Saturday Scream Queen: Kaylee Williams

Kaylee Williams is an up-and-coming actress who was born, raised, and still lives in a suburb of Chicago. She has chalked up a number of appearances in short film, and is rapidly adding features to her resume as well.

Noteworthy film appearances so far include "Cut" and "Zombie Babies" (both in 2011). She is also seen in the framing sequence for the excellent "Slices of Life" anthology horror movie from 2010, which I watched last year and never posted the review for. That will have to be rectified this coming week.

Williams is currently involved with eight different film projects at varying stages of production, all of them horror films. Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of her around these parts. (At the very least, I'll see if I can feature some of her shorts during the big 31 Nights of Halloween event coming up in a few weeks.)

Saturday Scream Queens: The Faces of Tomie

One of the few truly creepy comics book series is "Tomie" by Japanese writer/artist Junji Ito. It relates tales of its title character... a mysterious teenaged girl who all men become oobssesed with--so obsessed that they will kill anyone who they think stands between them and their possession of her, including Tomie herself. But no matter how gory and apparently final Tomie's death, she reappears again and again, always bringing madness and destruction to those she interacts with.

With the promise of blood and gore and a sexy girl at the middle of it all, it should come as no surprise that the "Tomie" comics have been become a long-running series of movies. While Tomie is always an exact copy of how she looked before--even when there are multiples of her running around at the same time, due to the way she regenerates from bits of her previous body--no actress has so far played her in more than once.

This post covers the first seven actresses to tackle the roll of the Girl Who Always Comes Back.

Miho Kanno: (Tomie, 1999)
In 1993, Miho Kanno rocketed to stardom as a J-Pop singer at the age of 15 when a musical group she was in won a national contest in 1993 and became a regular feature in variety shows. By 1994, she had launched a successful career as an dramatic actress with starring roles in television movies and series, and stage work followed shortly thereafter. In 1997, she posed for a "photo art book" titled NUDITY... and it became a Top Ten national best-seller in Japan.

Kanno was the first actress to portray Tomie, and she remains the biggest star to tackle the role. It wasn't her first horror movie, however. In 1995, she played a teen charged with defeating magical evils yet who yearned to just be a normal girl in "Eko-Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness". In the same year she played Tomie, she also appearred in the horror film "Hypnosis".

Kanno has left her pop-singer days behind her years ago, but she continues to be a busy and popular dramatic actress in Japan, with an ever-growing list of television, stage, and film credits to her name.

Runa Nagai (Tomie: Another Face, 1999)
Runa Nagai is primarily a model who specializes in "photo art books" which are collections of pictures of girls and young women in various states of undress. Given her main line, it is only natural that she should be cast as the supernatural temptress, Tomie. (And one of the story-lines in the anthology film in which she starred had Tomie becoming involved with a photographer, so perhaps there's some meta-referencing going on.)

Nagai had a handful of film and television roles during the early 2000s, with her biggest role being as Tomie in "Another Face".

Miki Sakai (Tomie: Rebirth, 2001)
Born in 1978, Miki Sakai got her start as a professional actress in the acclaimed drama "Love Letters" in 1995. Throughout the 1990s, she was very successful at playing "the girl next door"-type parts, so perhaps the reason hers was a Tomie performance that many rank among the best there have been so far--she had a good-girl veneer with the monster lurking beneath.

Sakai continues to be a popular actress on Japanese television, mostly appearing in comedies and lighthearted mystery made-for-TV movies and series, but "Rebirth" remains her only horror role thus far. The closest she's come have been a couple of dark thrillers made for theatrical release in recent years.

Nozomi Ando (Tomie: Forbidden Fruit, 2002)
Nozomi Ando got her start at the age of 17 with a lead role in the monster-fest "Gamera 3," in 1999 and she's been kept busy with roles in horror films and thrillers ever since.

Aside from her turn as Tomie, other noteworthy roles have been a teenaged demon-hunter in "Sakuya: Slayer of Demons" (2000), the love interest of a werewolf Ronin in "Werewolf Warrior" (2004), and a hapless college kid stalked by a demon deep within a forest in "Gurozuka" (2005).

Rio Matsumoto (Tomie: Beginning, 2005)
This actress can be said to have something in common with Tomie. She began her career in 1994 as a child actress and model, but retired from the business in 1999 because she wanted to attend high school as a "normal student."

Then, in 2002, In 2002 after her graduation from high school, she rose from the ashes of her past career, reborn and reconstituted like Tomie, or, to use a less sinister example, a Phoenix. Since her second debut, she has returned full-bore to modeling and acting. She has had recurring roles in numerous television dramas and appeared in several action films. "Tomie: Beginnings" is so far her only foray into horror.

