Sorry guys, but Dracula isn't in it. The original title, 'Chi o suu bara'. means The Bloodsucking Roses.
Now you've got a general idea, let me sum up this film. It combines the bonkers and the banal as many horror films made on the cheap in the Seventies do. More interestingly, though, it combines a Hammer-European sensibility with a thoroughly Japanese setting and characters, and it kind of works. Well, I enjoyed it. But I had to make myself persist when I was about halfway through. It sags a bit.
The story is very simple the mystery element is minimal except for one plot twist, which I will not reveal. Young and handsome Professor Shiraka - who teaches psychoanalysis, would you believe? - arrives as a posh academy for young ladies, which just happens to be a long way from the big city.
Shiraki is driven from the station to the school by Professor Yoshi, who teaches French literature and is a weird creep who keeps quoting the grislier bits of Baudelaire. He is met at the school by the principal, whose young wife recently died. The principal informs Shiraki that he is next in line for the top job. Which is odd, as the guy just got there. And Yoshi, we soon discover, was originally slated as the next principal. What gives?
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| Strange as it may seem, this sums it all up quite well |
Cut to the tennis courts, where nubile teenagers played by twenty-something actresses are fooling around. The new professor is an instant hit with three girls who, we can't help suspecting, will be central to the plot. Yoshi is hanging around like a perv, which the girls confirm that he is. It's all very strange, and Shiraki starts to investigate. Knowing that the principal's wife is currently encoffined in the basement, he naturally decides to take a look. This causes a bit of upset, but the scene also confirms that she is a vampire.
A word about that. In this film vampirism is spread in the usual way, by a bite with plastic fangs, but with two key differences. Firstly, there's none of this lingering for days going all woozy. The chance occurs literally overnight. Secondly, the bite is always on the bosom of a nubile young lady so the blood can run over a nipple. Then there's the fact that all vampires go very pale in the face while remaining their natural colour elsewhere, which makes you wonder why Shiraki and his bumbling allies can't spot the baddies immediately.
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| She's behind you! |
The plot is a bit clunky and obvious, but the set pieces are sometimes good. The soundtrack is equally variable, ranging from piano bar cool jazz to strident prog rock. The characters are also a mixed bag, with the local doctor offering an oddly comic turn before being offed by the principal in a fairly brutal fashion. The explanation of a vampire and his missus running a girls' school turns out be surprisingly original, with a pesky Westerner to blame. And then there's that twist, which is clever and one that I may well steal for a story of my own.
But we all know that a good vampire film can be saved or ruined by the final showdown, and here this blood-soaked effort does a good job. The principal has superior strength and speed, and things look bad for Shiraki. But at the last second, he grabs the ideal weapon - one that might be more authentic, according to some authorities, than the standard wooden stake. And so the evil is vanquished and the professor can (probably) marry the surviving schoolgirl.
All in all, an odd movie but one that has 1974 written all over it in bloody sigils. A fun watch.
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| Yes, I suppose graveyard security could be better... |
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