Tag

Director - Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Tokyo Vampire Hotel)
Starring - Reina Triedl (Tokyo Alice, Ju-On: The Beginning of the End), Mariko Shinoda (The Suicide Song, Re: Born), and Yuki Sakurai (Yakuza Apocalypse, Evil Hospital)
Release Date - 2015
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "A high school splatter film"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

    

      I've been in love with Japanese horror films for sometime now.  I had seen a few when I was younger and they never clicked with me.  That changed about a decade ago when I first signed up for Netflix on my Xbox 360.  I watched Machine Girl and I was hooked.  Anytime Netflix updated to include a Japanese title I had to see it.  These films are ultraviolent, bloody, and goofy.  I think this is the perfect combination.  I've collected a fair amount of these films over the years including the 2015 flick Tag.  When I first saw the trailer for this film I immediately went to Amazon to order a copy and was bummed I only found it on DVD.  Lucky for me, the film was recently released on blu by Eureka in the U.K. and they were kind enough to send a review copy my way.  Thanks guys!
     The film follows a young girl who is on a school bus with several of her friends when she witnesses a bloody accident.  And unknown force sweeps through the bus cutting it in half along with everyone in it except her.  She runs away from the accident and finds people but they soon suffer the same fate.  She eventually finds her way to school and the children are unaffected by the accident.  She tries to tell her friends what happened and they assure her it was a dream.  They decide that the best course of action is to skip school and go to the lake.  The have their fun and return to school and the teachers open fires on the students forcing the young girl to run out of the school.  She runs to the nearby town and is picked up by a female cop who is know referring to her by a different name.  She picks her up in a car and takes her to her wedding where she is set to marry a man wearing a hog head.  Her friend from before is there and helps her kills her way through the crowd before running down the street.  While running she once again changes and is a track athlete running a marathon.  Her friends encourage her and she rushes for the finish line when the teachers from earlier arrive and start killing the other athletes.  She is then confronted by the dead girls and her best friend who reveals her life is a lie and something else is at play.
     I first heard of this film when someone shared a trailer for it on Facebook.  The video was not titled correctly.  I spent the next couple months searching for the film before someone in a horror group was able to give me the correct name.  After that I soon read that the film was a feminist horror film that could possibly be insulting to men.  This really intrigued me and when Eureka finally released the blu I was able to finally enjoy what I was sure to be a classic Japanese splatter flick.  The acting in this one is great.  The film pulls the cast from many different angles.  The cast has to go through a wide range of emotions.  They get pulled from being scared and hurt, to being angry, and back to being happy in a pinch.  The story is very demanding for this young cast but they are able to pull it together when the time is needed resulting in a fantastically acted flick.  The story for this one is great and keeps the viewers on their toes.  The changing of the characters through different scenarios and changes works great with the ending of the film.  The film has a message that rings very loud once you finish the film.  My biggest complaint is once the actual ending is revealed the first set of gruesome deaths doesn't really make sense.  The film is action packed and the scenes hold the viewer's attention unlike no other.  Finally, the film is a visual feast of blood.  The film has numerous on screen kills.  Some makes great use of practical effects while others rely a little more on visual effects that are not that great.  Luckily, the visual effects is not that widespread.  Overall, Tag is a fucking fantastic flick.  Fans of blood and gore will have their fill and those wanting movies with a bigger message will find it interesting as well.  Check it out.