In 2007, Matsumoto branched out into fashion desig with a line of wedding dresses. She continues to divide her professional life between acting, modeling, and fashion design.

Anri Ban (Tomie: Revenge, 2005)
Born in 1985, Anri Ban was 20 years old when she became the 7th face of Tomie. It was her first role in a horror film, but she had already appeared in key roles in several mysteries and action-oriented dramas.

The only other horror movie on her resume is "Woman Transformation" (2007) in which she plays one of three women who gradually transform into demons, but she has been featured in numerous mysteries since making "Tomie: Revenge".

'Tomie' Double-Feature

As I've previously mentioned, I'm a big fan of Junji Ito's "Tomie" horror comic book series. I keep watching the film adaptations of it when I come across others in the long-running series, even if it's a little like Charlie Brown and Lucy's football. More often than not, these films have been disappointments, and I've yet to see one that captured the feel of Ito's original work completely. (But I've yet to see them all... so there's still hope.)

Prevkously, I've reviewed four of the "Tomie" films here on Terror Titans. Today, I'm offering up two more--the very first in the series (which is so awful I originally posted the review to Movies You [Die Before You] See) and the prequel that was helmed by the same director six years later.

Tomie (1999)
Starring: Yoriko Douguchi, Miho Kanno, and Mami Nakamura
Director: Ataru Oikawa
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

Junji Ito created one of the few truly scary comic book series I've read--"Uzemaki." His other famous series Tomie is almost as creepy, although you'd never know it from this astoundingly boring movie adaptation.



"Tomie" is the tale of a teen girl who is the center of violent love triangles where everyone involved ends up dead, including her. And, yes, it's plural, because Tomie is so evil that even death cannot stop her--her body always regrows, even from dismemberment, into an exact replica of when she was at her most beautiful... and then she goes looking for more victims to seduce and lead to destruction.

"Tomie" is an awful movie in every sense of the word. It's slow-moving; it fails to take advantage of nearly everything that was truly creepy in the original source material, so it starts boring and it stays there; is filled with drab characters having inane conversations; spends too much time with characters talking about how horrific things are instead of showing the viewer the horror; and has gore and special effects so awful that Ed Wood is embarrassed on the filmmakers' behalf. Finally, the film seems to assume that the viewer is familiar with the Ito comics series, which is an unforgivable sin in my opinion.

The only reason I suffered through it until the end was because I wanted to review it for here and because I kept thinking it HAD to get better.

"Tomie" would have been a One Star movie, except the actors seem to be doing as good a job as can be expected with the awful script they're working with. I still recommend that you avoid this one.

There are at least six other Tomie movies that have been made since the release of this one, and this is one series where the films get better as they go. Sort of... the series has been hit-and-miss.


Tomie: Beginning (2005)
Starring: Rio Matsumoto, Asami Imajuku, and Kenji Mazu
Director: Ataru Oikawa
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A transfer student (Matsumoto) brings obsession, murder, and madness to a Japanese high school. Only Reiko (Imajuku) stands unaffected by the horror... or does she?

"Tomie: Beginning" is a little misnamed, at least it was for me. It raised expectations that it doesn't deliver on--this isn't the beginning of Tomie and she remains as mysterious and alien at the end of the film as she is at its beginning--but rather a prequel to the very first "Tomie" film, by the director who made that first film, and he was more on the mark with this outing.

"Tomie: The Beginning" has its title not just because it's a prequel--that reveals the circumstances of how Tomie's head came to be in that grocery bag at the beginning of the first film--but also because it's based largely on Junji Ito's first "Tomie" short story. By staying close to Ito's work, Oikawa managed to correct the error of his first outing where he completely failed to capture the ever-growing oppressive mood and expanding darkness and circle of madness that ripples outward from where-ever Tomie appears. Also unlike the first movie, Oikawa also manages to stage some absolutely creepy scenes, such as the one where the entire homeroom class confronts Tomie in the woods with predictable results, and one where Reiko confronts a second Tomie that has grown from bandages soaked with Tomie's blood. There's also a very nice scene that effectively transmits the mood of Tomie at the center of her maelstrom of madness, with Reiko as the only island of sanity remaining--that, together with the scenes in the woods, are the most impressive moments in the film, as well as some of the most effective translations of Ito's graphic stories into motion pictures.

Unfortunately, Oikawa hewed a little too closely to Ito in this case. The main story, told in flashback, begins literally with the moment Tomie arrives in the classroom. The mounting chaos and horror and madness for the characters would have been more effectively conveyed and more impactful on the audience if a few minutes had been spent showing us how they were all typical teenagers leading typical lives. The in media res approach works for Ito's stories because we usually have a convincing narrator tell us that "we were normal kids" or we get to see glimpses of life without Tomie to contrast against life with her. Oikawa didn't give the audience any grounding in normalcy, and the movie is weaker for it.

