STACY
PLOT-Girls between the ages of 15 and 17 turn into flesh-eating zombies called "Stacys".
VIOLENCE-Where to begin? Body parts are torn off, guts are eaten, heads are shot to pieces, and people get chainsawed. This is one really really gory movie.
SEX/NUDITY-Don't recall seeing any.
WHY I WATCHED IT-Japanese schoolgirls turning into zombies? Are you kidding? I'm there.
THE DOPE-I've seen several movies that are influenced by Sam Raimi's EVIL DEAD films and George Romero's DEAD trilogy, and I've even seen a few that go so far as to reference the films themselves within the story (DEAD NEXT DOOR, THE DEAD HATE THE LIVING), but usually they miss the point. All they do is rip off, rip off, rip off. STACY is more like a love letter to the work of Raimi and Romero, but one that's written in blood and placed in an envelope with a bunny rabbit on it. The story is so unusual, and the film is so distinctly Japanese, yet because I'm so familiar with its influences, I can tell what's coming and I still love it when it happens. It's a great marriage between the twisted and bizarre Asian horror style and the rough-ass horror tactics of the best American zombie flicks, to absolutely great effect. No other movie could get away with having a chainsaw called "Bruce Campbell's Right Hand 2" that fits on your arm and is specifically designed to hack a body into hundreds of pieces (that's the only way to kill a "Stacy" by the way). Mostly, STACY resembles DAY OF THE DEAD, because of the presence of a mad doctor who does gory experiments on the zombies, and an ever-present military group keeping things under control. However, this flick is probably one of the best and most valid entries in the zombie genre since DEAD ALIVE, and is definitely as cartoonishly gory in many places. I lost count of how many times I saw a severed head with the bloody spine dangling from the bottom end.
MEMORABLE SCENES-Too many to pick just one. Again, if you like EVIL DEAD, DEAD ALIVE, and DAY OF THE DEAD, you owe it to yourself to get STACY.
NOTES-The very expensive DVD from Synapse has no extras.
(August 2003)