Customer Reviews

Stacy

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

"Stacy" is a movie that few people who watch it seem to really "get," and I can hardly hold that against them. It does hold a very interesting concept underneath its mindless gore and bizarre characters.

A strange phenomenon is causing girls age 15-17 all over the world to die and come back as flesh eating zombies. Before they die, they are overcome by something called NDH (Near Death Happiness) which causes them to run around acting giddy and lovestruck, and giggling with delight at everything they see. After they die, their friends and family members are asked to chop them up into little pieces before they are brought back to life as something called a "Stacy."

I'm not a great fan of Zombie horror. However, I can appreciate this as a new take on the whole thing. The zombie gore is fun, if you're into that sort of thing. But what made this movie so interesting to me was the whole reason why the teen girls became zombies, and that's that part that's easy to miss. Near the end, the mad doctor studying the "Stacies" says, "I finally know what brings you to life. It's love." If it sounds like I ruined the ending for you, I haven't. This seems like a big explanatory scene near the end of a horror film, except that it makes no sense whatsoever. But as you may know (and you probably do, if you looked up this title), Asian horror doesn't usually have an explanation for everything the way American horror does. And Stacy is no exception. There's much more to it than just that.

The image of a young woman in a school uniform represents an idealized image of female sexuality that doesn't exist. The disease these girls suffer from is caused by (male) society's obsession with a feminine ideal. When the girls first become infected, they act like mindless bimbos, giggling and professing their love for any man who walks toward them. This goes on for a while, until this cultural stereotype kills them, and they are reborn, transformed from nearly mindless bimbos into literally mindless zombies. As it is stated over and over again in the film, the girls have a natural desire to be loved. As if forced by evolution, the girls move toward the mindless state that will allow them to be loved. In short, this film is a metaphor for idealized images of submissive women, and how dangerous those images can be to girls.

Having said all that, this movie is incredibly goofy. I wouldn't blame you if you watched this and failed to see the depth I just described. But that's what I came away with. There are some fun zombie scenes, and the unusual premise makes for some wacky characters. By far my favorite were the three teenage girls who formed an illegal "repeat kill" agency they named after their idol, Drew Barrymore. They contact families who can't bring themselves to chop up their dead daughters, and do it themselves, for a fee. Their goal is to save enough money to pay their favorite star to "repeat kill" them after they die. The girls want to die by the hand of someone they love. When one of them giggles, someone makes a remark to her about "NDH," and she gets very defensive and belligerent. I interpret this, not so much as a fear of dying, but a defiance of what is happening to her. Despite the fact that this comes from a desire to be "loved," she does not want to become what a male dominated society wants her to be. NDH may be a certain "happiness," but she would rather live as a real person with real feelings and ideas. And since she can't, she wishes to be repeat killed, instead of living in a mindless state.

I quite liked this film, although I can't give it a very high rating, because sometimes it just gets way too silly. The "I think I'm at my prettiest" speech just makes you go, "huh?" All in all, this is much better than average cheap, gross out special effects zombie movies. If you're one of those zombie purists who hates zombie movies that don't stick to the arbitrary zombie movie rules, stay away. But if you want a low budget movie with something different, I'd recommend it, because horror movies don't get much more different than this.

STACY takes place in a world where teenaged girls everywhere are succumbing to a mysterious condition known as "near death happiness." These girls fall into a dreamlike, ecstatic state before suddenly expiring - and shortly thereafter, rising again as cannibalistic zombies. There is no cure, so parents are urged to kill their own daughters. If they can't do the job themselves, special troops can be called in to do it for them.

An insert included with the DVD package talks about a Japanese concept that describes the obsession many people have with innocence and beauty and things they can't have, and also the notion that by destroying something, you set it free. Even though this is touched on near the end of the film, it is a bit difficult to ascribe such depth to a film in which girls in bunny suits hawk chainsaws dubbed "Bruce Campbell's right hand" on TV for the purpose of using it on NDH victims, and in which a young man embraces an undead girl (who is gagged for his protection, of course) and claims she is his lover. Had the film been more serious than silly, I'd be more inclined to find meaning in it. (I can't help but think such a film could have been quite good.) In any case, you can take it or leave the critical analysis as you please; whatever works for you.

As it stands, STACY is an often funny, gory, moderately entertaining movie. It is also - strangely - occasionally sweet, although again it is hard to take it too seriously. If you are into zombies or schoolgirls or both, and you enjoy the zany Asian attitude toward horror, you will probably enjoy this movie on some level.

DVD notes: This release from Synapse is pretty basic. English subtitles are optional, and default to on which is appreciated. There is also a trailer. The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen.

Sometimes I think other reviewers turn their brains off when they watch a movie. I thought I was buying a gore movie about zombies. When I watched my new purchase, I learned that I had actually bought a deeply intense and emotional story about Love. Girls need love, and they crave it badly.

