Tomie Replay



As I gathered from the trailer Tomie Replay (2000) is a much bigger budgeted production than the earlier Tomie (1999). In the first scene a little girl is wheeled into a hospital emergency room with what appears to be a huge tumor in her stomach. The doctors operate, and discover that the girl has a fully grown woman’s head inside her!


"What was that about Exorcist III?"

If you’ve seen the first film you know that the head is Tomie’s, an immortal teenager who causes obsession in any men who meet her. Some amount of time later the hospital is nearly deserted. Most of the staff has fled, the director/head surgeon has disappeared, and there aren’t many patients left. Tomie’s head was left in a fish tank in the basement, but now she’s grown her body back. She walks upstairs and enthralls a young man there to visit a friend and leaves.

Yumi is the director's daughter. She starts an investigation of his disappearance, and it isn't long before she runs afoul with Tomie and the men in her wake.

There are some very creepy set-pieces. The fate of one doctor is so obviously telegraphed that I was saying "And... now. Now. ...Now!" Even so, I got a little jump out of it. I also really liked the scenes where Yumi goes through her father's journal. It's a neat variation the on the "cursed tome" motif so beloved in Lovecraftian stories.


"I'm the head of my class. Get it? GET IT?!"

However, Tomie Replay is just as incoherent story-wise as Tomie. Tomie has no discernible motives, and there is little definition of her abilities, which makes her a less than a compelling monster. All the human characters also have a bad case of being in a horror movie, especially as the movie winds down. Yumi is at her father's funeral, and Tomie sends her a note instructing her to meet Tomie at the now deserted hospital, and Yumi complies. Oh, did I forget to mention that Yumi is in a wheelchair at this point with a broken leg? Yumi has no reason to do it, so it comes across as laughable. If an immortal psycho-girl who killed my father said she wanted to meet me at a deserted hospital the only way I'd show is with a SWAT team behind me, but Yumi rolls in completely alone, without even telling anybody where she's going.

Posted: Tue - May 4, 2004 at      

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