The man behind this effort is none other than Naoyuki Tomomatsu, who's 2001 zombie outing Stacy (review here) got the gold star treatment from Synapse Films a short while back. While I wasn't in LOVE with Stacy (sorry babe), I found it to be a worthwhile comedic/horror endeavor, and natch, I was interested in viewing more from Tomomatsu. Eat the Schoolgirl predates Stacy by about 4 years. What intrigued me so much about this film was the almost indescribable description from the box cover, and it goes a little something like this...

"Eat The Schoolgirl is a very disturbing film from the director of 'Stacy,' Naoyuki Tomomatsu. Two young guys in their twenties are doing odd jobs for a sleazy yakuza gang. One of them is a nerdish sexfiend. The other is addicted to telephone-sex and traumatized by a shocking event he witnessed while he was a young child. He now has visions of an angel-like creature that tells him to go out and kill..."

Wow. Sign me up. Keep in mind that I didn't write that. I'm not nearly that clever. So here's where we stand. The description (from what I can tell) is mostly accurate. But there's a lot that they are not telling you as well...for good and for bad.

Eat The Schoolgirl (aka Kogyaru-gui: Oosaka terekura hen aka Eating The Schoolgirl aka Osaka Telephone Club) opens with a very dirty phone conversation. Phone sex that is, so far the back of the box is correct. A young man, pleasures himself to the erotic ramblings of the young girl on the other end of the line, and she's wearing a schoolgirl outfit. Whether or not this 'schoolgirl' on the other end actually 'exists' as we see her, is probably a matter of opinion. Moving on, our sex fiend and his friend (from what I can tell, just another sex fiend) run around town performing various duties, leering at girls and thinking really bad sexual thoughts. In the mean time, one of the young men is visited by a nude girl, who appears to be some sort of angel (sometimes with wings, sometimes with 'scars' of where the wings once were). There's also a rag tag group of filmmakers hanging around, who create these bizarre rape/snuff films. Also (as if all of this weren't enough), one of our 'sex fiend 'friends' likes to run around town, mass-murdering, while dressed as a schoolgirl himself. Whew! And that's just the tip of the iceberg people. I could tell you more, but then I'd have to kill ya. Eh, who am I kidding, I'll tell you more.

Really, you should be able to predict where I'm going with this. Some of it works, some of it doesn't and at just over an hour, there's just too much going on here for us to really grasp onto any one thing. What I liked? The bizarre experimental style of the films' opening and first half. Some of the great imagery through the last half. All of the scenes in which our cross-dressing schoolgirl rampages the city. And of course, seeing cute Japanese girls in the buff.

What I didn't like? The films' sometimes-pretentious attitude (In which I felt it was saying to me, "Don't get it? Fuck you then!" Some of the overly long extended soft core scenes (for an hour long film, there sure were a lot of 'em!) and the films' complete disregard for cohesive narrative structure. Not that I always need it, but in this instance, I 'think' I needed some answers or at the very least, a mild explanation.

Is there real appeal here? Sure there is...for some. I couldn't find much of anything about this film online so those interested in 'far out there' Asian cinema that's hard to cum by will surely find appeal. The packaging is nifty, and it includes a set of sexalicious postcards. Not to mention the fact that you will bear witness to the following events within this film: box cutter slashing, a prostitute who vomits on her bare chest and gets throat fucked by her cross dressing John, a cute Japanese girl given a nasty enema, a young woman disemboweled who tries to cram her intestines back in - and much much more! Let's not forget about the fact that the cross dressing schoolgirl ejaculates on his/her victims after each kill! I can't believe I just said that. So yeah, you've got the trash factor here as well. A little something for everyone I s'pose?

While the film is letterboxed at about 1:85.1, it's sadly not enhanced for widescreen TV's. Picture quality is more than adequate for such a title, despite its obvious analog origins. Audio options include Japanese 2.0 and/or German 2.0/5.1 with optional English Subs. There's some slight hiss on the Japanese track and I presume you'll want to stick with the original audio no matter what.

Extras are limited to a trailer (which is brand new for this release and utter crap) and still gallery (which is basically screen grabs taken from the film, also utter crap). So truly, the only extras are the nifty packaging and sexalicious postcards I spoke of earlier. If packaging even qualifies as an extra. I guess in this case it could?

It's a Japanese oddity that's found its way to DVD, BUY it (and much, much more!) at DIABOLIK DVD - www.diabolikdvd.com! Diabolik DVD is a great online resource for purchasing rare DVD imports online. Fast and friendly service, check them out!