When watching this, I wound up turning off the subtitles. My level of Japanese language comprehension is low, despite having studied it for the past year or two, but even I could see that the subtitles were purely guesswork and did not match up at all with what characters were saying. Only understanding words and phrases here and there, my description of plot elements in this article may be a little off.
EATING SCHOOLGIRLS: OSAKA TELEPHONE CLUB
original title: コギャル喰い 大阪テレクラ編
(Kogyaru-gui: Oosaka terekura hen)
aka: Eat the Schoolgirl
Japan, 1997, Naoyuki Tomomatsu
I suppose I should get to the film’s plot before I delve any deeper into the film’s slimier details. From what I could gather, Eating Schoolgirls is about an odd young guy who works for a bunch of vicious gangsters when he’s not enjoying a good phone-sex session or experiencing disorientating flashbacks to his father murdering his mother. While his employers make horrific rape videos, our young hero is visited by a beautiful young woman with scars on her back that suggest that there were once wings there. In-between interactions with his sexy visitor, he dresses up as a schoolgirl and murders people, whipping himself into such a frenzy that he blows his load over their bloodied corpses. To his credit, the cross-dressing protagonist is certainly not gender bias as he slashes both men and women.
Eating Schoolgirls is an early effort from Naoyuki Tomomatsu, who some may know as the director of the more widely seen Stacy (2001) and Erotibot (2011). More recently, Tomomatsu has been the mastermind behind the Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead series, which I’m yet to see any of despite my obsessions with its ludicrous title and the franchise now being three movies strong. Eating Schoolgirls shows somewhat more creative flair than Tomomatsu’s newer efforts, at least in its frantic opening scenes, which feature wild Tsukamoto-esque editing as shots cut between different footage formats and the camera flaps all over the place. Unfortunately, the film settles down in its later half, running out of stylistic steam even in its short sixty-minute running time and resorting to pretentious surreal imagery.
Tomomatsu co-penned the script with Chisato Ôgawara; a first in several collaborations. Due to my lacklustre Japanese skills, I can’t comment too much on the quality of their writing, but even with limited understanding, I could see the plot was a disjointed mess. The film jumps between characters, sometimes leaving the lead for huge chunks of time. An example: at one point, for little reason, the film switches focus to the behind the scenes of a rape video production by the gangsters. It seemed entirely unnecessary for Tomomatsu to dwell on this throwaway tangent. That said, it’s the only truly shocking scene in Eating Schoolgirls. This horrible sequence ends with a forced enema. While enemas are generally a great source of comedy, as the liquid brown sprayed out entertaining its audience of guffawing yakuza, I felt repulsed and ashamed – a perfect reaction really. While disposable to the plot, this foul detour was important to the film’s grubby tone making me feel like I needed a date with the shower and a scourer.
Shit is not the only bodily expulsion to hit the screen. Eating Schoolgirls covers all bases. What Eating Schoolgirls lacks in narrative, it makes up for in an almost operatic explosion of human waste and bodily parts. Whether it be chunky vomit powering out of some poor girl’s mouth, the aforementioned drizzles of cum, or simply geysers of blood, it’s to be found here. In its most excessive scene, a victim’s guts come tumbling out and then grabbed at by their owner who attempts to force them back inside. And, of course, the intestines finish up the scene by being covered in pearly spunk. The image of cum-drenched guts sums up this film nicely. If you can’t be arsed watching Eating Schoolgirls, have a look at the still below and you’ve got the basic gist.
Availability:
Eating Schoolgirls was, at one point in time, available in a German DVD release. It’s now out of print and absurdly expensive. The DVD from Japan is also out of print and pricey, but not quite as bad.