This movie does have a lot of gore. Pretty good gore, too. But it is all just background. The Bruce Campbell brand chain saw might seem a little cheesy, but it just adds to the nice atmosphere of the movie.

There is a lot to learn from this movie, and it warrants several watchings to truely grasp the deepness of its message.

On a purely gut level, "Stacy" sounds like a great movie. An extremely low budget film that looks like director Naoyuki Tomomatsu shot on video, the movie consists of a bunch of young Japanese schoolgirls turned into ravenous zombies running around tearing people to shreds. That one line alone ought to inspire the avid horror fan to run, not walk, to the nearest DVD dispersal point for a copy. Another selling point for the film, in my eyes, is the fact that Synapse films performed the transfer to DVD. This company is a true hero for the horror fan, releasing obscure film after obscure film from around the world for our viewing pleasure. I recently read an article concerning the DVD release of "The Deadly Spawn" that claimed Synapse spent more money on the restoration than the filmmakers did on the entire movie! And we're not talking pocket change, either. That's what I call dedication. A final reason to pick up this film, if the above two reasons don't do the trick, is the superiority of this shot on video production compared to the dreck spooned out over here by companies like Sub Rosa. It is obvious Tomomatsu has enough talent to move on to film, something I can't say for the directors of "Shatter Dead" and "Peter Rottentail."

Something sinister on a global scale is occurring in the film "Stacy." Some malady--whether biological, chemical, or psychological no one knows as of yet--is causing pre-teen girls everywhere to perish suddenly. As bad as that sounds, what happens afterwards is a real nightmare: the girls emerge from their tombs as mindless flesheating zombies willing to prey on family members, friends, and total strangers. At some point, a talking head attached the moniker "Stacy" to these hapless victims, a name that stuck and now applies to zombies in every country. The implications of such a catastrophe should be very clear: without these girls growing up to bear children, the human population will move rapidly towards extinction in the coming years. In the meantime, the authorities take all manner of precautions to stem the tide of Stacy related disasters. Governments urge parents to look for the warning signs, including bouts of giggling immediately preceding demise called NDH (Near Death Happiness), and prepare to do the unthinkable. Armed with "Bruce Campbell" chainsaws purchased through companies advertising on television along with a ready supply of government provided trash bags, mother and father must be willing to dispose of their out of control daughters before the child hurts anyone else. Just in case a few milquetoasts can't fire up the old chainsaw when the moment arrives, Romero Repeat Kill soldiers move in too clean up the mess.

None of the above takes center stage in "Stacy," however. We do get to see a few of the messier scenes involving Romero troops and a rampaging Stacy, and we do see a few of the advertisements on television for the Campbell chainsaws (you can wear them on one hand!), but other issues move to the forefront. Specifically, the movie follows the relationship between a puppet designer and a soon to be Stacy. Director Tomomatsu spends a huge amount of time following this budding relationship between an older man and a younger girl. They go out for walks in a garden, engage in long, meaningful talks, and the puppeteer even stages a show for his new girlfriend. It's disconcerting in the extreme for American horror film fans to watch what is essentially a romance movie taking place in the middle of gory carnage. It's all apparently related to the overarching theme Tomomatsu is trying to get across to his audience, about the social position of young girls in Japan in relation to male domination and expectations. Or something along those lines. Whatever it is, "Stacy" sure is a strange, schizophrenic film. Imagine "The Professional" fused with a George Romero gutmuncher.

The horror fan in me wants to reject the social messages of this film--messages I had to read about in the liner notes because I haven't a clue as to how Japanese society works--and focus instead on the extreme gore. And there is a lot of gluey stuff going on, especially during the final scenes when a doctor working on the causes of the Stacy phenomenon loses control of his test subjects. For such a low budget production the gore effects look quite remarkable. Regrettably, the bloody effects work will only take you so far. The rest of the trip consists of the romance angle and cornball antics so inane that will take your breath away. What was up with the girls that formed the underground Romero type group? That they offer to help squeamish parents kill their Stacies is all fine and dandy, since a law requires parents to dispatch their own troublesome female offspring leaves the faint of heart in a quandary, but to name their group after Drew Barrymore? What's next, the Christina Aguilera Attack Squad? The Britney Spears Revolutionary Army? Egad! Too, that constant NDH giggling is likely to work your last nerve to a frazzle long before the movie grinds to a halt.

I can't find it in myself to take "Stacy" out behind the woodshed because of its problems, however. The movie is such an inventive twist on an old horror idea that I generally enjoyed it despite the often impenetrable plot. As for the DVD itself, the picture quality looks fantastic for a shot on video project. Synapse throws in a trailer as an extra, but nothing else. I heard Tomomatsu is in Japan making another zombie film as I write, so perhaps we can expect another weird take on the zombie theme in the future. Give "Stacy" a watch if you like a movie that mystifies as much as it churns the stomach.

