The Haunted Castle (1969)

The Haunted Castle is a gothic horror movie made by Japan’s Daiei Studio in 1969. It was directed by Tokuzô Tanaka. It’s included in the Radiance Films Daiei Gothic volume 2 Blu-Ray boxed set.

The setting is the 18th century, during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Almost all the action takes place in the castle, Saga Castle, occupied by Lord Nabeshima.

This film belongs to the fascinating bakeneko or “ghost cat” or “shape-shifting cat” genre. Yes, it’s an entire genre in both Japanese folklore and Japanese gothic horror cinema. And yes, I could easily become obsessed by this genre.

And, fascinatingly, I believe this was director Tokuzô Tanaka’s second “ghost cat” movie, the first having been made in 1958 (and also for Daiei Studio).

The Haunted Castle is based on a legend which, as in so many such cases, was widely believed to have its origins in actual events. Shôzaburô Asai wrote the screenplay,

The Ryuzoji clan was robbed of its lands and wealth by the scheming Lord Nabeshima (Kôichi Uenoyama). The blind Matashichiro Ryuzoji (Akihisa Toda) and his sister Sayo (Mitsuyo Kamei) now live on a small stipend.

Matashichiro is devoted to his pet cat Tama. This will become important.

Now Lord Nabeshima wants Sayo as one of his concubines. Matashichiro refuses to allow it. This refusal will lead to the deaths of both Matashichiro and his sister.

Before she does Sayo remembers a legend concerning cats and vengeful spirits. There is a way that Tama can exact vengeance on Sayo’s behalf.

The feline campaign of revenge begins.

The major weakness here is that some of the special effects involving the cat are rather feeble for fortunately Tanaka is smart enough to make these sequences extremely brief.

This is a movie that relies on moody cinematography and a general atmosphere of subtle menace rather than on gore. There is some gore but it’s not the dominating element.

It was shot in colour but it looks dark and shadowy. The action takes place almost entirely at night.

The movie also relies on some very clever set design. We never really get a film sense of the layout of the castle and this is undoubtedly deliberate. There are lots of shots of corridors but we’re never quite sure where they’re leading to.

Often we hear movement rather seeing it. Mostly we hear the cat but without seeing it.

And there’s something else going on. This is not just a demonic cat. This is a shape-shifting vengeful cat spirit.

Fear stalks the corridors of Saga Castle but no-one is quite sure what it is that they have to fear. There have been gruesome but inexplicable killings.

No-one trusts anyone else. That ghost cat may have assumed human form.

As with most Japanese gothic horror the makeup effects are impressive.

And the lapping of blood is nicely creepy.

Japanese gothic horror films have a flavour of their own and The Haunted Castle is a solid example of the breed. Recommended.

The Radiance Films Blu-Ray transfer looks lovely. There are three movies in this set. The Haunted Castle comes with a few reasonably interesting extras.

I’ve reviewed the other two movies in this set - The Demon of Mount Oe (1960, also directed by Tokuzô Tanaka) and Ghost of Kasane Swamp (1970).

Ghost of Kasane Swamp (1970)

Ghost of Kasane Swamp is based on Encho Sanyutei’s 19th century ghost story Shinkei Kasanegafuchi although earlier (and rather different) versions of the story date back as far as 1690. There are still those who believe that the original was a true story.

Shinkei Kasanegafuchi has been filmed many times, the first version being a 1924 silent film. A famous version directed by Nobuo Nakagawa  was made in 1957.

Kimiyoshi Yasuda directed two versions for Daiei Studio, a black-and-white 1960 film and a colour 1970 version, Ghost of Kasane Swamp. 

It’s that 1970 version we’re concerned with here.

These events clearly take place during the period of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868).

A penniless samurai, Fukami, is heavily in debt to blind masseur and money-lender Soetsu. The samurai consoles himself by sleeping with the housemaid, Okuma. Then he comes up with a plan. He will offer Soetsu the use of his wife Sawano’s body in payment of the debt. He will then catch them in the act, play the outraged husband, and kill them both. This way he gets rid of a wife he’s grown tired of and he doesn’t have to pay the debt.

