Schoolgirl Apocalypse (2011) is pretty darn good. A smart story with strong characters.

With a title like that (and I'm a fan of the title), you might expect your average craptacular Z-level-exploitation film with no effort, but it's not like that at all. For one, the cinematography and production values are very professional. There are some animated sequences that could've been better (you basically get two in a row at one point, which is slightly overkill, and the animation style itself is a little lacking though original with a reason why it is the way it is that makes sense), but this movie is actually very well thought-out with a deeper story lurking beneath the surface. Just from the synopsis, you can tell it's a different take on your typical zombie apocalypse: only the men are turned into crazy blood-thirsty killers. I won't spoil anything, but they have a good reason for this too. There isn't a lot of action, but it's shot quite well with plenty of tension and a good sense of geography. The disappointing thing is I never heard anything at all about this film. Not only is it good but the story behind making it is interesting too since the writer/director of this all Japanese film is a Midwest American. He taught English in Japan before filming this. If you're into Asian films at all or just zombie apocalypse movies, I'd suggest you hunt it down. You can get it off Amazon pretty easily. There is a little bit of CGI at the very end, but given this was a low-budget first-feature with everything else being so good, I'm not going to hate it for that (would've been tough to do those effects practically). It really is worth tracking down, and I hope it gets the audience it deserves.