A young doctor hits a naked woman with her car on a mountain road. She has no memory or credentials or identity, so the good doctor oversees her care at the mental hospital where she works. The patient reminds another doctor of his missing daughter, and he soon wants to adopt her. Just before she can be released, a deranged hiker comes down from the mountain, kidnaps her, and brings her back to an abandoned mansion where the sexy succubus-like Tomie lives.
Although Tomie: Revenge starts off with a promising opening, things quickly go downhill from there. The hospital setting is novel, and the relationship that forms between the doctor and her patient is kind of sweet, but the horror elements are much too weak to make it work. Not only that, but it takes an inordinate amount of time to get going. We do get a decent gut eating scene, although it takes forever to get to it.
Tomie herself is kept offscreen for most of the film, which is a shame because without a Big Bad to drive the story, the flick sorts of falls apart. I know the filmmakers were trying to suggest that the patient could be Tomie (or at the very least, a Tomie clone), but they dance around the idea too much instead of doing very much of anything with the concept. The overacting by the two cops who are working on Tomie-related incidents is a bit much too. Another big stumbling block is the Found Footage segment that occurs halfway through. It’s rather annoying and only seems like it was tossed in there to cater to the Blair Witch crowd.
Overall, Tomie: Revenge is a real letdown. It’s especially disappointing considering it was directed by Ataru Oikawa, who also made the solid and effective Tomie: Beginning. He must’ve run out of places to take the franchise because this was his last time in the director’s chair for the series.
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