Remember that movie “Planet Terror” where Rose McGowan has a machine gun leg and you thought it kinda looked like crap from the trailer but everyone said it was awesome and then you finally rented it (and thought it was bullshit that it didn’t come with Tarantino’s half of Grindhouse) and it turned out your instincts were right and it sucked? And yeah, you GET IT, it’s an homage, it’s a parody, it’s meant to be exploitative and ridiculous in that ’70s kind of way but really, making an homage to bad movies just results in another bad movie and the whole thing just sucked and is further evidence that zombies don’t in fact always make movies better.

“Machine Girl” has a similar premise. A girl’s brother is murdered by ninja-yakuzas so she goes out to get revenge but her arm is chopped off by the bad guys and then good guys put a machine gun in its place and she goes off to get even more righteous revenge.

Probably the main issue with “Planet Terror” is that it isn’t Japanese. “Machine Girl” has no such problem. Ninja-Yakuza? Wicked! An arm turned to tempura? Why not? The showdown taking place at a shinto temple? Yes please! Naturally the protagonist must fight crime in her cute school uniform; I guess all Japanese kids do everything in their school uniforms, although the main antagonist makes sure to wear a pimp coat over his.

Of course it was silly and ridiculous and over-the-top and that’s exactly why it was awesome. This is precisely the type of movie that must be seen at Fantasia. The crowd’s reactions are half the fun. Everyone was howling and laughing at the insanity and it charged up the energy to the point where even the most retarded moments were high-octane hilaritude.

I’m not sure the same enjoyment could be reached if you were sitting at home alone. Isn’t it frustrating when you’re watching something alone and you see something dumb and you want to turn to someone for confirmation that what you saw is stupid? At Fantasia you get that confirmation from the cackles of hundreds of other people.

Therefore, “Machine Girl” gets 3 1/2 niqueheads if you’re seeing it at Fantasia [rating:35]
but only 2 niqueheads if you’re a pathetic loser at home alone. [rating:20]

And “Planet Terror” only gets one niquehead for wasting my time, though I acknowledge it probably would have gotten more if I’d seen it with a crowd.
[rating:10]

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