In a very similar vein to the CG-enhanced comic splatter shenanigans of the recent MACHINE GIRL and TOKYO GORE POLICE (co-director Yoshihiro Nishimura worked on both in either a directing or special effects capacity while Naoyuki Tomomatsu directed the stylistically similar zombie opus STACY), this Manga adaptation is arguably even more deranged than both but possesses the same kind of thrown-together messiness and devil-may-care attitude to coherence.

   The basic premise involves vampire Yuki Kawamura plotting to turn the dishy guy she fancies at school into one of her kind via a blood-laced chocolate gift box on Valentine’s Day. Too bad that the guy (Takumi Saitoh) has a girlfriend who gets so mad at Kawamura’s actions that she gets her mad-scientist dad (who has a laboratory within the school) to turn her into a super-strong variation on the Frankenstein monster.

   It’s all an excuse for a series of surrealistic creature FX, hosepipe-style arterial spray, throwaway genre references (a janitor named Ygor), bizarre musical interludes and a whole lot of rampantly un-PC gags hammered into the ground. Aside from some now questionable Michael Jackson references, the movie incorporates a jaw-dropping gang of wannabe “black” students - actually white teens in outrageous Minstrel Show-style blackface with OTT facial features (afros, lip discs, vast nostrils). Some memorable bad-taste self-harming gags from TOKYO GORE POLICE are recycled here via the notably sick “13^th Annual Wrist cutters’ Rally”, making fun at the Japanese epidemic of self-mutilating teenagers. If you don’t find that amusing, you probably wont enjoy the rest of the movie.

   The cast - including TOKYO GORE POLICE’s always game Eihi Shiina - are in the spirit of the thing, and, although a little of it goes a long way, the pace is frenetic and busy enough to make the onslaught of cartoonish bloodshed mostly enjoyable if you catch it in the right frame of mind. It’s sometimes inventive, sometimes just annoying - and be prepared for an unsubtle cameo from Japanese horror director Takashi Shimizu as a weird teacher : his presence is solely an excuse for some jokes at the expense of his JU-ON franchise and the American GRUDGE remakes.