This is the 5th film (4th theatrical, the 2nd film was made for TV) of 7 about Tomie; the beautiful she-demon who drives men to kill her, but will not stay dead. I've never read Junji Ito's manga, so I will review this just as a film within the series.
Good horror films are disturbing to us, that's part of their job. Tomie Forbidden Fruit does a good job of that initially, but loses focus and somewhat falls apart a little after the halfway mark. The first half is a good creepy horror film, albeit not a 'scary' one, though none of the series were. It suffers from 'Jeepers Creepers-itis': starts off with a great premise that seems to be going somewhere and then derails itself into silly territory that undermines that which preceded it. Luckily, it pretty much gets back on track at the end which is more than I can say for Jeepers Creepers. The idea is a good one and takes Tomie into the 'destruction of friends and families' territory more than previous entries did (Re-birth would be the 2nd best in that capacity due to its mother-son-girlfriend relations subplot).
Kazu Hashimoto was in love with Tomie some 25 years ago, but she died as did the friend who stole her from him. We see him now as a middle-aged widower who named his daughter after his lost 1st love. Tomie Hashimoto is harassed at school by girls who bully her and her life is generally miserable until the day she meets Tomie. They become fast friends and cue the PG-rated pseudo-lesbian overtones. Actually, Tomie isn't really interested in being friends with her namesake. Tomie actually despises her as a reminder that Kazu married another woman and gave birth to a daughter, Tomie Hashimoto. Tomie plans to regain Kazu and offers her love to him after he removes all remnants of the time that has passed, namely the shrine to his deceased wife (no big deal for a man who has forgotten her in the past 10 years since her death) and one other slight obstacle: the daughter of that union. In order to regain the beautiful lost love of his youth, Kazu must follow Tomie's orders to murder his offspring. Usually even men who'd be tempted by the offer would have enough love of their child and basic morals to refuse such a barbaric demand, but then again Tomie's inhuman spell on men defies rational thought and all bets are off.
After Tomie is murdered (no big shock/spoiler if you've been watching the series up to this point), things takes a turn from the creepy disturbing horror mode into strange dark humor territory along the lines of "Basketcase" meets "Eraserhead". This derailment lasts maybe 20 minutes, which is more than enough for it to negatively affect the tone of the film. Tomie Hashimoto inexplicably decides to locate Tomie's remains and now has to take care of the decapitated head of her 'friend' as it slowly regenerates a body. There are comically-intended scenes of her feeding an ungrateful Tomie and taking her around town in a baby stroller (which makes one want to utter that infamous movie phrase "What's in the basket?"). Tomie quickly proves very demanding, beyond her caregiver's financial means or even any remaining desires to provide for her. Acting the role of a doting parent isn't something she's ready to accept from this selfish creature. In this way it somewhat mirrors Jack Nance's situation in "Eraserhead", right down to the monstrous deformities underneath those swaddling blankets. In the meantime, we also see Tomie H's nemesis schoolgirl bullies visit her home and meet up with daddy, whose tendency towards violence is not to be restrained after the psychological effects of his last meeting with Tomie. While amusing, it's fairly standard fare as Takashi Miike already did a better job of addressing the issue of high school bullies in "Visitor Q".
Tomie returns and the father-daughter team come up with a clever -- albeit noticeably telegraphed -- way to keep Tomie from coming back into their lives, but the writers aren't ready to let the end credits roll just yet.
Even though this was titled as the 'final chapter', 2 more apparently worse films would later follow. The organ music score almost sounds like intentionally lost throwaway tracks from Argento's "Inferno".
6/10 (I give a 7/10 to the first half and a 5/10 for the comic relief sidetrack)
Good horror films are disturbing to us, that's part of their job. Tomie Forbidden Fruit does a good job of that initially, but loses focus and somewhat falls apart a little after the halfway mark. The first half is a good creepy horror film, albeit not a 'scary' one, though none of the series were. It suffers from 'Jeepers Creepers-itis': starts off with a great premise that seems to be going somewhere and then derails itself into silly territory that undermines that which preceded it. Luckily, it pretty much gets back on track at the end which is more than I can say for Jeepers Creepers. The idea is a good one and takes Tomie into the 'destruction of friends and families' territory more than previous entries did (Re-birth would be the 2nd best in that capacity due to its mother-son-girlfriend relations subplot).
Kazu Hashimoto was in love with Tomie some 25 years ago, but she died as did the friend who stole her from him. We see him now as a middle-aged widower who named his daughter after his lost 1st love. Tomie Hashimoto is harassed at school by girls who bully her and her life is generally miserable until the day she meets Tomie. They become fast friends and cue the PG-rated pseudo-lesbian overtones. Actually, Tomie isn't really interested in being friends with her namesake. Tomie actually despises her as a reminder that Kazu married another woman and gave birth to a daughter, Tomie Hashimoto. Tomie plans to regain Kazu and offers her love to him after he removes all remnants of the time that has passed, namely the shrine to his deceased wife (no big deal for a man who has forgotten her in the past 10 years since her death) and one other slight obstacle: the daughter of that union. In order to regain the beautiful lost love of his youth, Kazu must follow Tomie's orders to murder his offspring. Usually even men who'd be tempted by the offer would have enough love of their child and basic morals to refuse such a barbaric demand, but then again Tomie's inhuman spell on men defies rational thought and all bets are off.
After Tomie is murdered (no big shock/spoiler if you've been watching the series up to this point), things takes a turn from the creepy disturbing horror mode into strange dark humor territory along the lines of "Basketcase" meets "Eraserhead". This derailment lasts maybe 20 minutes, which is more than enough for it to negatively affect the tone of the film. Tomie Hashimoto inexplicably decides to locate Tomie's remains and now has to take care of the decapitated head of her 'friend' as it slowly regenerates a body. There are comically-intended scenes of her feeding an ungrateful Tomie and taking her around town in a baby stroller (which makes one want to utter that infamous movie phrase "What's in the basket?"). Tomie quickly proves very demanding, beyond her caregiver's financial means or even any remaining desires to provide for her. Acting the role of a doting parent isn't something she's ready to accept from this selfish creature. In this way it somewhat mirrors Jack Nance's situation in "Eraserhead", right down to the monstrous deformities underneath those swaddling blankets. In the meantime, we also see Tomie H's nemesis schoolgirl bullies visit her home and meet up with daddy, whose tendency towards violence is not to be restrained after the psychological effects of his last meeting with Tomie. While amusing, it's fairly standard fare as Takashi Miike already did a better job of addressing the issue of high school bullies in "Visitor Q".
Tomie returns and the father-daughter team come up with a clever -- albeit noticeably telegraphed -- way to keep Tomie from coming back into their lives, but the writers aren't ready to let the end credits roll just yet.
Even though this was titled as the 'final chapter', 2 more apparently worse films would later follow. The organ music score almost sounds like intentionally lost throwaway tracks from Argento's "Inferno".
6/10 (I give a 7/10 to the first half and a 5/10 for the comic relief sidetrack)