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So as you may recall, a while ago I got a surprising amount of enjoyment out of Tomie: Beginning, the prequel to a pretty darn long running horror series based on a manga series by Junji Ito, the guy who brought us Uzumaki, Long Dream, and a bunch of awesome manga that's legitimately Lovecraft-like (which is to say, themes of being totally powerless against really bizarre and incomprehensible phenomena, without squid monsters entering into it at all). I dug it. Netflix was aware of 6 others in the series, but the only other one they had was some kind of botched modern revival. So because I'm still convinced I might somehow turn a profit doing this via ads or wacky tip jar schemes, I actually went out and picked up a really swank boxed set of the other 5 on Amazon. I particularly dig the inner cover's original manga art collage. So anyway, yeah, I'm going to space these out, but be prepared for a lot of Tomie in the future, starting with the original.
There's a really weird song that sounds like it's being sung by insect people or something on the menu screen, which is pretty catchy, followed by some pretty darn unearthly noises as the movie starts, which is a good sign. Then we just kinda transition to a live action Japanese movie from 1999. Which is old enough for things to look rather terrible. Again, I probably mentioned this with Tokyo Gore Police or something, but it was only very very recently that Japan stepped up their live action game past looking like 1970's Sesame Street shorts, or British TV from the 80's. And... now I have to start over because subtitles were off by default. Ooh! A head bag! It's full of... heady goodness! Actually, I do believe that's the same head bag from the end of yon prequel. And of course, having had to restart it, I have to hear this creepy bug people theme song again. This is going to end up stuck in my head, I just know it.
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OK, those bellbottoms aren't helping the case that this isn't secretly from the 70's. So yeah, 70's Girl here is meeting up with Presumptive Main Character girl, to show her some... artistic nude photos she took of herself I guess. Nothing dirty here, I know which paragraph this appears to be, but seriously, I'll be shocked if any of these movies have any visible nipples in them. Anyway, this movie seems determined to hurt me name wise, but, here's some dude with an eyepatch, he's got himself a Tomie head in a basket he's feeding yogurt to. It's... really just a mass of hair making creepy noises at this point, and accidentally eats a cockroach. Spitting all this across the room gets a laugh out of Eyepatch. And... we're fond of jumping around a lot in this movie aren't we.
OK, here's some girl with amnesia following a car accident, recovering in the hospital, getting a cigarette, and recounting a flashback. I'm pretty sure we're kinda doing an anthology thing here, and at some point I'm going to pin down a framing device, but for now, OK, we've got this girl in her flashback. She's wearing a shirt that says Brooklyn, so, OK, I can call her something. She's shopping, she's riding her bike, she's going home to hang out with her... I'm guessing boyfriend, who is making the HORRIBLE ATROCITY Japan calls spaghetti. She gets some photographic evidence of the disgusting slop this guy's trying to feed her for a school project I guess. Yeah, we have a bit of a lull, so, let me get back to that head in a box bit for a sec. That actually had some really good low budget creepiness to it. Weird baby crying sounds, and yogurt flying out of a box of hair works. Anyway, Brooklyn here can't sleep, because of hey, accidental segue! She can hear the head in the box through the cheap apartment walls. Now she's heading in for another neurology appointment, and I think there may be a quiz later regarding this other girl in the office freaking out. They're going to give her some hypnotherapy because, ah, not sleeping well has been a regular thing for her. I dig the big orange hypnolamp here too. And... I also did the quick flash of schoolgirl neck stump.
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Doctor here makes a note of her saying Tomie while under hypnosis, which again I have to point out to anyone who didn't get the memo is pronounced Toe Me A not Tommy. Doing some research, here's.. presumably the class of students from Beginning there having their whole schtick explained, with a class photo with Tomie's scratched out face serving as a visual aid. And yeah. The detective Doctor's talking to here is summarizing a movie I've already summarized in detail, despite it being made like a decade after this one. That's... kinda neat really. No reason for me to repeat any of this really though is my point. Kind of interesting how well documented all this Tomie stuff is though.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn has made a pretty cool design out of her crazy pills and animal crackers. She takes a picture of it. I'm going to have to try to do the same. Now she's getting distracted, hearing the creepy theme song coming through the wall. Little mostly regenerated Tomie here isn't singing it or anything though, so.... I'm really not sure what's up with that. She's pretty much doing the whole emotionally manipulative 7 year old bit over there today. now here's a restaurant. Do we... know any of the characters in here? Oh OK, there's Brooklyn's boyfriend. And here's his burnout friend. And now here's some side-boob. And... here's the front. OK. I was wrong about the lack of nudity thing. In fact, I was specifically wrong about the lack of Brooklyn's art photo friend's boobs being seen. She's sleeping with Brooklyn's boyfriend, and if we're spending this much time her, I suppose I should point out that those are some pretty disproportionately large nipples. Or maybe it's just the lighting.
