Attack Girls Swim Team vs. The Undead

Attack Girls' Swim Team vs. the Undead

By Chris Almeda

Region: Japan
Year: 2007
Director: Koji Kawano

Skinny: From the name alone you can tell this movie is an instant classic, right? Well Ok, it isn't a good movie. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that this is a horrible, horrible movie. And I won't even say it's so bad it's good. But, I will say there is some interesting things in this movie that will probably catch you off guard.... at the least.

Attack Girls' Swim Team Versus the Undead is a Japanese movie that starts off with the introduction of Aki (Sasa Handa) a new transfer student who joins a school or something and you find out she's afraid of water. She meets Sayaka (Yuria Hidaka), who just so happens to be part of the schools swim team and she convinces her to join to get over her phobia. So right away we get this weird imagery of Aki and Sayka in water being all.... wet and.... close and stuff. Cause, I mean, girls in swimsuits means faux lesbians, right? Of course.

Throughout Sayaka's attempt to get Aki over her phobia, you are introduced to the rest of the cast, like a teacher, a principal and oh right, the rest of the swim team. Throughout all this the school (at which point I realized this was a all girl school) is taking mandatory flu shots. Which is later revealed to be some sort of serum that changes everyone into zombies! But for some odd reason the chlorine in the water of the swimming pool cleanses the body of this disease. Now let's recap: An all girl school takes mandatory shots that make everyone a zombie and the only people that aren't effected is the swim team.

So the premise is set: sexy Japanese girls in swimsuits fight off a horde of zombies. Sounds awesome right? Well in this case, it seems only awesome in principle. This is one of the over the top nonsense movies that takes themselves a bit too seriously which leads to a lot of awkward moments. But I'll get to that stuff a bit later. At this point in the movie Aki and Sayaka are getting to know each other better and the faux lesbian-ness continues with constant teases, such as the showering together (yes, that's right) and just weird awkward close up moments of their faces looking like they'll kiss which all happens during the first half of the movie. To say that this movies first half was just a set up to the second half is an understatement. In fact, if this movie was about girls in swimsuits getting chased by zombies only to rally together and fight them and win, I could really care less. And that's not to say that the first half wasn't weird already, with a weird zombie lady speaking in English that sounds horrible, a mathematician who kills people with rulers and other math related items (at some point he pulls out a torch), and just about all the weird zombie things going on (eating people etc., etc). But what really makes this movie memorably is the second half.

So I may have reminded you that this is a movie about a Swim team killing zombies over and over again. And I may have also reminded you about all the faux lesbianism going on between Aki and Sayaka. And in the second half of the movie... something... happens. Something I never really thought would happen... happened. That faux lesbianism, the weird close ups, the awkward teases, all threw themselves out the window. It's revealed that Aki escaped a facility, a facility where she was held against her will and be trained to become an assassin (she was trained on a beach so I guess that was where she got her phobia!). A character known as "The Doctor" is introduced who made Aki his slave and trained her. Through endless push ups and moving a switch blade around, she became the perfect assassin, all the while craving for more. So she decides to escape in search of a normal life which eventually leads her to the school.

Feeling sorry for her, Sayaka comforts her the only way she knows how.... by kissing her.... more than once. And eventually... there's more... a lot more... not enough to say "Dude they totally went there!" but enough to go "Holy crap where is this moving going?!" Sayaka and Aki eventually have sex... yes that's right, they do the nasty deed on camera. While it isn't full on porn its enough to classify it as softcore... I guess. They show breast... and there's moaning but that's about it. So yes, all that constant teasing does in fact lead to this very moment, which in some ways I can see, but to really go that far... I'm not sure if it was at all necessary. And it gets worse.

After this whole crazy scene, assassin Aki reveals that The Doctor did things to her as well. For some reason The Doctor had the ability to play the flute that caused her to get aroused, which then led to him taking advantage of her. Again, nothing explicit is seen, aside from a 3/4 naked girl, while the man was fully clothed (yes, he had his clothes on). Yeah, I'm not sure what was going on in this movie.

Remember the rest of the swim team? Yeah, they're still around. At some point Aki is convinced that The Doctor is behind this all and ventures though the school alone, while Sayaka convinces the swim team that they too must fight, and they do. And they get killed off in less then two minutes killing a total of one zombie. So there you go, the title of this movie has started and ended in a total of about three minutes.

Throughout this entire movie I got more and more surprised with all the twists and turns. Constantly repeating "Why would they do this?" to myself. The acting was nothing short of awful; a lot of the people they got seemed like fifth string actors (or just friends of people working on this movie). Aki is played rather one dimensionally but I guess it fits the one dimensional character, while Sayaka is the cheerful character throughout. Though both are bad, you do get to see some range in Yuria Hidaka simply because of that. Everyone else is just on another level of bad. The sex scenes between The Doctor and Aki is just an awkward mess, and The Doctor's face thoughout is very, very stoic. The rest of the swim team can be summed up in two words.... Domestic Dispute.

Now this wouldn't be a zombie without gore, yes? And Attack Girls' Swim Team Versus the Undead is both good and bad... in some ways. The gore is there, such as brains and lungs and other organs but the blood is the best part. Just like an Anime, the blood comes in buckets and buckets. But the best part is that it's basically coloured water. One of the very first "Horror" scenes is a man being stabbed multiple times. The stabbing is awkwardly long and the blood just looks so watered down with each stab. It certainly is a treat.

The overall production of this movie is a mangled mess. Aside from some key characters, it wouldn't surprise me if all the girls on the swim team were basically all the girls in the movie. Being constantly routed between scenes. The movie makes it pretty clear that the rest of the girls are meaningless by either having them all together in one shot or just never focusing on one person too long.

The general look of the movie looks worse than a Can of Nothing video. Yes that's right, this movie looks worse than a Canon HD Camera blah blah blah. And I can safely say this because all of the shots are very basic.

A lot of the music is some generic faux metal with generic sounding riffs. To be honest, I don't recall there being music in the movie other than the action scenes. And the action? Well... there is none.

It may surprise you that when I watched it, I watched with a bunch of Japanese people, thus them not turning the subs on and me not understanding any dialogue. And yet, I was able to correctly sum up what was going on. And as if it couldn't get any weirder I found out after viewing this movie that the two main actresses (Sasa Handa & Yuria Hidaka) are actually JAV Idols. Which are the Japanese equivalent to porn stars. So if you were wondering why there was sex in it.... well.... there you go.

I won't spoil the rest (even though this is 3/4 of the story... maybe even more) but needless to say they all die like in some Greek tragedy... but with some weird laser killing someone that is in an area you would never see coming. Attack Girls' Swim Team Versus the Undead is simply a weird movie. From the constant teasing of lesbianism to the actual "Hey look girls are doing it!" scenes to the incoherent direction in this movie. As much as I can't recommend watching this movie I have to say that I would recommend it just as much. There is something to all the craziness that will make you stay where you are and continue watching this train wreck of a movie.