Movies are rarely original; they’re translations – new interpretations of stories, ideas or riffs on other works. In the delicate art of adaptation, the original’s spirit can either thrive or get lost in translation.
Take 1989’s Tomie (Blu-ray, Arrow Video). It sounds so promising. It’s based on Junji Ito’s intense horror manga, and anything from this legendary artist usually guarantees a bona fide frightfest. The concept is compelling, too: over decades, police keep finding what appears to be the same murdered girl, with the same name, over and over again. Yet Tomie on film fails (or doesn’t even try) to capture the sheer, hair-raising terror of Ito’s pages. The pacing? Glacial. The horror imagery?
Watered down. By the halfway mark, my mind had wandered into drafting this review (always a…
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