Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009)

User Lists:
Japanese Weirdness

59%
Overall Rating

Ranked #6,172
...out of 20,698 movies

Genres: Creature Film Horror Horror Comedy Vampire Film

Connections: Gaijinsploitation

Transfer student Monami has a secret and a past that has caught up with Mizushima. Deceiving Mizushima into eating a token gift of chocolate, laced with her blood, he is then catapulted into Monami's vampire world of blood, death and love. Jilted girlfriend Keiko has other ideas. With a sudden twist of fate, she is then transformed into the hideous and unforgiving Frankenstein Girl, and the battle for Mizushima's heart begins. --IMDb

Review by Chad
Added: November 21, 2010

Fresh out of Japan and in the spirit of Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police comes Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, a charming little tale of love, revenge, and yes, bloodshed. For those of you unfamiliar with these movies, they are basically anime come to life: there's some goofy premise driving the storyline along, there's tons of over-the-top violence with gratuitous blood and gore, and though none of them are skinfests by any stretch, they all manage to squeeze in an attractive female heroine / villain combo. These movies are not to be taken seriously, but if you enjoyed the two movies mentioned above, you're damned sure going to enjoy this one as well.

Monami (Yukie Kawamura) is the titular vampire girl, and she's also a high school girl who has just transferred over to a new school. There she meets Jyugon (Takumi Saitô), a shy fellow who is trying to dodge the affections of Keiko (Eri Otoguro), the head of the local Gothic Lolita clique. As is the tradition in Japan, all of the ladies are trying to win Jyugon over with a piece of chocolate on Valentine's Day, but unfortunately for them, the teacher confiscates every last piece of it from the gals... every piece, that is, except for the one that Monami brought for him. She eventually gives it to him, and come to find out, it's full of her blood: meaning that, now that he has bitten into it, he is half-vampire. She explains that she is lonely and in search of a soul-mate, and as it turns out, she believes that Jyugon could be the one. How sweet!

Of course, this does not sit too well with Keiko, who... alright, let me cut in for a moment here and repeat that this is a goofy movie. Explaining how we get from here to the final battle would sound silly in print, so let me just say that it involves a Kabuki scientist, the head of the Black Face Girl clique in Afro Rika (Namie Terada), the school wrist cutter captain (Maki Mizui), and a drop of vampire blood. You'll have to watch the movie to see how all of this comes together, but what we wind up with is a Frankenstein girl who is out for revenge against our poor little vampire girl. Both ladies have interesting powers: the Frankenstein girl has removable limbs which can be used in innovative ways as weapons, while the vampire girl can create weapons out of her own blood (an idea that is used to awesome effect in the finale). It's an even matchup, so who will come out on top?

As mentioned, you can easily gauge your reaction to this film if you've already seen Machine Girl and / or Tokyo Gore Police: you'll enjoy this if you loved them, while if you hated them... well, you'd probably better click right on off of this page. All three of these movies attempt to appeal to the same demographic, and while none of them are high art, they are all fun films that fit together nicely beside one another on your shelf.

With that said, I firmly believe that this one measures up to the standards set by those two films. The entire premise is just so over-the-top that you can't help but fall in love with it, the blood and the gore are just as nice and free-flowing, and everything about the film is as enjoyable as anything found in those other two releases. The only thing I can truly fault this release for is a few instances of shoddy CGI effects, but really, bitching about the realism (or lack thereof) in a film that features a woman shooting hands with eyeballs in the palms out of her boobs is not something that I plan on doing in this review. Suffice it to say that a solid ninety-five percent of the effects are practical and beautiful to look at, while the other five percent are computer-generated and... well, they stand out.

I also enjoyed the characters presented here. All of the main characters and even some of the lesser ones have their own genuine character - there is very little in the way of "filler" people. From the mad scientist to his nurse assistant to the hunchback to the Black Face girls and everyone else involved, it's easy to find a favorite to root for even while ignoring the main characters. The actors themselves are gleefully overacting, and while that's not a trait that one tends to look for in most movies, it worked out nicely here: it's plainly obvious that everyone involved was having a blast, and that translates to some fun scenes that could have flopped if done with actors who were merely phoning it in. Oh, and watch for a cute cameo from Takashi Shimizu, the creator of the Grudge movies.

Overall, this one gets a huge thumbs up for fans of Japanese craziness. It's not quite as good as Machine Girl and it's a smidgen better than Tokyo Gore Police, but in the end, it's really nothing more than an insanely fun, eighty-minute case of perpetual "what the fuck am I watching?" I like that in a movie. 9.5/10.