The Machine Girl

Low-budget, cheesy, and gory as hell, The Machine Girl surprised me and exceeded even the high hopes I had for it. Ass-kicking, machine-gun wielding Japanese schoolgirls. Ninjas. Chainsaws. Gratuitous maimings. What more could you want out of an exploitive revenge flick? Buckets and buckets of fake blood, maybe? Good, because you're going to get those too.

Ami's parents were accused of murder and committed suicide years ago, leaving her to raise her younger brother. When a cruel young group of yakuza ninjas (yes, yakuza ninjas) and their parents destroy her world she becomes hell-bent on getting revenge. She will stop at nothing, becoming a demonic killing machine.

It would almost be a standard revenge tale, except that The Machine Girl is so deliriously over-the-top with violence and pure silliness that it becomes something quite unusual. If the movie played things straight it would be shocking and grotesque. There are numerous decapitations, dismemberments, and more arterial spray than I've ever seen outside of anime. It doesn't quite reach the level of splatter of the gore classic The Story of Ricky but comes close, which is saying something. Fortunately the movie doesn't take itself very seriously, so it probably won't offend or disturb the kind of viewers that are likely to seek it out.

The proceedings are obviously low-budget and while it shows in some places it doesn't hurt the movie at all. The look of the film suits the tonque-in-cheek tone, and most of the fights are shot surprisingly well for this kind of movie. I'm guessing a good portion of the budget was spent on fake blood. There's a lot of blood.

Fans of extreme cinema and gore won't want to miss this movie. Highly recommended.