[KFCC] Tomie Beginning Review

Story: With beauty that sets hearts on fire and a chilly stare that can freeze people in an instant, Tomie captivates and wields her supernatural power. When she transfers to a new high school, the students become possessed and soon realize that behind this beauty is a powerful evil. They cut off her right ear, it then scurries through the grass and regenerates. Driven to insanity, several of the boys attempt to execute her by pushing her off a cliff. To be certain that she cannot return, they dismember her body and dump pieces in different locations. But Tomie, the beautiful monster, can regenerate from a single drop of blood, and returns the next morning laughing - ready to lure her next victims into lunacy.

Review: Sequels are some of the things that gave horror a bad name. TOMIE: BEGINNING is a strange and futile sequel in a pedestrian Japanese horror franchise. It manages to avoid familiar trappings of typical horror sequels but eventually slips into some other traps. And some of those other mousetraps weren’t even laced with cheese.

TOMIE: BEGINNING is an origin story about the title character and how she came to be. The series aficionados may be intrigued by this notion, but this origin story fails to address any other viewers that face the TOMIE mythology for the first time. Structured like Lawrence Kasdan’s THE BIG CHILL, film is based around memories of Tomie’s friends and victims, and her exploits are not even staged as real-time suspense or ripper-sequences. The genre tissue of this film is based on memories, structured as quick flashbacks with loads of voice-over descriptions and minor dramatic impact. Without actually developing any kind of tension and drama, director fails to turn TOMIE: BEGINNING into TOMIE-franchise equivalent of Wes Craven’s NEW NIGHTMARE.

However, the lack of dramatic impact also cheapens the very effective atmosphere of inner-class struggles that are sometimes reminiscent of Chan Wook Park’s gallows humor, along the lines of SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE. Scenes of collective and society-approved revenge against Tomie had a distinct Chan Wook Park feel but failed to truly resonate since there was no drama. Thus, the best plot points in TOMIE: THE BEGINNING play out as jokes.

At 75 minutes, TOMIE: THE BEGINNING may serve as a fine companion piece in a potential TOMIE double-bill or TOMIE cinemathon. However, it is too underdeveloped to stand by itself as a single picture. And yet it included some fine ideas, so I kind of feel sorry for Ataru Oikawa who failed to invest enough energy to turn this one into a fully rounded picture.