31 Nights of Halloween: Shadows Sitting By Their Feet

A girl spends a sleepless night surrounded by ghosts. Even if you don't know much about Japanese folklore as it relates to restless spirits, this is a creepy little story.

Shadows Sitting By Their Feet (2012) 
Starring: Haruna Imai, Mika Hisada, Anna Odaka, and Akane Kaiho
Director: Noboru Iguchi
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

'Blood' is a fine anime adaptation

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009)
Starring: Gianna Jun, Allison Miller, Liam Cunningham, JJ, Field, Masiela Lusha, Larry Lamb, and Koyuki
Director: Chris Nahon
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

The battle between a secret society and their demon opponents comes to a head in 1970s Japan when the latest seek-and-destroy mission for 400-year-old immortal Saya (Jun) uncovers a demonic infestation on an American Army base is being coordinated by the most powerful demon of all, Onigen (Koyuki).

"Blood: The Last Vampire" is a live-action adaptation of the Japanese animated series "Blood", and those roots show most clearly in a roof-top chase sequence where Saya is trying to save a hapless American girl from the winged demon that is carrying her off -- with camera angles and the framing of shots feeling as if they were meticulously matched with whatever might have been in the original source.

we get everythig but speedlines coming off the her feet as we see them in close-up as Saya is running along the roof. However, the film is a veritable smorgasbord of genres and styles, all jumbled together in a fun stew of action/adventure, espionage, martial arts, historical melodrama, and, of course, gory bloodspattered horror. Its particularly fascinating the way the hues of the lighting and sets change when the film shifts from action to horror mode and back again.

There are some aspects of the film that don't make a whole lot of sense, such as why an ancient and super-secret demon-fighting society is so poor at planning that they don't have cover IDs that stand up to even the slightest scrutiny, or are so inept at inserting undercover operatives that they send their agent into an American school on an American military base wearing a Japanese high school "sailor suit" uniform--but in the big picture of this fast-moving and exciting film, those are minor complaints.

The acting is all-around decent, with stars Gianna Jun and Allison Miller being both energetic and likeable in their performances. I suspect that both fans of the original cartoon and those who can't stand anime will like this movie equally. There's enough of an anime look and feel that I suspect this is a faithful adaptation, but there's more than enough slicing and dicing of demons and weird conspiracy action that the anime haters will be happy, too. Heck, even if you don't like reading subtitles, this is an Asian film that you'll enjoy as most of the dialogue is in English.

'Devil Hunter Yohko' is weakened by too much sexual content

Devil Hunter Yohko, Episode One (1991)
Director: Katsuhisa Yamada
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

In "Devil Hunter Yohko," a typical (well, typical for late 80s/early 90s Japanese cartoons) 16-year-old girl discovers that her birthright and duty is to assume the role of "devil hunter" and turn back an impending demonic invasion of Earth.

"Devil Hunter Yohko" is an early 1990s direct-to-video animated series from Japan. There are some glimmers of cool ideas in the 45-minute first episode, but they are overwhelmed by a crass, hypersexual attitude that runs through the story. The episode starts with Yohko waking up from a prophetic wet dream, and it continues through her friends being corrupted by "lust demons" who want to make sure she loses her virginity before she awakens to her devil hunter powers--because they only manifest if the girl is pure in mind and body. That stuff is sort of tasteless and leads to a softcore cartoon porn scene between a couple of teenaged characters--one of them possessed by a demon--but the show is very crass and tasteless in its portrayal of Yohko's mother who seems to want to see her daughter sleep with any available male... doesn't care who, so long as Yohko is spreading her legs.

Although I imagine that this series would be highly placed on any Top Ten Anime Series list compiled by Gary Glitter or Roman Polanski.

I am not a prude, but the sexual references and themes in the first episode of "Devil Hunter Yohko" were just too tasteless for me. I understand the series gets better, so I may give the next installment a try.

A New Picture Series: Fear-filled Phantasms

Joining Tectonic Tuesdays, Picture Perfect Wednesdays, and Saturday Scream Queens is "Fear-filled Phantasms," a semi-regular series of horror-themed pictures that I stumble across while wandering the web.

First up... a couple of items to print out and put on the fridge to help you with that diet.





(I think that confused cat that wandered into the first picture is probably my favorite element.)