As a result of this murder a considerable amount of money belonging to Soetsu comes into circulation. Some of it falls into the hands of Soetsu’s daughter Oshiga. She’s a whore but she can now buy the brothel in which she works and set herself up as the madam.

The samurai’s son Shingoro has now shown up. He had been estranged from his father for years.

That initial double murder will set in motion a whole series of dramas. There are certainly ghosts seeking vengeance but it’s the dark motivations of the various characters that cause most of the trouble. Some are motivated by greed, some by revenge, some by lust. And some by a combination of all three.

It’s not just revenge but in many cases an obligation to seek revenge. An obligation which some of the characters carry out while others evade that duty.

There will be more murders, and many betrayals. There will be complex interlocking sexual relationships with plenty of potential for jealousy and mistrust.

Shingoro gets romantically involved with Oshiga. That later becomes a romantic triangle and in the meantime he encounters Okuma who is enraged that the money she stole has been stolen from her. Shingoro gets mixed up with Oshiga’s sister Osona as well. The possibilities for betrayal multiply.

While most of the characters’ woes stem from their own failings that does not mean that this is one of those movies in which there are no actual supernatural elements and characters are simply haunted by their own guilt. There are ghosts here although apparently earlier movie versions put more focus on the ghosts. 

In this version it would appear that the ghosts mostly exert their influence indirectly although they do appear to the various characters at various times. And by the end of the story there are more than just two ghosts.

By 1970 audience expectations were changing and this time around Kimiyoshi Yasuda decided to put more emphasis on gore (although it’s moderate gore by later standards) and sex. This works quite well since sex is always an effective motivation in a horror film. 

This is not a story in which the poor and downtrodden are exploited by the rich and powerful. There are no great feudal lords. Soetsu has money but no social status. Fukami clings to a semblance of social status but is penniless. Nobody has any money, unless they can get their hands on some of Soetsu’s money. They are all, male and female, just barely managing to survive.

This is a sordid tale and that gives it a nicely lurid feel.

Sadly a year after this film was released Daiei Studio went bankrupt. Television had had a devastating effect on the Japanese film industry.

Ghost of Kasane Swamp is fine rather sleazy gothic horror and it’s highly recommended.

The Radiance Films Blu-Ray transfer looks lovely. There are three movies in this set. The accompanying booklet includes a brief moderately interesting essay.

I’ve also reviewed The Demon of Mount Oe from this set.

Curse of the Cat People (1944)

The Curse of the Cat People, released in 1944, was the sixth of the horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO. 

This was Robert Wise’s first movie as director. 

As with Cat People DeWitt Bodeen got the writing credit but in fact the script was co-written by Bodeen and Lewton.

RKO gave Lewton enormous creative freedom except for one thing - they got to assign the titles to the movies before the scripts had even been begun. Oddly enough this worked quite well - being given a title and then having to build a movie around it was a challenge to which Lewton was more than equal. 

But in this particular case Lewton really was dismayed. He did not want to make any sequels. He solved this problem very adroitly. The Curse of the Cat People is an object lesson in how to make a sequel without actually quite making a sequel. They are two separate but linked movies.

While it’s not quite a sequel The Curse of the Cat People does reveal major spoilers for Cat People. You absolutely must see Cat People first. And the nature of the story means that it is impossible to discuss The Curse of the Cat People without revealing huge spoilers for Cat People. So from this point on this review will contain very big spoilers for Cat People.

The time element is a slight problem. Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) and Alice Moore (Jane Randolph) are now married and they have a six-year-old daughter, Amy (Ann Carter). This means that at least seven years must have elapsed since the events of the first movie.

Oliver has never fully recovered from the death of Irena. He deals with it by convincing himself that Irena simply had strange fantasies but Cat People is unequivocally and unambiguously a supernatural horror story. There is no doubt that the supernatural was involved.

