Movie: School-Live!
Romaji: Gakko Gurashi!
Japanese: がっこうぐらし！
Director: Issei Shibata
Writer: Norimitsu Kaiho (manga), Sadoru Chiba (manga), Issei Shibata
Characters: Nanami Abe (LaLuce/pax puella), Midori Nagatsuki (LaLuce), Wakana Majima (Someday Somewhere), Rio Kiyohara (Someday Somewhere), Nonoka Ono, Daichi Kaneko
Things to expect in this movie:
Cute girls doing cute things
Burning Zombies!!
A bit of romance
Yuki's cute sour face
Now for the review:
Leave it to manga writers to always make something unconventional and intriguing. Gakko Gurashi! gives this "cute girl doing cute things," aka moe genre another twist. What is it? Zombies? No, but four letters PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder), which gave the movie the concept of escapism, live peacefully in denial inside the four corners of classroom vs. facing reality, the post-apocalyptic zombie-infested world.
The key to the horror aspect in this movie is the tonal shifts between the carefree slice of life vibe into something more terrifying. The illusion is so grand that it will make you lower your guard for a moment and make yourself vulnerable until the zombie swarm comes in, and the madness begins. That is the only reason why I think people will find this movie terrifying and not because zombie design was scary or the prosthetics and special effects realistic.
Not only the movie is mediocre in the production quality, but the acting is, let say, cute and leave it at that. The character also lacked depth, and it may be because of the limited time the movie has to explore these characters. They also appeared to be cardboard cutouts, the stereotype "we can do this together" strong personality, Kurumi, the mature but also useless leader, Yuri, the stoic and cold-shouldered pessimist Miki, and the airhead, full of energy, the loli of the group, Yuki. All of them were guided by the caring and everybody's favorite teacher, Megu-nee.
I dislike how the movie handled Yuki's mental state. They didn't explore it thoroughly. It could have been a lot better if they explored it like how dramas such as
Boku wa Mari no Naka done it. In the movie, it seems she's just having a tantrum and not a hallucination. I guess it all comes down to the fact that they choose to adapt this story into a movie. Having limited time is a disaster in the making in any live-action adaptation. There are also points in the film where it is clearly written for an episode. They just cramped up all those scenes into a 2-hour movie, which resulted in not only weak characterization but also an abrupt ending.
Objectively, the only good thing I can say about this movie aside from the original plot is the twist near the end. It comes to me as heartwarming (even if it's poorly acted). I didn't see it coming at all, but I guess at that point, I already lost interest in the character, so I was not paying attention. But since I'm a guy who likes this type of plot, I enjoyed it a lot, so if you are like me who just want to see cute girls doing cute things in a zombie setting, then you'll also enjoy this movie.
Gakko Gurashi falls into the category of a brilliant idea but not executed well. There is so much potential in this story, given the strong underlying message it wanted to convey. It comes close to heart since we've been on that road before. There will come the point in time where we need to stop to rely on and just move on with our life. Had they executed it correctly, this movie would have been one of the best zombie movies ever. Now I'll check the anime and see if it's better.
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