You know exactly what you’re getting here. Zombies, swim teams and lesbian encounters.
What They Say:
No sooner has beautiful young Aki stepped on campus than she’s pressed into service replacing a girl beat up by the swim team’s over zealous male instructor. Next a psycho scientist sent in to inoculate the luscious young student bodies against a new virus makes a little error in judgment, resulting in a not-so-little flesh-eating zombie problem. Now, with most of the school and all of the teachers running amuck, eating each other, having rabid sex and juggling, it’s up to Aki and her new found allies on the Girls Swim Team to send these monsters to the shower scenes!
The Review:
Audio:
Switchblade Pictures releases generally aren’t dubbed so this feature is presented in its original Japanese stereo language form only. Encoded at 224kbps, it’s pretty standard material when it comes to the audio department as it’s a basic stereo channel mix without anything really resembling strong directionality. Without too much in the way of depth, there’s nothing that stands out strongly here but it’s conveyed well and it rather does suit the material. We didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback of the presentation.
Video:
Originally released in 2007, the transfer for this feature is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is enhanced for anamorphic playback. This release is done as an on-demand release so the discs are DVD-R’s. Made for video, this feature looks really nice with lots of brightly lit scenes as well as the appealing poolside scenes. While there is some grain present in a few scenes, typically darker ones, by and large the material looks rather clean and clear throughout. The show doesn’t have a film like feel outside of the grainy areas and some of them are really sharp. It’s the kind of show that you’d imagine would look rather good in a number of places in high definition. There’s a nice sense of depth throughout and the source material doesn’t suffer from any noticeable cross coloration which is a huge plus as well.
Packaging:
The cover is very nicely framed with dark reds and blacks with a simple logo along the top for Switchblade Pictures and a larger red piece on the bottom saying that it’s the Unrated Limited Edition. Within the frame is a very cold blue filtered image that pushes the horror side of the show with the main swim team girls, weapons in hand, looking positively mean as you see an undead hand rising from the pool. The back cover has several shots from the show throughout that highlight the violent side of the show as opposed to the sexual side. Along with some amusing quotes about the feature, we get the summary of the premise and the production credits. The bottom portion runs through a fairly standard technical grid which is also clear about what kind of material it is. No inserts are included nor is there a reversible cover.
Menu:
None, it just goes right into the feature. After the feature ends, it hits the DVD production credits menu, then a Switchblade Pictures logo screen and then it stops the disc.
Extras:
None.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The undead genre is one that will always be exploited, much like the young women in this film. With a wonderfully titled film, director Koji Kawano gives us exactly what you’d expect. Swim team girls, armed to the teeth (eventually), fighting off the undead as they move throughout the school. The premise is one that certainly fits in with the Pink Films genre perfectly and it provides about eighty minutes worth of violence, sex and intended humor along the way. I couldn’t help but laugh at this film and almost with it a few times.
The premise is very simple in that we’re following a new transfer student into the school named Aki. Aki has an uneasy feeling about things here as she knows there’s something going on. With announcements over the speaker system reminding everyone to wash their hands and gargle regularly because of a new virus that’s spreading, she’s on edge wondering what’s going on. The swim team is on edge as well as they’re a day away from their big meet and their coach is being brutally mean in pushing them to their limits. Enough so, in fact, that one of the girls quits after he strikes her across the face for her lack of guts! The others can’t do the same though and they all fall into line.
Into all of this, Aki meets another student named Sayaka who ends up shoving Aki into the pool. This leads the two to a moment where they’re showering together and they realize they’re alike with a couple of certain “birthmarks” that they have. The two become quite close, which is good considering that they’ll need each other. As it turns out, a mad scientist of sorts has made his way into the school and is administering a vaccine which is in reality the virus. Students get one virus while faculty gets another. It doesn’t take too long until it kicks in and the students start acting like the undead, gnawing on anyone who isn’t one of them, and the teachers go nuts and start cutting up the student body that isn’t zombiefied. It’s a vicious circle, but not one the unaffected students can appreciate as they’re running like crazy just to stay alive.
Thankfully, Aki is more than she seems and is rather capable in dealing with the problem. As it turns out, she was taken in by the mad scientist years ago and was trained to be a special assassin of sorts for him. With a lot of training, she became something of a pet project of his and she excelled at it, though it’s hard to tell from the flashbacks since she seems out of breath and tired during all of it. And now, with the teachers acting like crazed zombies with some faculties to them and the students being the mindless zombies, she’s able to organize the swim team to fight back against them once they learn how to defeat them.
But before that – lesbian interlude! Everything slows down for awhile as Sayaka and Aki hide out from the undead for awhile, recovering from a bad encounter that involved the undead math teacher throwing a triangle at Aki and wounding her seriously. This downtime allows the two to get closer and for each to reveal a little bit about themselves and explore the connection that they have between each other with the birthmarks. This leads to more… exploration, which is something we see in other scenes revolving around flashbacks and the like. The sexual side of the show is matched pretty well by the violence, which is certainly bountiful as well. With chainsaws, metal edged rules and schoolgirls with a hunger to them, everything is fair game here. There are plenty of patently fake limbs flying all over the place.
And as a real seller, well, there’s a scene where Aki shoots a frickin’ laser out of her nether regions. Dr. Evil would be so proud.
One of the big draws for this feature is in the lead actress, AV star Sasa Handa. She’s certainly capable in this role as she either has to be brooding or in the throes of pleasure. In both of these areas she does pretty well, particularly with the way she carries herself and her overall look. She’s quite the expressive actress in this when required and she puts in plenty of “hard work and guts” when they go through her assassination training sequence. Yuria Hidaka as Sayaka is the only other one worth any real note as she plays opposite of Handa in this and she holds her own pretty well, though her twist in the third act doesn’t feel all that compelling with how she portrays it. But some of this is just the campy nature of the film and it does fit with how the movie plays out in general. But honestly, anyone looking for serious performances here is kidding themselves. This is good fun j-sploitation material.
In Summary:
When this title was first announced by Switchblade Pictures, it was something I very much wanted to see. It has one of the best titles out there in general and it really is exactly what it bills itself to be. This is a fun campy stupid movie in which the students act idiotically, die regularly and it’s filled with tons of plainly fake blood. It’s intentionally made to look this way of course and that’s a big part of its appeal. It’s a few steps away from a student horror film in a lot of ways but with more of a budget and it uses AV stars for its leads. It’s campy, corny, often stupid and has a strange mix of sex and violence. No wonder these things are so appealing in a way. If the cover doesn’t scare you but rather makes you curious, then this title is definitely for you.
Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English Subtitles
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B
Video Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B-
Menu Grade: N/A
Extras Grade: N/A
Released By: Switchblade Pictures
Release Date: June 28th, 2010
MSRP: $29.98
Running Time: 80 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
