I assume if you clicked this review you’re familiar with the japanese style of grindhouse splatter exploitation horror, which often involves schoolgirls equipped with machineguns in the ass, boobular rifles, zombie vaginas that spit flame, quadruple amputeed gimps with blades as limbs, gallons of fake blood, decapitated heads talking or moving about, zombies coming out toilets, mutant freaks with biomechanical chainsaw growing on their arms, etc.
You know the famous ones, from The Machine Girl, Robogeisha, Helldriver, Tokyo Gore Police, Dead Sushi, Mutants Girls Squad, Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl (which i revisited earlier) and last year we featured Big Tits Dragon, also based on a manga of the same name by Rei Mikamoto.
This adaptation is directed by a lesser known name in the field, Hiroki Yamaguchi (Hellevator, various live action Messiah Gaiden films and TV series), which i’m not really familiar with, and i can’t say i’m familiar with the original manga by the author of Satanister – Satanic Sister.
Plotwise, it’s indeed what it says on the tin, with the deliquent schoolgirl Giko Nokomura, whose dreams of coasting through middle school are dashed when confronted by her fellow classmates turned into mutant bioweapons and zombies by another student (and an old aquaintance of Giko’s), Nero Aoi, whom just loves to turn people into cyborgs and moonlights a mad scientist in order to get revenge for being bullied by her classmates.
Thankfully Giko always carries a chainsaw around for situations like these, so when pushes come to shove she’s ready to revv things up and confront Nero’s army of mutant freaks, sukeban style.
So, it sounds like it has everything you’d want from a movie like this, but sadly this is a surprisingly boring entry in the genre, which i didn’t expect to say when eventually the chainsaw gets upgraded Lollipop Chainsaw style, so now it can shoot bullets like a rifle and even extend.
Yeah, that bit with the upgraded chainsaw abilities it’s fun and some jokes land, but the narrative aimless meanders without much action or stuff happening until the final act, the satire is weak, the comedy it’s fairly dull and the self-aware meta jokes are trite, even the “weird factor” leaves something to be desired. Kinda basic, to be brutally honest, and it’s a problem in a genre that thrives in insane concepts, absurd visuals, demented showdowns between freak fighters, and so on.
It’s also surprisingly very tame in terms of gore and nudity, i don’t really care that much about the latter, but you’d expect “Bloody Deliquent Chainsaw Girl” to be a lot more bloody and higher on the matter of mutilations, decapitations and gorey fights. Feels a bit cheapish, even compared to other movies like these that also tend do be cheap to produce, usually, or are – overall – relatively not that expensive.
On the other hand, it’s not an unwatchable movie or anything, acting it’s okayish, the chainsaw fights scenes are entertaining enough, it’s not half bad , it’s pretty short as it runs under 70 minutes…..it’s just kind of hum-drum, not nearly as “crazy” or creative enough with its premise, and it doesn’t feel like the director it’s really that committed to the idea either.
And with this material you gotta committ, because it hurts the experience and it’s obvious anyway when a director’s doesnt, making all the meta jokes at the cliches feel kinda hollow, since it’s still doing them anyway, like the excessive talking on the rooftop during the final battle and shit.
Disappointing, but still, overall it’s just a middling effort, not really bad, subpar or awful. Just “mid”.
Honestly it’d make for a better Oneechanbara or Lollipop Chainsaw style videogame, but regardless there was more to come, as in 2019 two more Bloody Deliquent Chainsaw Girl live action movies came out, released as a two parter, pretty common for manga-to-live action adaptations.
Maybe next year.
Happy Halloween!
Wise Cafe (International) 