MY TOP 50(ish) GUILTY PLEASURES 18

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Bye bye, Donnie Wahlberg! Say hello to your mother for me.

I know, I know, it's been like well over a month. I've been under a dark cloud which is starting to lift, and I'm starting to feel like writing again...which is good, since that's what I plan on doing with my life and all. Yay to life of suffering! Anyway, I may be writing for an upstart website in the near future which I can't name yet, I'll be sure to let you know when that site's up and running wether I get the job or not (it's in beta testing currently). In the meantime, I'm also going to try to get some writing up here. This is a first step towards getting going again. And boy, is it a good one.

18 Kataude mashin gâru (aka The Machine Girl) (2008, dir. Noboru Iguchi, US/Jap)

This is, I believe, the first film to be actually produced by the label Tokyo Shock, which specializes in Asian cult cinema fairly well. They've brought the likes of Ichi The Killer and Visitor Q to our shores in America. I don't know if they've actually released anything that wasn't directed by Takashi Miike that I've enjoyed...until now. I watched this one last night, and much like when I saw Poultrygeist (see number 15 on the Guilty Pleasures list) I instantly fell in love. Within the first five minutes people are getting destroyed by this:

If this image doesn't sell you, I don't think we're on the same page. She has a fucking gattling gun attached to her arm! Fuck Rose McGowan! She also, at some point, attaches a chainsaw. I know, you've seen that one before, but it's more impressive here while slicing bodies in half. This is a typical revenge story, a girl whose family is murdered, and she's then tortured and loses am arm (and about half of her blood in the process...seriously). She then finds allies, one of whom crafts weapons for her stump, and she extracts her revenge. It's not to be taken seriously. A lot of films come along and claim to be the bloodiest of all time, but Machine Girl may in fact be up there in the higher ranks of such. This film is an exercise in excess, every kill is absurdly bloody and/or comical, and occasionally some CGI effects are thrown in just to remind you that this is indeed a low budget affair. The practical effects are often quite effective, though. Did I mention it's bloody? Well it is. From the ground up, this is a schlocky affair full of gratuitous murder. See it. 

CHOICE CUT

Nothing spoken is of any interest in The Machine Girl.

-M