'Tomie: Forbidden Fruit' can be left alone

Tomie: Forbidden Fruit (aka "Tomie: The Final Chapter") (2002)
Starring: Nozomi Ando, Aoi Miyazaki and Jun Kunimu
Director: Shun Nakahara
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

The lives of middle-aged widower Kozu (Kunimura) and his lonely, outcast teenaged daugther (Miyazaki) are turned into a morass of nightmares and violence when she is befriended by a new girl at school, Tomie (Ando).


"Tomie: Forbidden Fruit" is the fifth movie based on Junji Ito's supremely creepy "Tomie" horror comics about an unkillable girl/ghost/demon who uses her women wiles to lead men to cause suffering, mayhem, and death whereever she goes. More often than not, Tomie herself dies horribly during the mayhem, but she always comes back from death in ways that are more horrific than the time before.

Like most of the "Tomie" movies, "Forbidden Fruit" never manages to inspire in the viewers the horror and dread that Ito's tales do. In fact, the emotion you'll feel most often while watching this film is boredom. particularly if you've read the comics or seen any other of the "Tomie" films.

There is very little new that's brought to the Tomie tales with this film. The only interesting aspect of the story is that Tomie is two generations of the same family in the film, trying to twist both father and daugther to her will. But this is really too small of an aspect to make the film worth your time.

The film is further dragged down by some very bad choices on the part of the writer and director. Tomie has never come across as the smartest of demons/temptresses, but here she comes across as downright stupid. Early in the film, she tries to get Kozu to kill his daughter "so they can be together like before" but this causes him to turn on her and cleave her skull with an axe--it makes him see her for the monster she is. Later, during the movie's climax, she tries the same trick again. It didn't work the first time, so why does she think it'll work the second time?

To make it even worse, this replay of the "kill your daughter so we can be together" ploy is part of a a final five-ten minutes of run-time that ruins what could otherwise have been an incredibly creepy "happy ending" with both father and daughter gazing upon Tomie frozen inside an ice block while eating potato chips and agreeing on how pretty she is and how much they both love her.

It could be the filmmakers were trying to illustrate that Tomie is all about repeating patterns, but all they ended up doing was screwing up a potentially great ending, a screw-up so bad that it cost the film at least one Rating point, perhaps even two. (Heck, if they'd gone with the movie's REAL ending--with Tomie frozen in the ice block--it could even have lived up to the film's title.)

Although well-acted and featuring moody and well-executed camera work, "Tomie: Forbidden Fruit" is done in by a weak script that fails to live up to the potential of the source material and a desire to heavy-handed drive home the point that there is never a "final chapter" where Tomie is concerned. (BTW, I don't really spoil anything by revealing that Tomie gets frozen in an iceblock toward the end of the film. It's an event that's telegraphed early on, and you'd have seen it coming even if I hadn't mentioned it.)

Tomie returns again and again and again

Tomie: Another Face (1999)
Starring: Runa Nagai
Director: Toshirô Inomata
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

One of the greatest talents to ever work in horror comics is Japan's Junji Ito. His tales never fail to send a chill down a reader's spine, and his style is one that even those who "hate" manga will be able to appreciate. (If you're a horror fan and you've never experienced Ito's work, go immediately to Amazon.com by clicking here and order one or more of his books. You're missing out of pure horror genius.)


Ito's most famous creation is that of Tomie, a mysterious teenaged temptress who makes men and boys fall in love with her and drives them insane so they eventually murder her and destroy themselves. Once the carnage is over and before the horror has subsided, Tomie rises from the dead to start the cycle all over again. It doesn't matter how efficiently her body is disposed of... Tomie ALWAYS comes back.

Ito's comic has been adapted into nine different movies as of this writing and they vary greatly in quality.

The first "Tomie" movie (review here) was so awful and boring that it nearly put me off any others in the series. However, my love of the "manga" tales led me to give what I believed to be the next installment--"Tomie: Replay" (review here)--a try. I'm glad I did, because it's a far superior movie, and it calls attention to a fascinating aspect of the monster that is Tomie that even Ito's original tales did not bring into such clear focus.

However, I recently discovered that there was a made-for-TV (or possibly direct-to-video) effort released shortly after the first theatrical "Tomie" film, "Tomie: Another Face". When I further learned it was an anthology film, it became even more of a must-see for me, as I love that format.