Amy is a sweet kid but inclined to live in a dream world. She is solitary rather than lonely. The other children avoid her but this possibly bothers her father even more than it bothers her.

An eccentric old lady gives Amy a ring. It’s a wishing ring. The one thing Amy wishes for is a friend. The old lady has a daughter but refuses to admit it. She insists that her daughter died years earlier and that this woman is an imposter.

Oliver has an odd obsession that Amy is going to take after Irena. Which is of course impossible. She’s Alice’s child, not Irena’s. Although Oliver stubbornly refuses to admit that anything supernatural happened in the past involving Irena he does seem to fear that Irena might somehow be able to exert an influence on Amy. It’s a kind of irrational superstitious fear.

Oliver is not only worried about Amy’s tendency to live in a dream world. It frightens and angers him.

And Amy’s dream world takes a sudden turn when she finds the friend she so desperately wants. The lady is Irena, or Irena’s ghost.

There are many who insist that nothing at all supernatural happens in this movie. It can certainly be interpreted that way. Whether having viewed the movie you believe that Irena’s ghost is real or not is up to you.

With Nic Musuraca once again doing the cinematography this is a visually gorgeous movie with a very slight fairy tale flavour.

Lewton may not have liked the title but it did allow Simone Simon to be cast. After the huge success of Cat People Simone Simon was definitely regarded as bankable and she was the movie’s main selling point, getting top billing and being prominently featured on the poster. To be honest this is such a low-key movie that the title and the presence of Simone Simon were desperately needed to give it any chance at all of commercial success.

Ann Carter pretty much has to carry the whole movie and her superb performance is its biggest strength. Jane Randolph is dull. Kent Smith is dull as well and in this movie Oliver is a very unpleasant unsympathetic character.

Incidentally once the film was completed Lewton decided he was dissatisfied with the ending and ordered reshoots with a slightly different ending.

This is not even remotely a horror movie. It’s almost a fairy tale movie. It’s the story of an unhappy little girl and it was very autobiographical. There are bits of Lewton in Amy and in Oliver and other characters are based partially on people from Lewton’s past. It’s interesting but to me it seems too low-key for its own good and it’s not surprising that it’s commercial performance was disappointing. It’s worth a look as an interesting misfire although I should point out that most people like it a lot more than I did.

Robert Wise did go on to make a genuinely great horror movie, The Haunting (1963).

The Bride from Hades (1968)

The Bride from Hades is a 1968 gothic horror movie from Japan’s Daiei Studio and based on one of the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories, Peony Lantern (Botan-dôrô). The story exists in multiple versions and it has been filmed several times.

It is necessary to keep in mind that ghosts in Japanese and Chinese folklore are not like western ghosts. They are corporeal. They can eat and drink. You can touch them. You can even have sex with them although it may not be advisable to do so. You can become emotionally involved with a ghost. 

And it can be almost impossible to tell if someone is a ghost.

The setting is clearly sometime during the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Zenjiro, the ambitious second son of an important lord, married the daughter of a shogunate elder. It was a very advantageous match. Sadly Zenjiro died in an accident soon afterwards. Now the family has to decide what to do with his young widow. They do not want to give up the connection to the shogunate. The ideal solution would be for her to marry Zenjiro’s younger brother Shinzaburô. It would be a fine marriage for the young man. Shinzaburô does not seem to see it that way.

At a religious festival he encounters a young lady and her maid. Later they come to visit him unexpectedly. The maid, Oyone, unfolds a strange tale.

Her mistress Otsuyu is a high-born young lady but as a result of family misfortunes she was sold into a geisha house. She claims that she is still a virgin. Given the very complicated nature of the institution of the geisha that might be plausible. Either way she is being put under unbearable pressure to surrender her virginity to a customer.

Otsuyu also goes under another name in her professional life, a name taken from a species of beetle that changes its appearance dramatically in different lighting conditions. Perhaps this is a clue that Otsuyu’s story should not necessarily be taken at face value.

