On an uncharted island vampires run wild, consuming any fresh blood that steps foot on the island. One of the earlier visitors, Atsushi, has been more then the vamps can handle, smashing their heads in with logs and slicing and dicing them up pretty well with a sword. It’s only a matter of time before Atsushi becomes some vampires next meal or he kills them all.

Cut to Akira, Atsushi’s younger brother, a student who hangs out with a quirky group of friends, each with their own unique human abilities. Where we find Akira he’s being chased by a gang of other kids who want to do bodily harm to our protagonist. Needless to say he escapes, with the help of a mysterious beauty named Rei. What Akira doesn’t know is that Rei isn’t just some random stranger. She knows where his brother is and what kind of danger he’s in, and she’s willing to take him to where he is. Thus our journey begins.

You can probably surmise that Akira is joined by his friends and that they go to this “vampire island” where they must do battle with the vamps, and at times of crisis, with one another. Instantly I thought of titles like Drop and Battle Royale. A group of kids willing to go uber violent, on an island where in order to survive they must kill off a massive set of opponents. Okay, so that’s a bit reaching, but you’ll get that vibe as well if your well versed in Asian cinema. So how does it look, sound, etc?

QUALITY:
I was pleasantly surprised by this title. I’m usually a bit iffy about live action Funimation titles. A majority of them have been extremely heavy on the CGI and Green Screen use which offers up a 50/50 chance the BD transfer will encounter a lot of issues. Escape From Vampire Island is a gory film but the blood doesn’t look fake, fatal blows don’t look horrible in that computer generated way, and most of the sets are very organic in nature. The thing I was most impressed with were the black levels. For a film that spends the majority of its time in dark settings black levels never really feel as if their doing constant battle with video noise. The picture clarity is extremely clear, colors range from purposefully muted gray’s to vibrantly colorful (see our heroes entering the island for the first time at night and make note of the flowers along their path), and definition is acute.

Audio is equally as fantastic. I’m talking full spectrum immersion for those with capable surround sound systems. Opening scene in which we find Atsushi slashing away with his sword to reveal birds (or maybe bats), our winged friends can be heard aflutter all across the channel spectrum and the eery dialogue effects and soundtrack that accompany the film roam front, side, and back speakers. Just fantastic.

BONUS FEATURES:
~The Making of: This 45 minutes behind the scenes look at how the film was made.
~Trailer
~Trailers for other live action Funimation titles
~DVD