Rating: **
Review Date: 3/18/25
Cast: Mami Nakamura, Miho Kanno
A deranged young man arrives in town with a severed head in a plastic bag. The head belongs to Tomie Kawakami (Miho Kanno), an immortal monster that resembles a young woman whose beauty drives men to kill her over and over. Meanwhile, a photography student named Tsukiko Izumisawa (Mami Nakamura) is undergoing hypnotherapy to try and unlock the memories of a traumatic event that happened back when she was in high school. Naturally, that event involved Tomie and now she's back, seeking revenge. Maybe.
This low budget attempt to adapt Junji Ito's manga fails to capture Ito's unsettling sense of horror and grotesque imagery, and instead focuses on the adversarial relationship between Tsukiko and Tomie. While Tsukiko was a character in the manga, she's not the same person in the movie, and the story bears no resemblance to the original material. The shoestring budget doesn't allow for any visual effects or horrific imagery that you would normally associate with the genre, and it plays out more like a teen drama than a horror film. The soundtrack is extremely sparse, and oftentimes the silence and stillness of the film is far more unsettling than any of the musical cues.
Unlike the manga, Tsukiko is very sweet, caring, and passionate about her art. Mami Nakamura is cute and charming, and gives a confident and relatable performance as a troubled, but driven young woman, haunted by a terrible secret she can't recall. Miho Kanno, on the other hand, is a bit underwhelming as an enigmatic succubus and her wig is a constant distraction. While Tomie is sadistic, cruel, and downright evil, she views Tsukiko with fascination and envy, suggesting that they are two sides of the same coin, or perhaps even the same person. As with many Japanese films, the slow and deliberate pacing can be frustrating, and while it creates an oppressively moody atmosphere, the film lacks any real thrills or scares. Unless you're a diehard J-Horror fan or Junji Ito completionist, I can't recommend it.