Then Shinzaburô makes an unnerving discovery. Otsuyu and Oyone have both been dead for a year. This is particularly unsettling in view of the fact that he’s had sex with Otsuyu. Having sex with a ghost is generally considered to be unwise.

What’s worse is that he has fallen in love with her.

But what does Otsuyu want? Ghosts in Japanese (and Chinese) folklore are not necessarily evil in a straightforward sense but consorting with them can be dangerous in various ways.

Japanese ghosts can fall in love with the living - is Otsuyu in love with him? She is certainly giving him that impression.

Shinzaburô also does not know the exact circumstances of Otsuyu’s death, and that could be important.

Shinzaburô already has a difficult choice to make, a choice which he considers to be a moral one.

A good gothic horror movie with a period setting should have a slightly other-worldly look and feel. Japanese gothic horror has a certain distinctive feel and Daiei’s movies in this genre have a very impressive visual style. The Bride from Hades is a great looking movie.

This is horror that relies mostly on creating an atmosphere of unease and a rather melancholy mood.

The makeup effects are restrained, and deliberately so. This movie is not trying to gross out the viewer but rather to be slightly creepy and unnerving.

Kôjirô Hongô is very good as Shinzaburô, a man who is a bit of an innocent. Miyoko Akaza is excellent as Otsuyu - seductive but in a way that makes us uneasy from the start.

The Bride from Hades is top-notch subtle gothic horror. And nobody does ghost movies better than the Japanese. Highly recommended.

This film is included in the must-buy Daiei Gothic Blu-Ray boxed set from Radiance Films.

Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)

Kenji Misumi’s 1959 gothic horror film The Ghost of Yotsuya is one of several film adaptations of a very famous kabuki play. Nobuo Nakagawa’s version came out in the same year so the two versions can easily be confused. There have in fact been countless film, television, manga and anime adaptations.

Iemon Tamiya (Kazuo Hasegawa) is a samurai down on his luck. He cannot find a position. He lacks the connections and the money needed to secure a decent position. He is a proud man but he is almost penniless and heavily in debt. He is basically a good honourable man but he is embittered by poverty and failure. Perhaps that clouds his judgment a little. His wife Oiwa (Yasuko Nakada) is ailing which adds to the pressures and the bitterness.

Iemon has become involved with some disreputable characters. He trusts them, which is a very foolish thing to do.

The loyal family servant Kohei (Jôji Tsurumi) is devoted to Oiwa. He is a good man but his devotion to his mistress may be just a little excessive. He would not think of doing anything dishonourable but his judgment my perhaps also be a bit clouded.

Oiwa’s health is failing. There is a medicine that could cure her but it is very expensive.

Iemon attracts the attention of Oume (Yôko Uraji), the beautiful young daughter of Lord Ito. Oume is in search of a husband. She has chosen Tamiya. The fact that he is already married does not deter her. She is a stubborn girl and she has become obsessed by Tamiya. She must have him.

Oume’s obsession grows. She is tempted to take drastic steps to separate Tamiya from his wife. Oume is headstrong and spoilt and selfish and she is a young girl carried away by love and lust. She might not be evil to begin with but she is vulnerable to temptation.

Iemon’s disreputable friends can see the potential for profiting from this situation.

The stage is set for tragedy.

In gothic horror the aesthetic is everything. If the aesthetic is lacking then any gothic horror film is worthless. The aesthetic is certainly no problem in Ghost of Yotsuya. This is a visually dazzling film. Like any good gothic horror film it was shot entirely in the studio and like any good gothic horror film is has a deliberately and exaggeratedly artificial look. The film was shot in colour so this is not the world of shadows of black-and-white gothic horror. This is a misty world of sickly disturbing colours.

The basis of the story was an 1825 kabuki play although the origins of the story go back much further in time than that.

The various film adaptations differ slightly. In some versions Iemon is much more of an out-and-out villain.

