Milk_Tray_Guy

Sidequel 'short' to the 2008 full-length movie The Machine Girl, featuring a bunch of characters - good and bad - who were definitely killed (very bloodily) in the first movie miraculously resurrected (complete with scars/deformities from their death-causing injuries). The cute, gorgeous Noriko Kijima again plays Yoshie (the best friend of the first movie's main character, Ami), who herself is given not one but two machine gun appendages! One - like Ami - on her arm, and one that protrudes from her ass whenever she gets embarrassed! I would say, 'seriously' - except nothing is serious about this 'movie'. It is clearly just the director ripping the p*ss out of his own earlier work. Only worth seeing for Noriko Kijima prancing around in her underwear. She alone gets this 4/10.

Japanese splatter-gore-horror-action-comedy.

Ami is a highschool girl who looks after her younger brother, Yu, following the suicide of both their parents. One day Yu is killed (along with his friend Takeshi) in a bullying-gone-too-far incident by the son of a local ninja-yakuza clan chief. Ami swears revenge, but she is captured by the clan and tortured - including the severing of her left arm just below the elbow. She is taken in by Takeshi's parents who are mechanics. The father, Suguru, designs and builds a machine gun attachment for Ami's injured arm, whilst the mother, Miki, gives her coaching in hand-to-hand combat (cue 1980s-style training montage). After an attack on the home by the yakuza - during which Suguru is killed - Ami and Miki set out to track down the ninja-yakuza clan and kill every last one of them.

It's every bit as bonkers as it sounds. I was expecting it to be based on some manga/anime, but no, it was an original idea by director Noboru Iguchi. It has an *insane* amount of injury/blood/gore/torture/death, and plenty of fights (apparently a few hours self-defence coaching from a new friend in their garage can equip a highschool girl to successfully take on multiple, seasoned, armed ninja-yakuza clan members in hand-to-hand combat). The comedy comes from the ludicrousness of how over the top *everything* is. Every female in this ranges from really cute to drop-dead gorgeous - but they also acquit themselves very well in the acting and action stakes. Plenty of things don't make sense, and injuries that would clearly be fatal due to blood loss regularly vanish in the next shot! But it's not the sort of film you watch for logic or consistency! 😄

Can't see me buying it, but it's an entertaining hour and a half. 6/10.

In early 19th century France a group of strolling players and entertainers are invited to perform at the castle of one Count Drago (Christopher Lee). On their arrival Count Drago tells them almost immediately his hobby is taxidermy - and that he is striving to perfect a formula that will kill and instantly embalm *any* living creature... Now, right there is the point where anyone who isn't a complete idiot would say 'thanks - goodbye'. But of course they are all complete idiots, and respond with little more than 'Oh, that's fascinating.' I guarantee you have already worked out the rest.

Lee is watchable as ever (thankfully, this is one of his European films where he did his own English voice dub). The rest of the cast are okay. Philippe Leroy makes for a virile hero and looks good in the action (turns out before becoming an actor he was a paratrooper in the French Foreign Legion, and later a circus performer); Gaia Germani as the ingenue is incredibly beautiful (think Audrey Hepburn but with Italian va va voom), and Mirko Valentin is very creepy as the Count's lumbering, murderous manservant. But the pacing is slow, the plot is as predictable as it could be, and at 90 minutes long it feels too drawn-out/padded for what really feels like a short story. Also, unusually for Italian horror of the time it was shot entirely in B&W. I own and love plenty of B&W movies, but unlike those this *feels* like a movie that should have been shot in colour, if that makes sense.

Director Warren Kiefer was actually American (although originally credited here as 'Lorenzo Sabatini'). Donald Sutherland - making his first featured movie appearance (in several roles) - was so grateful for the opportunity that he named his son after him! Englishman Michael Reeves (who would go on to make the Vincent Price classic Witchfinder General, before dying tragically young) worked as assistant director.

It's worth a watch for Christopher Lee fans, but other than that I can't really recommend it (as a huge Lee fan I can't see myself ever revisiting it). 5/10.