I haven't said much about the actors in the film, because there isn't much to say. They all do fine jobs in their roles, with Rio Matsumoto providing one of the best Tomies yet. With this film, she is the sixth actress to play the part, continuing the tradition of a new Tomie in each film. (Even she is replaced for the seventh installment in the series, also written and directed by Ataru Oikawa and shot back-to-back with this one.)

If you like Junji Ito's "Tomie" comics, you will probably enjoy this film. If you're unfamiliar with the property, this might not be the best introduction to the Tomie series, despite its chronological placement. "Tomie: Replay" or "Tomie: Another Face" are far more friendly entry points to the uninitiated, in addition to sharing the honor with this one as being among the best in the series.

Saturday Scream Queen: J.C. Brandy

J.C. Brandy is an actress and musician who got her start in the horror genre in the mid-1990s by playing the adult Jamie Carruthers in "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" and a role on the "Kindred: The Embraced" television series.

Brandy is a self-described horror movie fan, but her career has consisted mostly of guest shots and bit-parts on various detective and drama televisions series. She can, however, also be seen in horror films "Devil in the Flesh" (1998), "What Lies Beneath"--barely, as the member of a band (2000), "Comedy Hell" (2006), anthology film "Prank" (2008), "The Victim"--barely, as a possible murder victim (2011), and the forthcoming "Tormented Souls", slated for release in 2013.

Saturday Scream Queen: Suzi Lorraine

Because there can never be enough pictures of cats on the web, here's actress and model Suzi Lorraine with Loki the Cat.

East Coast born-and-raised, Lorraine has become a familiar and appreciated presence in low-budget horror films in recent years, and she is featured in over a dozen different films slated for release during the second half of this year and through 2014. And I can only assume that even more projects will be added to her very busy schedule.

Merry Christmas (in July)!

Onebookshelf.com is having their annual Christmas in July sale, and NUELOW Games is taking part.

This means that all the fiction anthologies I've put together for them are 25% off, including Shadows of Texas, a small collection of two-fisted tales of terror by the legendary Robert E. Howard; White Fell and Other Stories, off-beat werewolf chillers from Clemence Housman and Robert E. Howard & Steve Miller; and, of course, Horror for the Holidays, a collection of Christmas-themed horror and mystery stories.

If you haven't checked out any of NUELOW Games's fiction collections, now might be a great time. You'll get some great content for your iPad or e-book reader (if it can handle PDF format) and I will personally appreciate the royalties that will come my way. :)

Click here to see the entire line-up of NUELOW Games's fiction anthology. (I love them all, but I HIGHLY recommend any of the ones that are part of Robert E. Howard Collection.)

Saturday Scream Queen: A Pause

Was she late for the photo-shoot? Or did the monsters get her at a late-night movie screening in Colorado, or while she was vacationing in Bulgaria?

Creepy music videos from Laibach

Laibach is a Slovenian avant-garde rock group that enjoyed their greatest international success during the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. During that time, some effectively creepy videos were made to promote them and their albums. In fact, I consider the video for "Life Is Life" to be one of the creepiest videos I've ever seen. Take a look... let me know if you agree.



Similar thematically, creepy, but not quite as bone-chilling is the video for their cover of "Sympathy for the Devil".

'A Perfect Getaway' is not a perfect

A Perfect Getaway (2009)
Starring: Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant, and Kiele Sanchez
Director: David Twohy
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A honeymooning couple (Jovovich and Zahn) on a multi-day nature hike in Hawaii discover that brutal killers targeting tourists may have taken refuge in the same area. Can their new friends (Olyphant and Sanchez) be the murderers?

"A Perfect Getaway" is a weakly written thriller that is elevated by good performances by its stars and nice cinematography. While it pulls off its Big Reveal with some skill and "plays fair" for the most part--allowing the viewers to try to solve the mystery of who the murderers are before the filmmakers do--the writer/director's assumption that the viewer will buy into the fact that someone is ex-military or used to work as a butcher makes them spooky and creepy and viable murder suspects is moronic and probably an notion that only someone born and bred in Los Angeles and Hollywood would buy into. Other red herrings presented as the film unfolds are even weaker, leading the film be rather boring.

Unless, of course, you think military people and outdoorsy types are somehow inherently spooky and scary. If you do, then you'll probably find the film to be all sorts of kinds of exciting and thrilling.