The first tale is what you'd call a "standard Tomie story". It's set in a high school setting, and she's one side of a love triangle with the story's narrator... who has lost her boyfriend to Tomie. Tomie's already dead when the story starts, but she returns to prevent the narrator and her boyfriend from reuniting. This, in turn, leads to some drastic high school romance drama that would give even Romeo and Juliet pause. It's a somewhat dull story, but it's got a punchy ending that more than makes up for its overall tepidness.

In the second tale, a professional photographer, who has spent his professional life trying to capture the image of a mysterious woman he developed a crush on while in school, encounters a young girl who looks just like her. Her name turns out to be Tomie and she agrees to model for him so long as he makes her look beautiful in the pictures. Needless to say, things end badly for the shutter-bug. The creep factor is far higher throughout this segment of the film, and, once again, we're given great ending. Unfortunately, despite being built around an element that's appeared in several Ito stories--photos always reveal Tomie's unnatural nature, as well as the fact that her beauty is barely skin deep--this tale presents her in the role of a tart from the beginning. Tomie just isn't Tomie when she's got make-up caked on and is dancing for dollars in dive bars.

In the third tale, we find another Tomie standard set-up... a nebbish loser is wrapped around her finger, and she uses him as the means to kill someone who is immune to her charms or otherwise onto her evil nature. In this case, the target of her wrath is a former coroner who witnessed one of her many resurrections two years earlier and who has been researching and stalking her ever since. The climax to this third tale is one that Ito himself could have cooked up, and viewers will chuckles with mingle with Tomie's fading laughter as the credits being to role. (And that's not a spoiler.... Come on, you know that no one will ever truly destroy Tomie!)

"Tomie: Another Face" is a solid low-budget horror film. While the cinematography is a bit weak and the shot-on-video feel is flat and all-pervasive, it's got a good atmospheric soundtrack and the cast all give a good accounting of themselves. The choice of the actress to play Tomie (Luna Nagai this time out) is a good choice, better than the actress who played Tomie in the original film, who looked entirely too old. (Luna Nagai may be the best actress I've seen as Tomie yet... she is great at switching between being a simpering girlie-girl and a bitch in an instant. For some reason, each Tomie film seems to have a different actress in the part. Maybe they are used as vehicles for the Japanenese Lindsey Lohan's of the Moment when they are made?)

The biggest drawback of the film is that while it stays true to the themes and overall feel of Ito's Tomie stories--something that it enhanced by the anthology format--at no time does "Another Face" manage to match Ito's work in creepiness factor. They come close at a couple of points, but the filmmakers never quite manage to equal their source material. While this may be partly due to the obvious budgetary constraints it was made under, it is also the fault of the director and cinematographer. Better lighting and tighter editing could have gone a long way to making the film far creepier.

"Tomie: Another Face" is far better than the first film in the series, but you should watch "Tomie: Replay" before you bother with this film. (Or, even better, read some of Ito's original Tomie short stories. (Unfortunately, as of this writing, all English-language editions of them are out of print. Actually, even the DVD is out of print as of this writing. But, Tomie always returns....)

Japanese horror you can take or leave

Misa the Dark Angel (1997)
Starring: Hinako Saeki and Ayaka Nanami
Director: Katesuhito Ueno
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

"Misa the Dark Angel" is about a young witch who insiutates herself into a boarding school for girls when she and her crusty mentor decide a magical curse rests over the place. Misa, however, being a lonely teenager with no friends, become enamoured with the 'normal' life led by the students at the school and looses sight of why she is there. And that's when the terror begins.

There is nothing particularly bad about this film. The acting is solid, the camera work, lighting, and sets are all used to full effectiveness to underscore the horror and mystery of the events that unfold, and the cast members die in appropriately ironic ways. (That said, "Misa the Dark Angel" is *not* a teenage slasher flick, even if the above sentence might imply that; it's a far more low-key horror film, with patches of horrific gore. Actually, if there is something wrong with the film, it's that it's almost too low-key. The film is almost entirely event free in the second act.)

On the other hand, there's nothing that really stands out, either. It's a solid effort, nothing more. It's worth seeing if you enjoy Japanese horror flicks, but I don't think it would be worth going out of your way for.