AKA: Bloodsucking Rose

Director: Michio Yamamoto

Writer: Ei Ogawa, Masaru Takesue

Cast: Toshio Kurosawa, Mariko Mochizuki, Kunie Tanaka, Shin Kishida, Katsuhiko Sasaki, Mio Ota, Mika Katsuragi, Keiko Aramaki, Yunosuke Ito, Yasuko Agawa

Running Time: 87 min.

By Kyle Warner

In Michio Yamamoto’s Bloodthirsty Trilogy, The Vampire Doll was like a fever dream of a vampire movie and Lake of Dracula was a social anxiety thriller disguised as a vampire movie, so where could the director go for the final film? Well, back to school of course! Evil of Dracula, the third and final Bloodthirsty film, replaces the spooky house with a spooky girl’s college and unleashes vampires on a staff of teachers and a bunch of young women with poorly buttoned blouses. If this sounds a tad campier than the first two films, that’s because it definitely is.

Professor Shiraki (Lady Snowblood’s Toshio Kurosawa) takes a train to the countryside for his new gig as a teacher of psychology at an all girl’s school. He’s young, he’s handsome, he has a shaggy Sonny Chiba hairstyle, and all the girls basically start falling in love with him the moment he steps through the door. His first night there, Shiraki is drawn from his room by the sound of singing, and is subsequently attacked by a vampire lady. He wakes up the next day, certain that it was only a dream. But a dream is never really just a dream in these movies. Shiraki’s in for another surprise when the school principal (Shin Kishida) announces that he plans for Shiraki to take over as principal of the school. Something’s just not right about this place. And when most the girls—with the exception of three who stay behind—go home on school break, Professor Shiraki makes it his mission to get to the bottom of things.

While most movies with this setup would have the kids learn of vampires and try to tell their disbelieving (and potentially evil) teachers, Evil of Dracula flips that on its head. Here it’s the adults who are quick to believe the notion of vampires hidden among us, whereas the students generally see a vampire bite victim as someone with a bad case of the flu. The school’s doctor (Cops vs Thugs’ Kunie Tanaka) takes Shiraki on a mystery tour around town, telling him the story of the principal’s dead wife and also about the Christian missionary who became a vampire before being buried here 200 years ago. Strangely, the town doesn’t pick up its trash and nobody seems at all bothered by this. The car wreck that claimed the principal’s wife still sits on the side of the road and the coffin which previously held the vampire Christian is left unburied in the old cemetery. When Shiraki opens the coffin and expresses surprise that it’s empty it’s like well no shit it’s empty, it’s been left rotting in the grass for 200 years and Kunie Tanaka probably takes every out-of-towner he meets to come look at it, dude.

Shin Kishida is back playing the vampire in a white scarf previously seen in Lake of Dracula. There appears to be no connection between the two movies beyond him playing a similar vampire, though, and no mention is made of the events of the previous film. Though the vampires have more of a villainous plot this time around, they come across as less threatening than before. Yamamoto doesn’t set up the scenes with slow reveals of fangs and danger. From the first act onward, the vampires are an accepted presence in the film’s world and when they multiply it’s no real surprise. Perhaps it’s also about the way they attack their victims. Yes, there’s biting, but more often the vampires just push people around in a back-and-forth shoving match while rolling around in leaves and set furniture. Also, regarding the biting, the vampires curiously miss the throats of their female victims and accidentally bite them on the bosoms instead. There is considerably more nipple action in the third film of the trilogy.

Compared to the first two Bloodthirsty films, Evil of Dracula seems to have spent more getting a cast of recognizable faces in front of the cameras. Toshio Kurosawa makes for a likable intellectual hero and I enjoyed Kunie Tanaka’s supporting role. The relatively unknown actresses playing the students are fine but their parts are so interchangeable and unmemorable that it’s difficult to keep the characters straight, let alone care about them. Shin Kishida gives another spirited performance as the vampire principal. Toho regulars Yunosuke Ito (Sanjuro) and Katsuhiko Sasaki (Terror of Mechagodzilla) provide strong work in supporting roles.

There’s something halfhearted about the final film of The Bloodthirsty Trilogy compared to the genre creativity seen in the first two movies. All the same, it is a fun, campy time. There is one shocking scene towards the end – these films tend to keep their most extreme stuff for the final act – that is super surreal and disturbing, involving some very bloody surgery. One wishes the entire movie had been so willing to shock and disturb.

The Bloodthirsty Trilogy is a trio of films that, as a longtime fan of Toho’s science fiction and fantasy movies, I have always wanted to see. And now after watching them all, I can say I don’t consider any one of the movies to be a disappointment. In fact, for as much as they are touted as Hammer-inspired horror, I really think they manage to escape the Hammer shadow and stand on their own as a trio of interesting, weird movies. One wishes that Michio Yamamoto had directed more films in his life, if these three are any indication of his talents. For Toho and Japanese cinema at large, the trilogy exists more as an oddity today, but it is definitely an entertaining oddity. The new Blu-rays from Arrow present the films with more care than I frankly ever expected to see in the West. Included on the disc is a new appreciation from author Kim Newman. Also included is a roughly 25-page booklet with writing by Jasper Sharp. Evil of Dracula is easily my least favorite of the trilogy, but I still enjoyed it and would definitely recommend the trilogy to curious viewers.

Kyle Warner’s Rating: 6.5/10