It's the early 60s. After years, the authorities have finally found the parents of now teenaged Yoko (Nako Mizusawa), who had lost their baby daughter during the chaos of World War II.
Yoko's father is very happy to finally be able to take care of his daughter, alas the rest of the girl's new surroundings is not what one would call healthy: the family mansion is situated deep in the woods, surrounded by an electric fence to keep out the aggressive wild dogs of the area, the family's housekeeper has stepped right out of a Gothic romance tale and mum is insane and treats a teddy as her only child while she ignores Yoko. There is also something else living in the house, something with claws and a nasty character that really does not want the young girl there.
Well, this is certainly something. I'm just not sure what.
At least I am sure that Tamami is Battlefield Baseball and Meatball Machine director Yudai Yamaguchi's adaptation of a manga by house favorite Kazuo Umezu, but what exactly Yamaguchi tried to achieve with it, I am less than sure.
You see, the film can be divided into three stylistically highly divergent parts: the first one is an obvious homage to the Gothic horror film (I suspect mostly in its Italian incarnation), slightly held back by the less than perfect production design, yet still achieving a certain dream-like quality that's typical of the sub-genre.
Until the film quite suddenly shifts gears with the realization that the film's big bad isn't the expected baby ghost, but in fact a mutant killer baby muppet. This leads into part two, a Fulci-esque piece of gore horror with a dubious grasp on physics and logic, but quite a bit of enthusiastic inventiveness.
The third and final mood and tempo change isn't quite as grating as the first, since the film doesn't change its nature completely anymore, but only increases everything it did before into the crescendo of bug-fuck craziness the Yamaguchi/Umezu connection promised in the first place.
There's really nothing you could imagine happening in a film with such an ill-advisedly adorable looking killer baby muppet that is not somehow pressed into the last thirty minutes of this film. There goes the matrix-style killer baby fu! Here comes the killer baby flea jumping! Ahoy silly suspense scene with added dismemberment! Hello, exploding mansion!
Obviously, Tamami would be a much better film without its grating shifts in tone, and Yamaguchi should really try to make a slow and coherent film one of these days, yet I couldn't help but like this messy little thing in all of its Frankensteinian glory and absurdity. Just try to avoid going in expecting coherence, stop thinking about how much of the film is meant to be taken seriously and you're all set to enjoy the murderous adventures of Miss Piggy's jumping, giggling and killing maniacal flea child.
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