On the surface, Stacy is low-budget schlock, a film that is decidedly amateurish in many aspects. Shot on digital video on a very tight budget it has nevertheless many charms, it's a film where you can tell that the filmmakers had lots of talent and lots of really cool ideas. But oh, that budget...If you can get past the cheapness of it all, devouted fans of Asian horror will love this apocalyptic zombie tale that pays homage to past classic films of the undead.

In the beginning of the 21st century girls aged 15-17 began to die and spring back to life as zombies. People coined the term "Stacy" for them. Stacies are obviously very dangerous and must be killed but one has to abide by the "Stacies law" which says that only boyfriends and family members can kill a Stacy. If Stacies go astray and can't be killed by the ones they love then the job belongs to the Romero Repeat Kill troup, who use chainsaws called the "Bruce Campbell right hand #2" to kill the stacies. To properly kill a Stacy, it must be decapitated into 165 pieces.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was the explanations behind the Stacy phenomenon. The film goes into substantial length to describe the cause and aftereffects through a narrator, various news reports and scientific explanations from a doctor who studies the Stacies. I must say I prefer this approach (as used in the classic vamp novel "I am legend") compared to Zombie films that just throw you into a decayed world without bothering to explain how it got to be that way in the first place. As for the gore, people who choose to view the film simply for this reason will certainly not be disappointed, we're talking no-holds barred mondo splatter here. Again, the budget kind of hinders the quality of the gore in the first place but nevertheless there's something very disturbing about watching cute little Japanese girls in school outfits getting hacked to 165 bloody pieces with a chainsaw.

Stacy is quirky, funny and very bizarre. It contains a number of inventive concepts that a highly seasoned zombie film watcher as myself had never seen before. But when all is said and done, in the end "Stacy" is not about zombies, or gore, or even horror. It's a story about love. I know that might be hard to believe but the centerpiece of the story is about a guy and his girlfriend who is about to turn into a Stacy and the emotional pain that this realization does to both of them. The story is filled with heartfelt human tragedy and philosophies about love that are genuinely touching, although not everyone is going to understand this; Stacy is the epitomy of quirky, offbeat Japanese humour that novice viewers of Asian films might have troubling appreciating but I loved it.

Well... being a fan of Zombie flicks, this looked like fun. And... as much as I would like to sit here and pick out the positives & negatives in this flick, like I'm some uber-cool B-Flick Aficionado, I must confess, "Stacy" had me slack-jawed & stunned, complete with sights of cartoon question-marks and explanation-points flashing above my head. This is not the goriest movie I have ever seen, nor the sickest, nor the cheesiest. However, this is probably one of the most bizarre movies I have ever seen in my life.

I'm writing this immediately after checking out the flick, without doing any research in re who wrote it, who directed it, etc; which is fun, because it leaves me here, typing & wondering with astonishment, WHO THOUGHT UP THIS STORY, AND WHAT DREAM OR HALLUCINATION DID THEY JUST WAKE UP FROM?

The plot involves an epidemic of NDH: Near Death Happiness, afflicting girls between the ages of 15-17. The NDH-stricken girls go through approximately one week of sheer emotional bliss, elated yet fully aware of what's going on. After the elation phase, they drop dead, then become reanimated, devouring any human within their grasp. Unable to find a cure for the reanimated schoolgirls, which become nicknamed "Stacys," the government has produced "Romero Squads," (Too cool! For those of you who have delved into Zombie movies, The Romero Squads are a tribute to "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead" creator George Romero) who are responsible for the "Rekill," the offing of the dead girl brought back to life.

It gets weird...even considering it's a flick about hungry walking dead folk. Rather than mass despair and suicides by adolescent girls fearing of NDH infection, the girls dream about the knight-in-shining-armour, the sweetheart who will love them, and then valiantly rekill them, once their corpses rise to nibble on the living! See, in this story, aside from Romero Squad members, the only folk allowed to rekill a Stacy are family members or boyfriends.

Which brings us to the black-market Stacy killers, comprised of three stunningly beautiful warrior-girls in the NDH age range, resigned to becoming Stacys one of these days, but idealistic on who will rekill them. They illegally rekill Stacys, hired by Stacy family members who can't find it in them to slaughter their dead loved-ones. The girls are saving their bounty profits to hire a specific dream-boy to rekill them, a sexy young pop-star they are ga-ga over.

