FrightFest

Wow. Phew. That was a film! I needed a few hours kip after watching that - it was everything to everyone and no less.

What a start - that was something really special - (could we be looking at the new Japanese Lost Boys no less? Ahem... see next paragraph) - a great night time vampire scene/fight. Then straight into some very cool characters and nice dialogue. I like these guys - they are a pretty cool and quirky gang.

What a genre - that great start quickly descended into a bit of a cross genre farse in places. Did it cross every genre known to cinema - except Western: drama, horror, martial arts, comedy, buddy movie, torture porn... etc?

What a boat - I started to quickly dislike some of the characters that I loved so much in the first 20 minutes - like lighten up guys. It was all going so well before the boat ride to Higanjima. That boat was a bad guy to match any horror villian - it single handled wiped out the gang's charisma and mercilessly ate their collective sense of humour, piece by gory piece.

But what an ending - all being said though, I came away feeling quite satisfied. I'm just not sure why...

Didn't you hate that first they set up the characters so nicely during the chase sequence (chemistry guy throwing bombs, main guy sprinting and fighting, cute girl doing archery) and the following couple of minutes (best friend turning up with a baseball bat) and then didn't use this in the movie AT ALL? I was so looking forward to vampires getting impaled by arrows, heads being bashed in by baseball bats and what did we get? They arrive at the island, stumble into a trap, get caught. Fuck.
But hey, not all is lost, let them escape from the dungeon and in a daring action sequence recapture all their weapons from the armory and then start the head bashing? No? Shit.
I loved how this movie looked like a manga come to life, the camera angles, the characters, straight out of a comic.
The girls, hot, the CGI not too bad, juicy sex scenes a huuuuuuuge monster, a huge end fight, this had ALL the ingredients to become a perfectly entertaining movie, instead it fell a little bit flat.
Also, with 120min this was far too long, you could have easily taken out 30min without sacrificing anything.
Still
7/10

nagelfar wrote:I loved how this movie looked like a manga come to life, the camera angles, the characters, straight out of a comic.

Well it WAS based on a Manga so that's not entirely unexpected. I really enjoyed it although, I agree with you, it could have been a bit shorter. Fortunately I saw it first thing on Sunday morning so wasn't in danger of nodding off at that point. Second best "Disco" movie after Outcast IMO.

Scrof the Return wrote: Well it WAS based on a Manga

I know this but not many movies manage to pull this off e.g. look at Uzumaki. Good movie in itself but not very manga like in the making.

Didn't you hate that first they set up the characters so nicely during the chase sequence ... and then didn't use this in the movie AT ALL?

Exactly. It started off as one thing and then changed in2 something completely different. What happened to the exciting funny buddy movie kick azz start. Now I'm not opposed to some cross genre - I'm as experimental as the next bloke - but... that film seriously lost the consistent plot somewhere at the start of Act II. Cross genre can work, e.g. JC's Big Trouble in Little China, but it really hepls if its done with a sense of humour, but this just didn't have it.

NIce ideas throughout though, especially at the start.

I am gonna catch this one on dvd it's out shortly I think