by MATTHEW HAYS

I wouldn’t recommend Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend as a first-date movie per se, unless you’re going out with Karla Homolka. This is a nasty-ass bit of work, a vile, sordid, hallucinogenic bit of Japanese anime, the kind that makes you queasy while making your skin crawl.

Which is fine, if you like that sort of thing. The action starts here in a high school where a geeky lad gazes through a door into the girls’ locker room, Porky’s style. Later, Geek Boy gets smacked in the head by a basketball which Jock Boy throws it at him. Left with face bloodied, there’s a wee bit of homoerotic tension as Jock Boy licks the blood off Geek Boy’s face. This, as it turns out, is some DNA sampling on the part of an insipid monster, which leads to a major plot point later on.

Things get stranger when a young lass goes into a teacher’s office, only to get accosted sexually by her. This is the first lesbian rape sequence I’ve ever seen in animated form. It then seems that parallel universes collide, as people begin to morph into terrifying monsters and a battle between various creatures ensues. Dead people come back to life, body parts fly everywhere and lots of women get raped. And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten to comprehending this plot.

I wouldn’t be a responsible reviewer if I didn’t mention the over-the-top rape sequences in this film. As monsters morph and the animation style shifts, legs are spread and spinning, gigantic phallic-like objects whip out of the monsters and up the girls’ private parts. Someone has clearly got some penetration issues.

The bizarre imagery is really the main reason to see Overfiend. I think there are a lot of interesting ideas that have gone into the compositions and colour schemes, though the gang of horny teens who put this thing together seem to have been so transfixed with wacked-out sex that they forgot about plotting and characters that make the remotest amount of sense. Best enjoyed, I suspect, with a substance on the side. :

Legend of the Overfiend screens this weekend at the Parc

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