humor too often, and besides, in my opinion, he harbours a bit unhealthy obsession with human ass.
Strictly speaking, Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl is primarily a Naoyuki Tomomatsu movie, but Nishimura is credited as a co-director and he also did the special effects, so he had a huge influence on the visual side of the movie, if not for the story. Speaking of Tomomatsu, his name wasn't familiar to me before, but after this movie I'll give him a chance, though titles like Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead and Eating Schoolgirls don't promise something that would be my cup of tea.
Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl is a successful J-sploitation splatterfest, which works simply because it's so damn entertaining. If you've seen any of Nishimura's films, you'll promptly find yourself on familiar ground when some cheerful pop music starts to play while fountains of blood flow and severed body parts fly around in slow-motion.
Basically, it's a story of a high-school love triangle, where a poor young boy called Jyugon is sandwiched between Keiko, the vice principal's daughter and (I guess) the most popular girl at school, and Monami, an extremely cute newcomer with mysterious background, with both of them wanting him to be their boyfriend forever. So, why the hell did I just call him "poor"? Well, for one, Monami is a vampire and wants to turn him into one, and Keiko is a bitch, at least at the beginning. Then she dies, is revived by her father (who, in his free time, is an insane Dr. Frankenstein wannabe) and turned into a horrifying cut-and-paste monster made of body parts stolen from different people. And she's still a bitch! Jyugon chooses the lesser of two evils, so he and Monami are forced to fight the disturbingly enhanced Keiko and her mad father throughout the rest of the movie.
As with other similar films, the plot is just there to serve as an excuse (heh, like we would need one) for hilarious over-the-top violence, body parts abuse and colourful characters which never get boring. To list everything would be impossible (not to mention undesirable), but some of the highlights are a wrist cut competition, a club of black wannabe girls (this alone in America would probably put the author in jail for a long time due to racism), vice principal who dresses like a witch doctor, inventive body part combinations (a severed arm used as a propeller, eyeballs instead of nipples, to mention just a few trivial examples) and of course endless mutilations whose crowd pleasing potential is immense.
It's recommended to see this in the company of your male friends, especially if you can pair it with a similar but longer film, like Nishimura's Helldriver. You can also play it to your girlfriend if you want to get dumped quickly. Whatever you do, don't miss it.
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