Tomie

Having been a huge fan of Junji Ito's works (Uzumaki, Tomie, Hellstar Remina) I will do my best to refrain from comparing the manga to the film. NOTE: if you enjoyed the movie, reading the Tomie manga is highly recommended!

Tomie is unlike your typical horror movie where a wraith is lurking down the corridor or the ominous creaking floorboards in a closed room. This one is more subtle and effective at setting an atmosphere where you just know something is not right. I enjoyed the performance by Tomorowo Taguchi as the detective who's agenda is also questionable in this whole affair. Tsukiko (played well by Mami Nakamura) is for the most part in the dark as to what's going on. As time progresses, she begins to come to terms with recent strange events and how they are linked to a shrouded unknown past.

One thing to note: the Tomie manga excels at setting a dark, frightening mood and facial expressions (especially Tomie's) convey strong emotions of pain, fear, anger, betrayal, and obsession; a credit to Ito's talent. Watching the film draws you into the phenomenon of Tomie and is accompanied by an eerie soundtrack sounding like ambient, psychedelic music done by Buffalo Daughter..great stuff!

Based on a manga, and spawning four sequels, this film is about a young lady named Tsukiko (Ms. Nakamura) who has enlisted the help of a psychiatrist (Ms. Doguchi)to try to remember the events of 3 years before, described as an "accident". You find that a fellow schoolgirl named Tomie (Ms. Kanno) was killed, but no one can find the body..because she won't die. This film is more psychological drama than horror film. In the apartment below Tsukiko lives a male student who seems to be raising some mutant strain of something in a box. Is this Tomie re-incarnated? The film moves slowly, and even drags a little at times, but for fans of the manga it is essential viewing. A much better film than it has to be, its watchable. All 5 films are available in a box set. For this film, the concept is intriguing if not wholly essential.

I wonder about the Japanese sometimes. What motivates them to make a movie? In the case of this one, it appears they just wanted to have Tomie look like Sadako, the nice ghost from Ring. I really can't see any other reason for this movie to exist. It's just that good.

It starts with Tsukiko undergoing hypnotherapy to help recover her memories prior to a traumatic accident. What she has conveniently forgotten is that this accident was actually her witnessing the murder of a classmate named Tomie at the hands of her then-boyfriend. Turns out this isn't the first time this has happened to Tomie. In fact, she (or parts of her) has just moved in to the apartment below Tsukiko, gearing up for a little bit of payback.

Sound interesting? It isn't. It's a good idea: a perpetual murder victim who always comes back to settle the score. But this movie is so poorly directed and written that the story gets overcome by boredom. The filmmakers have even gone so far as to almost make the movie confusing beyond comprehension by inserting an ending that raises more questions than it answers (that and poor subtitling confused the hell out of me). Really not worth the time to watch, plus however long it takes you to figure out what's going on. Avoidable.

Hmm. I mean, aesthetically, it's pretty great. It looks good for something that's going for a grounded and low-key sort of visual thing. It's not quite digital horror, but it scratches the same sort of itch that other Japanese horror films from around this time definable as such do.

I also watched it right after a movie where the music was the worst part (The Place Promised in Our Early Days), so it's nice that the best part of Tomie was the music. I'd almost be surprised if the main theme didn't inspire the title track from Radiohead's Kid A; that song sounds so similar, and came out after this movie.

Unfortunately, it's also a mess narratively. I wasn't a huge fan of Junji Ito's Spiral when I read it last year, and Tomie gives me the impression his stuff is inferior still in the format of a film.

A slow-burning supernatural drama that's nothing like RING or THE GRUDGE for once. Instead, TOMIE is a comic-book adaptation about an otherwise ordinary schoolgirl who has one special talent: she always, without fail, comes back from the dead.

TOMIE is a weird movie. It's slow-moving and subtle for the most part, and the sometimes disjointed storyline never really visits many places. Horrifying it isn't. On the other hand, it's undoubtedly an atmospheric film full of off-kilter scenes and eerie moments (most of these involving a guy who finds himself 'growing' a new friend).

It's difficult to fault the efforts of cast and crew, and the highlight is the wonderfully weird piece of music that accompanies the titles in which a distorted, computerised voice proclaims an obsessive friendship. Many sequels, of varying quality, followed.