This is one original living dead flick that I highly recommend. I've seen bloodier, I've seen higher-budget, but I can't recall seeing one this weird. Despite the storyline of gorgeous schoolgirls, the focus is not on the kinky, but on schoolgirl crushes, true love, and bizarre sentimental twists from start to finish. There are many living-dead films that spotlight the gory (1980's Zombie, various other Euro-Zombie flicks), others that spotlight the campiness (Return of the Living Dead series), and those that run on the suspense and terror (the original "Night of the Living Dead"). This flick combines all three: blood & body parts flying right and left, B-Star Bruce Campbell hawking his own brand of chainsaw on infomercials, and the public despairing over the only grim solutions to the Stacy epidemic. Give this DVD a try, it's worth the time and dough!

Stacy: Attack Of The Schoolgirl Zombies
directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu
2001, 80 mins.

Stacy is a movie about, you guessed it, Stacy. Or well, Stacies, actually. Teenage girls, aged 15-17, somehow just die after experiencing some kind of Near Death Happiness. After dying, they turn into, yup, zombies. (the title didn't really give that one away, did it?) They demand to be chopped up into 165 pieces to be 're-killed'. This is what the 'story' revolves around, although the story is not really of any importance, or so it seems.

We see a girl who (unconvincingly) experiences the earlier mentioned Near Death Happiness and then goes on the look for someone to chop her up when she dies and turns into a zombie (uh). She finds a puppet-maker, Shibu, who agrees to kill her. Another (sub?)plot revolves around a guy whose sister has become a Stacy (he had to kill her after that) and therefore joins Romero, the special unit that kills the Stacies. It's quite confusing, and too pretentious by far, but besides all that, the movie provides a whole lot of fun. Tongue-in-cheek scenes (one involving some kind of TelSell advertisement where a 'Blues Campbell's Right Hand #2' is sold) help to keep your attention to it.

The movie isn't really scary (read: not at all), but the gore and fun make up for it. A strong stomach is advised for some scenes, such as the one where a Stacy gets decapitated, and some others where people get devoured quite gruesomely (guts ripped out and such). Watch it if you like zombies, Japanese schoolgirls, or both.

mos says:

Scares? 0/10
Gore? 7/10
Japanese schoolgirl zombies? 10/10
Fun factor? 7/10
Hundred-n-sixty-five-pieces? Many pieces, but not 165/10

I think a lot of people griped about the love story in STACY that seemed incongruous but I think it was the whole point of the movie. Young girls dying and craving flesh. They starved [emotionally] and woke from the dead hungering for blood or as I believe any human contact.

In Japan, the librarians wear whistles in the building so they can call for help if a male patron is bothering female staff. There are seperate female trains because molestation of adult women is bad. Japan is still behind the times on equal rights for women and sexual harrassment in the workplace.
SO, when the Stacy's happen, women become these dangerous things and suddenly the men are sad and lacking and have to butcher their girlfriends and daughters to keep them coming back from the dead and eating them. Even though Japan's women have been socially butchered for centuries being second class citizens. And the phenom is mentioned as happening around the world.
In the end the men learn to love the Stacys and miraculously they stop eating people and a new race of men is formed and a peaceful world is created...and the new Bible...the play written by the puppeteer...itself a love story.

In a nutshell, love the women in your life or they'll come back and eat you.

My feeling is that the people who rate this movie poorly most likely had their expectations so firmly set about what kind of film to expect that they can't judge it on its own merits. I think that if you understand this film, you can't help but love it (unless you totally hate J-schlock wholesale, in which case, why are you watching it?).

This film is schlock genius, and one of my favorite films.

If you come to it with an open mind, and an appreciation for this style of filmmaking, I think you'll find this film to be quite wonderful.

Stacy presents a Zombie love story that is seriously charming, yet at the same time bizarre and disturbing. Above all else, this film is a love story. That one of the lovers happens to be a Zombie doesn't change this fact. Sure, the horror aspects are bizarre and violent enough for schlock horror fans to enjoy, but that's not the point. This is a sweet and somewhat wry allegory for the creators' take on the Japanese social dilemmas involving love. It's not a broad Zombie comedy like "Shaun of the Dead," nor a straight-up horror flick either. It's something entirely different, and possibly unprecedented.

This director, and his cast (especially the Japanese Vincent Price analogue) should make more films.

I was suprised by this movie. I went in expecting total shlock, and I did get that, but I also got a rather nice movie. The gore is extreme, and the action almost non-stop. And there are zombies. Rather gross looking zombies. But that isn't the main draw to the movie... at least not for me. The main draw was that in all of this gore (which was enjoyable none the less) were characters. And characters who actually were likeable! These people are just that, people. And it shows that one of the greatest powers, that can even raise the dead, is love. Odd for a horror movie, but for some reason it works. And the thing is... it has a happy ending. Suprising I know. Not for everyone, but... if you are in the mood for something diffrent, something odd, than go for this.