Anyway, Brooklyn finally fell asleep and had a fairly nifty dream sequence. Filling the sink, blood starts coming out, a photo of Tomie floats up with the label Demon Girl, arm reaches out, you know that whole deal. Oh and here's Detective outside snooping on Eyepatch. OK, does Eyepatch just have a looping recording of this movie's creepy theme song playing for Tomie here or what? So since she's pretty much sick of this guy at this point because he's getting all clingy and possessive at him, she spits a mouthful of nail polish remover in his face and laughs at him freaking out over it. Also she's done regenerating into her snarky adult (or at least, late teens) form. Man, it's weird coming into this movie already knowing what's up to this degree. Anyway, Detective finds a dead girl out in a field which... OK. should I have recognized who that was? Her face was kinda hidden by too much grass. Tomie's being shown around the restaurant Boyfriend works at though, and Brooklyn's hanging out down by the water with Doc today. They're discussing the events of yonder prequel some more it seems. So uh... yeah. This is a pretty freaking slow-paced movie isn't it. I mean, I'm pretty sure we're past the halfway point and we still haven't really introduced the character the movie's named after properly, and nothing creepy has really been going on beyond the playing of the theme song. It's more of a slow paced mystery deal, which has kinda been totally spoiled for me by having seen a prequel that was made to specificall spill the beans on it all.
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OK, here's something finally. Detective pulls Eyepatch in to see Doctor, yanks his eyepatch off, and show's how he's all Phantom of the Opera under there. Now he's just kinda randomly abusing him. Like, poking him in the face with a coin and stuff. Anyway, they interrogate him a bit to find out more stuff I already know having seen the prequel. Again though, I find it really interesting that the fact that Tomie is some kind of immortal regenerating freak is, if not common knowledge, at least sufficiently documented that Detective here doesn't question the veracity of it. So OK, Brooklyn is developing photos, Nipples stops by acting kinda weird, wanders off, Tomie follows her and... we cut to Boyfriend at the restaurant. You know movie, I've been pretty patient here so far but it'd be really nice if you'd have the courtesy to get the ball rolling here. Oh hey, is that the ball rolling now? Boyfriend's getting murdered? Or at least, properly meeting Tomie and being corrupted by super pheromones? Yeah, that WOAH, surprise! Dead guy hanging out his window with an umbrella through his face!
OK yeah. Apparently someone decided to murder like, everyone working in the restaurant there. Or they killed each other going all alpha male over Tomie. That was pretty darn out of the blue. And confusingly edited. And now, presumably not having gotten the message on that one, Brooklyn is randomly snooping around her neighbor's apartment, trying to figure out where the creepy theme song is coming from. Turns out it's a radio, propped up on Nipples' corpse in the bathroom.. On entry, some guy who should be Eyepatch but appears to just be some totally random old guy pops up from behind her to drown her in the bathtub. OK, you know how this last paragraph or so seems to hhave come totally out of the blue? It did. It's like this movie just realized it's wasted way too much time on the slowly unfolding mystery bit and decided we need to have some gory murders. So we just kinda totally rushed into'em.
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Being drowned however is a huge memory aid though, and Brooklyn gets to flash back to the whole bit where everyone else at the school just kinda snapped and chopped Tomie to pieces in the woods. She wakes up in the neurologist's office, with Tomie sitting in front of her and Boyfriend apparently dragging Doctor's corpse off. She's all "OK, look, we need to talk. I know you have amnesia and stuff, but see this picture of me labelled Demon Girl? What's up with that? That's just not cool. You made a whole bunch of copies of this and were passing them around our old school. Seriously, you don't do that to people." Now this here is why I've been so darn frustrated waiting for her to actually put in a proper appearance as a character. She's got this real nice snarkiness going on. Now she's picking on Brooklyn for having done that whole lame aging thing. Oh gee, I'm just soooo jealous of how you get to grow up and marry some loser and have a bunch of stupid kids and get all old and wrinkly while I'm stuck being all eternally young and hot because I'm a "demon." Gum? Seriously though, that kind of name calling really does hurt my feelings, so tell you what, I'm just going to steal your boyfriend here, maybe make you eat a bug... oh hey, nice camera, come on, let's get a nice picture of the two of us. Hey, you're not smiling!
And then Boyfriend, having seen that picture and kinda gotten the hint, stabs Tomie in the chest, cuts Brooklyn loose, and decapitates Tomie for good measure. Then he just kinda leaves, because, well, that's an awkward moment. Later, Detective arrive on the scene, pokes around at that bag Tomie was teasingly pulling a bug out of, and griping how he missed seeing the freak girl he's clearly been tracking for some time. Brooklyn meanwhile is dumping that decapitated Tomie corpse out in the woods somewhere. Decapitated Tomie corpse is not especially pleased with this, stands up, and suddenly here's a flashback to Brooklyn wandering around a pier, trying to ditch Tomie. Really, Brooklyn's just a lousy friend. If someone I met had freaky mind control pheromones and refused to stay dead, I'd be totally cool with that. I mean, granted, I'm not really one for the whole dating bit. And... then yon flashback ends on the very weird note of Tomie reminding Brooklyn that she's apparently one of those spare copies of Tomie you end up with when two different chunks regenerate and apparently forgot, or something, to which Brooklyn responds by immolating her with a road flare.
Then we cut to... Brooklyn walking around town and taking pictures, and going home to develop them. At which point she notices oh hey, yeah. She actually does have the official Tomie Mole. Huh. Looks like SOMEONE owes her thrice-murdered clone sister an apology! And apparently she wandered back from the woods to accept it. She's cool though, doesn't seem mad or anything. And... credits. OK, I think I'm kinda disqualified on this one. The first 10 and last 15 minutes or so are all well and good, but the middle of this movie was all just a slow boil investigation into stuff the preview covered in more animated fashion. Overall I found it pretty dull, but I came in as spoiled as possible... and presumably, you would too since I generally covered this stuff. A fair assessment of this particular movie would need to come from some other person, seeing it cold. The next one should be much more interesting though, being a vignette trilogy and NOT covering old ground like this.
