Mutant Girls Squad
I feel
like I need to qualify the roasting I’m about to give this film by first
saying that I’m a big fan of B-grade action/horror. I believe that a
film experience doesn’t have to be entirely convincing in order to be
enjoyable; that a lack of production values doesn’t have to be a deal
breaker. If anything, these rough edges can be the very things that give
a movie its charm.
Mutant
Girls Squad, directed by the trio of Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura
and Tak Sakaguchi, is bereft of any of that charm. It tells the story of
Rin, a teenage girl who is being ostracized by her classmates. On her
16th birthday Rin becomes aware that she has special powers.
She returns home to confront her father, who reveals himself as a ‘Hiruko,’
a kind of mutant. Almost immediately after Rin has learned this,
black-clad soldiers with machine-guns strapped to their noses break into
her apartment and slaughter her parents. Rin barely escapes, and is then
pursued by the residents of her home town, who perceive her as a
monster. Rin staggers along, fighting and killing anyone who crosses her
path. She finally links up with the demonic Kisaragi (Tak Sakaguchi) and
his team of female Hiruko. Each of these girls possesses a unique
’treasure,’ which means they can project tentacles, claws, chainsaws and
swords from various parts of their anatomy.
Rin
befriends cosplaying nurse Yoshi (Suzuka Morita), and amongst a whole
lot of blood-letting, the two face the moral decision of whether to side
with their mutant brethren or to partake in the wanton slaying of the
entire human race.
What
follows is another hour-or-so of cheap CGI gore, failed humour and
sprinklings of sexual innuendo. Characters sing and dance as they
gleefully hack unarmed people to bits; characters some, go and die for
little or no reason. Everyone in this movie is horrible in varying
degrees, from the humans to the mutants who we are (presumably) meant to
care about.
This is an
ugly film, in terms of production as well as the violence it depicts on
screen. The sets and locations are very bland, ranging from generic
factories and office buildings to industrial sites. The costume design
is bright and eccentric, but only on par with a Power rangers
episode. If I was to try to dredge up a positive from the visual side of
this film, it would be the incredibly gruesome yet creative death
scenes. In one instance, a hapless victim is slashed until the segments
of his head spin around like a slot machine, and then explode. In
another, a baker twirls his wife around in front of him as a means of
defence, and at the end of Rin’s attack she resembles a red, dripping
loaf of bread.
You might
be able to forgive some of the film’s faults had it produced the goods
in terms of the fighting scenes. But these are hopelessly drawn-out,
lacking any pace or excitement. While there are some stunts, most of the
fights consist of a slurry of quick edits and close-ups to cover up the
absence of any real choreography.
In one
scene, the fight takes place behind a tower of scaffolding to hide the
detail from view.
The film’s
soundtrack has an interesting surfie/punk vibe that is reminiscent of
some of Tarantino’s works. Even though it’s repetitive, it’s one of the
stand-out elements of the production. But then again in the midst of
this gory mess, it’s not hard to stand out.
Special Features:
Included
on the DVD is a single Featurette, which is a short back-story for
Yoshie and Kisaragi. There are also the standard collection of trailers
from Madman.
Closing Comments:
Mutant
girls squad isn’t a movie; it’s an exhibition of gore, phallus jokes and
mean-spirited violence. I think we all feel the need to turn our brains
off with a bit of B-grade action from time to time, but you’d be
scraping the barrel with this one.