That sensation may dissapate, however, when you realize that the murderers are rather idiotic, in that they box themselves in on a dead-end trail and then call attention to their location by notifying the authorities and putting an innocent couple in a really flimsy frame that would break at the slightest scrutiny. (I'm aware that the driving force behind the killers is the psychotic goal one of them has to "live 100 lives" but they can't have been doing it for as long as the story implies if they've been as stupid as they are shown to be here).

It's too bad the good performances here are wasted on such a weak script. All the stars come across as perfectly normal and likeable people (assuming Southerners and military men don't scare you out of hand) and it's especially nice to see Jovovich in a role unlike those she usually plays. And it's surprising that the writer/director who brought us such fun B-movie romps as "Warlock" and "Pitch Black" would blow it so badly when making a more "respectable" thriller. But then that may have been the problem. He was going for "realism," but instead ended up putting Hollywood biases on display?

Saturday Scream Queen: Winona Ryder

Born to hardcore hippie parents in 1971, Winona Ryder's earliest years were spent on a commune without electricity. Still, she would steal away with her mother to a nearby barn that had electricity to watch movies, often at the expense of going to school.

Ryder eventually graduated from high school with a 4.0 GPA, and she was already on the path to being a professional actress. Although her career has been focused mostly around mainstream dramas and romantic comedies, her first major horror roles came in 1988 when she had starred in both "Beetlejuice" and "Heathers".

Other horror projects have been "Lost Souls" (2000) and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992). Ryder was instrumental in shaping that last project, conceiving and pitching it to producer/director Francis Ford Coppola, and being heavily involved in lining up the cast.

Ryder recently completed work on animated horror comedy "Frankenweenie", providing the voice of Elsa Frankenstein. The film is slated for release on October 5, 2012.

Revelations... the Music Video!

Death metal with incomprehensible lyrics... Catholic Demon Hunters... Zombies... ... and an appearance by the always-fabulous Cheyenne King! What more can one ask for in a horror-themed music video?

Revelations (2010)
Starring: Sarah French, Cheyenne King, and Daigoro
Director: Eli Funaro
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

By the way, the people who worked on this low-budget video did a better job with the cheap digital gore effects than what I've seen in some recent big-budget, full-blown movies who have turned to the same technology. It's a sad commentary on how some effects artists are paid entirely too much for their incompetence; these guys should have been hired for "Machete", "Expendbles", and several other pathetic examples of crappy digital effects I could mention. On the downside... just what the hell is the song about? I think maybe I understood a total of five words out of four-five minutes of screeching.

Saturday Scream Queen: Jennifer Carpenter

Born in Kentucky in 1979, Jennifer Carpenter trained at New York City's famous Julliard School, making her professional acting debut on Broadway in 2002. Her first films ro9les were in dramas about New Yorkers in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks ("People Are Dead" in 2002 and "Ash Wednesday" in 2003), and in 2005 she made her had her first horror movie appearances in 2005, with starring roles in "Lethal Eviction" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose."

In 2006, Carpenter was cast as the foul-mouthed sister-by-adoption and law enforcement colleague of the title character in "Dexter." This long-running mystery television series has lots of horror overtones, as its main character is a psychopath who was molded by his adopted father to be as close to a force for good as he could possibly become, and who become a serial killer who targets serial killers, both identifying them and covering his tracks through his job as a police scientist. Carpenter remains a fixture of the series, which has been renewed by Showtime through 2013.

When not working on the series, Carpenter has continued to make movies, including the chillers "Quarantine" (2008), "The Factory" (2008), and "Gone" (2011).

Carpenter recently completed work on "The Occult," a thriller about members of a religious sect who are being murdered to bring about a prophecy. No firm release date has been set, but it will likely be released around the middle of 2013.

Bonus Scream Queen: Amanda Tapping

It's Independence Day in the United States, and in celebration, I'm presenting the second annual Bonus Scream Queen.

Amanda Tapping is a veteran television actress who spent 13 years portraying U.S. Air Force scientist and inter-stellar explorer Samantha Carter on "Stargate: SG-1" and the spin-off series and movies, from 1997 through 2010. More recently, she starred as the unaging Helen Magnus on the SyFy Channel monster series "Sanctuary", which was formally cancelled in May of 2012 after four seasons.

As she was getting established, Tapping had small parts on several horror series in the mid-1990s, including "Forever Knight", "Goosebumps", "The X-Files", and "Millennium". In between her series work, she also had roles in the horror films "Blacktop", "The Haunting of Lisa", and "The Void".

Tapping's most recent horror film, "Taken Back", was released last month. She plays a deranged mother who think she's located her long-lost daughter living with another couple.