[Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl played as part of Tokyo Gore Night at Cinefamily on Tuesday night. Click here to see the rest of their October Horror line-up, which includes the Strange World of Coffin Joe and Kung-Fu Slashers.]
The work of Yoshihiro Nishimura is a spectacular and horrible event to witness. Fascinated with the limits he can push props, special effects, latex and computer graphics, Nishimura’s name became infamous among gorehounds with 2008’s The Machine Girl and, later that same year, his third directorial effort, Tokyo Gore Police.
His body of work is literally pieced together through a fetishistic wonder at how far taste, but also the physicality of something like Frankenstein’s monster or a Vampire’s bloodlust can spread. And there’s no better way to showcase this than through props and attachments that look like they were battle-tested at a GWAR testing lab. To him, there is nothing more interesting than breaking apart and reorganizing the human body to create weapons, folk tales and god knows what else.
But comparing Nishimura’s extreme effects talent to his directing is the exact opposite.
Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is a cheery and joyful ride compared to TGP, yet elements of a Troma satire still hit hard in a question of cultural divide. But we start with the brief title card that on Valentine’s Day, girls give the boys they love chocolate. Mizushima (Takumi Saito) is a shy and unsure youth who just happens to be the forced boyfriend of Keiko, the daughter of the vice-principal and leader of a merry band of gothic Lolitas. But soon he’s cornered by Monami and eats her tiny chocolate containing a bit of her blood, thus turning him into a vampire.
And from there we’re off to the races.
Part of Nishimura’s charm is exposing and capitalizing on cultural trends that may not make much sense outside of Japan–or are even known to a casual viewer–but emphasize that oddball nature of what’s happening. Take the Ganguro Girls gang: normally, a Ganguro is just tan with frosted hair. In Nishimura’s world, that exists, but there’s also the three Ganguro Girls who are pitch black with overly exaggerated features (puffy lips, afros, mouth plates) who namecheck Obama and Regina Joyce. There’s the Chinese teacher who can “smoke up to 10 cigarettes at once” played by Takeshi Shimizu, who then begins discussing how his film Ju-On was remade in America while teaching.
Yet Nishimura’s weakness is still overwhelming as a director. He touts his work as a constant climax from beginning to end, yet segments are padded by co-director/co-writer Naoyuki Tomomatsu (best known for Stacy.) These moments of teenage awkwardness are fine in contrast, but they repetitively continue while the real demand for gaudy horror and prosthesis pour out of the audience.
Still–there’s a cult building here. Even if there is a fault with Vampire Girl, it can hardly be noticed while consuming free beer and watching the carnage unfold on screen. A comparison was made prior to the screening of Nishimura being the next Takeshi Miike, of whom I’m also an incredible fan. And if you can stomach Full Metal Yakuza, then there’s actually nothing wrong with this.
-John Lichman
October 15th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
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