By JO SATANA

Splatter movie, midnight movie, grindhouse flick, exploitation film…. all terms thrown around like a flaming bag of shit. Although, just meeting one of those classifications ensures a film the golden, much-coveted level of cult status. But what about if a film meet all of them, while at the same time blowing the old conventions straight the fuck outta th’ water?

Now how about a series of movies that in of themselves creates their own sub-genre?

If there is such a thing as a sub-genre associated with specific movie makers’ bodies of work, I believe Naoyuki Tomomatsu and Yoshihiro Nishimura are more than deserving of their own title… but what would you call it? With films like Suicide Club, Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police under their belts, is the term “Splatter Midnight Movie” enough? “Splatter Gore?” Nah, I’m going for “Apocalypse Tokyo Gore,” or maybe just “Tokyo Gore-Splatter.”

So Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s and Yoshihiro Nishimura’s signature brand of Tokyo Gore is further expanding its reach what with Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl having its Canadian premiere at the FanTAsia fest midnight movie series on Friday the 17th. Red was definitely the color of the moment that night…that, and whatever color guts are.

Those of you not familiar with Naoyuki Tomomatsu and Yoshihiro Nishimura are best to go back and rent the above-mentioned movies so as not to waste any one else’s valuable time with expansive explanations on what boils down to a mastery of hallucinogenic/psychotic gore gaggery peppered over mindless violence and carnage, not to mention amazing use of the red syrup.

Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl is loosely based on a manga of that same inclination by the sole fact that it involves both a Frankenstein girl and a Vampire girl and is a romantic teen comedy with rabies. Every stereotype of what it must be like to be a teen in cosmopolitan Japan is jacked up to absurd proportions while, at the same time, existing within its own strange type of logic. Essentially it’s the story of a newcomer who arrives and distrupts the faux balance that has been established in a far from ordinary high school. Two plots, one involving a vampire’s desire and the other a mad scientist’s quest for discovery, culminate into a sexual-like spurting of blood, guts and violence perfectly characteristic of Naoyuki Tomomatsu’s and Yoshihiro Nishimura’s splatter style of narrative.

Equally disturbing, thought evocative and all-around perverse, are the biological contortions that the special effects masters have been known for. Weird, distorted, organic-like deformations act as ornaments to humanoids that will challenge even those with the more twisted of dispositions – a freak show for all.

A great show of splatteriffic excess, this is top form mastery use of effects work and will test the toughest viewer’s tolerance to the word “SPLATTER…”

And those of you who are disappointed that I did not get into the specifics regarding the story, the acting, and the theme-play being evoked clearly do not understand what this is all about. It’s face peeling, limb-ripping, disemboweling, blood-spurting poetry that’s at work here, kids. Seek it out and expand your mind.

Served Rare.