Vampire Clay

An art school is tormented by sentient killer clay in Vampire Clay. While preparing to open her new art prep school at a former sculpture’s studio, Ms Aina finds a buried box, containing a bag of very old clay. When class begins, latecomer Kaori finds that her clay was taken by newcomer Yuka, so she instead takes the clay that Ms Aina unearthed. However, it soon becomes apparent that the clay has a life of its own and it proceeds to attack and absorb the students of the school.

Best known for his work as a make-up artist, Vampire Clay marks the feature length debut for Japanese filmmaker Soîchi Umezawa (ABC’s of Death 2). The setting of the film is the Aina Academy, where Ms Aina desperately tries to prepare her students for the very competitive art schools in Tokyo. When student Kaori begins using the mysterious clay Ms Aina unearthed, she immediately notices something different about it. It soon becomes apparent that the clay is sentient and has a thirst for blood, as it proceeds to pick off the students one by one.

Vampire Clay is an an absolutely insane film, which can be described as a mix between The Blob, The Thing, and Evil Dead, except with sentient clay. I’m not sure if Vampire Clay is meant to be a horror-comedy, but the scenes of the killer clay attacking the students are often quite hilarious to watch. While the film does slow down in the third act to tell the clay’s backstory, as well as there being an unnecessarily long epilogue, Vampire Clay is still a quite enjoyable watch.

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Screenings

• Saturday, September 16, 11:59 PM – Ryerson Theatre
• Saturday, September 17, 6:00 PM – Scotiabank Theatre 13

Once again, 26 filmmakers present 26 ways to die in the horror anthology ABCs of Death 2.  As with the first film, each of the filmmakers were given creative freedom to create a short segment corresponding to the letter of the alphabet they were assigned, with each ending in a highly creative and often gory death.  Some of the filmmakers contributing to the second volume of the ABCS of Death include Rodney Ascher (Room 237), Alexandre Bustillo (Inside), Julian Gilbey (A Lonely Place to Die), E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills), Aharon Keshales (Big Bad Wolves), Steven Kostanski (Manborg), Juan Martínez Moreno (Game of Werewolves), Vincenzo Natali (Cube), Jerome Sable (Stage Fright), and Jen and Sylvia Soska (American Mary). The original ABCs of Death was a film that I overall enjoyed, but thought that the segments were highly hit or miss, with there being some that I loved and others I absolutely hated.  While ABCs of Death 2 is still a bit hit or miss for me, I thought that there were many more hits this time around and the misses weren’t all that bad.  My enjoyment of each segment was quite dependent on how creative the filmmakers got with the letter they chose. Part of the fun is guessing what word the letter is going to represent, with many of the segments featuring red herrings. My favourite segment of the bunch was Steven Kostanski’s highly creative segment for the letter W.  Fan’s of Kostanski’s cult hit Manborg should have a blast with the segment, which transports a pair of children to the world of their Masters of the Universe-like playset Champions of Zorb.  Another standout Canadian contribution to ABCs of Death 2 comes from Jen and Sylvia Soska, who create a truly freaky segment for the letter T.  While I already knew before hand what word the letter was corresponding to, I was pleasantly surprised by the very twisted direction the segment goes into. Another standout segment was by Robert Boocheck, whose M segment was the winner of an online contest to find the 26th director.  After watching Boocheck’s segment, and its great punchline, it is quite obvious why it was chosen. A surprisingly effective segment comes from Game of Werewolves director Juan Martínez Moreno, who creates a brutal and suspenseful segment, which stands out as one of the best of the bunch.  Canadian filmmaker Chris Nash ends things an extreme high note with his ultra-gory segment for Z.  When it comes to creative ways to die, they definitely saved the best for last. Altogether, ABCs of Death 2 was a fun lesson in death.8 | LIKED IT ABCs of Death 2 opens today at the Carlton Cinema