We're taught from our earliest years to our final breaths to “never judge a book by its cover.” Sadly, it's one of those simple lessons that, through all our years of life, we simply don't learn. Men pursue the most physically beautiful of women despite the all-too-real possibility that their beauty is a veneer over a dingbat core. Books, comics, albums...they all try desperately to draw in your attention with flashy Photoshop work and wildly explosive “look at me!” visuals that don't necessarily reflect the content within, yet we're drawn in to them all the same.

I, admittedly, have caught myself many a time in the same trap. Take Panik House's DVD release for Tokyo Psycho. When Lawrence sent me this round of review screeners, I practically squealed with delight at the case. While not nearly as slick as their packaging for their various “pinky violence” titles (I still stop to stare at the translucent packages on the DVD rack every time), it's undeniably cool: clinging to the front of the case with a quintet of rubber-cement “boogers” is a jigsaw puzzle. A literal, honest-to-goodness twenty-piece cardboard jigsaw puzzle replicating the cover. It's a pretty cool cover as well, with a picture of the lovely Sachiko Kokubu wearing a barbed-wire gag underneath a few phrases that simultaneously intrigued and worried me...

From ATARU OIKAWA, the Director of TOMIE
BASED ON A TRUE STORY

First off, I adored Tomie (review here), for its eerie, lucid dream qualities. It was untraditional filmmaking, and it fit the surreal world of the “girl who would not die” perfectly. However, I wondered how well Oikawa's waking-dream direction would work on a “tale of real life horror.” It worked out just fine...sadly, the screenplay was the real problem in Tokyo Psycho.

The plot itself is simple and potentially quite effective: Yumiko Oosawa (Kokubu), a graphic designer, starts receiving harassing letters, scraps of paper stitched together with wire and spattered with blood, declaring “I know you were born to marry me.” They start to become more elaborate as time goes on, arriving strapped to hunks of meat or buried in worm-rich earth. At her wits' end, Yumiko remembers a similar situation from her youth: a young man named Komiya who sent her letters with the same desperate tone before mysteriously getting “transferred” to another school.

It's all quite creepy and compelling, at least until Yumiko starts to do some detective work on her own, visiting Teen Criminal Enthusiast websites (!) and hiring a private investigator to track down the mysterious Komiya. Then, the movie suddenly takes a hard left into completely implausible and far fetched territory. Her stalker is revealed as someone much closer to her than she could ever know, and he's much more dangerous than she could ever dream...yeah, right. If you're going to tout your movie as “based on a true story” and “a tale of real life horror” as the box copy does, make it freakin' realistic!

Even worse, once Yumiko starts to dig deeper into the identity of her killer, she quickly devolves from strong, independent businesswoman into a sniveling screaming mimi, thus negating any feelings I had for the character. Sure, Kokubu seems like a damn fine actress for both sides of the coin (and oh-so cute), but even her spirited performance can't save a fundamentally flawed character. Even when Komiya is finally revealed (and his identity is so obvious it hurts), even Masashi Taniguchi's wonderful, manic delivery can't cover up the fact that he was written poorly, plain and simple.

All of this stings especially when you take into account Oikawa's awesome direction. Somehow, despite the supposedly realistic tone of the film, his decidedly surreal approach works perfectly. Roving camera shots follow the characters from distance vantage points, adding to the “stalker” feel of the film. POV shots (despite not being from the view of anyone in particular), are plentiful and voyeuristic. Even the beginning few minutes of the flick, which are completely irrelevant to the rest of the movie, are expertly paced and genuinely scary.

Panik House's presentation of this rather disappointing flick is about as great as one could hope, however. The director-approved transfer looks great, with bold colors that are vibrant without being overwhelming, and perfect contrast. Audio is a great Japanese mix in either 5.1 or stereo, with the former offering spare but effective surround usage. Extras are positively overflowing (I'm genuinely surprised they managed to get this all on one disc), and include two running commentaries: one in English, and the other in Spanish! It's commendable that Panik House decided that if they were going to offer Spanish subtitles, as well as a separate Spanish menu system, they may as well offer up an often-excluded extra in the language as well. Besides that, there's a fistful of featurettes and behind-the-scenes footage, bios, a poster and still gallery, and two essays detailing the crimes of the murderers that Tokyo Psycho was “based upon.” Much as a figured, Tokyo Psycho is as much “based on a true story” as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Instead of following the events of a true serial killer's spree, they simply take a few characteristics for their own character. While I'm secretly thankful that they didn't base a whole movie around the child-molesting, trophy-collecting “Otaku Murderer,”perhaps they could have made the character of Komiya more believable and frightening.

So when you stroll down the aisle at Borders or Suncoast or wherever you might be, ignore the siren song of a jigsaw-puzzle cover and the promise of a “special sticker” (which is pretty slick), and look instead for a more compelling film, one that makes you ask the question of “whodunit?” instead of a shoulder-shrugging “who cares?”