The problem for Daei studio was that Kazuo Hasegawa was a very big star. They were reluctant to have him play a mere villain. In Daei’s version Iemon’s character is softened somewhat. This actually woks quite well. He becomes almost a Shakespearian tragic hero, an Othello manipulated by the true villains. Iemon is no paragon of virtue. He is a bit of a fool. His bitterness has warped his character just a little. He is vulnerable to Oume’s seductive charms. He never becomes evil but his actions are unfortunate and have tragic consequences. And he is aware of his follies and is haunted not just by a ghost but by his own guilt about his cruel behaviour and his foolishness.

We feel some sympathy for him, and we feel a great deal of sympathy for Oiwa. She is not perfect. She is jealous and perhaps not sufficiently understanding of her husband’s frustrations but she is a woman who is horribly wronged.

It takes a long time for the supernatural elements to kick in but since we know that this is a ghost story that becomes quite effective. We can see the tragedy unfolding and we know that the ending will be disastrous.

The Ghost of Yotsuya is classic ghost story and it’s a classic Japanese ghost story that deals with themes of honour and ambition as well as jealousy and emotional betrayal. Highly recommended.

The Radiance Blu-Ray looks gorgeous (and this is a visually stunning movie in a weird fantastic otherworldly way). There are some decent extras.

The Radiance Blu-Ray set also includes the excellent The Snow Woman (1968).

The Snow Woman (1968)

The Snow Woman is a 1968 Japanese gothic horror movie.

The first thing to note is that in Japanese (and Chinese) folklore the supernatural is treated in a way quite different from western folklore. Ghosts are not necessarily malevolent. And ghosts are corporeal. They can have sex. They can fall in love. Getting involved with ghosts can be dangerous, but not always. The boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds is not clear-cut. There are supernatural entities that are vaguely similar to the old western idea of the land of faerie - these entities are not evil as such but they’re dangerous because although they can look human their motivations are entirely alien. Witches are not quite the same as westerns ideas of witches.

And of course there’s no Satan as such, and not quite the same obsession with evil. There’s obviously no trace of the Christian concept of sin. Evil exists, but it’s viewed in a slightly different way.

The supernatural world can be tricky to deal with. It has to be approached with caution.

The setting is presumably some time during the Tokugawa Shogunate. It is certainly some time in the past. The Snow Woman begins with two men caught in a snowstorm in a forest. Shigetomo is a master sculptor. Yosaku (Akira Ishihama) is his pupil. Yosaku lives with Shigetomo and his wife. They are more or less his adoptive parents.

The two men are looking for a particular tree, a very special tree. From this tree Shigetomo will sculpt a statue of a goddess for a temple.

They encounter the Snow Woman. She is a supernatural creature although it might be an oversimplification to describe her as a witch. Yosaku survives the encounter. The Snow Woman thinks he’s so handsome that she cannot bear to harm him.

Shortly afterwards a very pretty young woman turns up at Shigetomo’s house. Her name is Yuki. It’s quickly obvious that Yosaku and Yuki are falling in love.

They get married and have a son.

On their wedding night Yosaku notices one odd thing about her. She is very cold. Not cold emotionally or sexually. She is a very loving wife. It’s just that her skin is strangely cold.

Of course we, the audience, know Yuki’s secret. She is, in some sense at least, the Snow Woman. She is not human. Or perhaps she is both a supernatural being and a human woman. During that encounter in the snowstorm she fell hopelessly in love with Yosaku. But she made a bargain with him, and part of the bargain was that he would remember nothing about that night.

Yosaku has been given the commission for that goddess statue that Shigetomo was supposed to carve. The commission has also been given to a rival sculptor. This is due to the machinations of the wicked Lord Jito. The sight of Yuki has awakened Lord Jito’s lusts. He will stop at nothing in order to have her. To achieve this he intends to destroy Yosaku.

Yuki must find a way to save herself and also her husband and herself.

The Snow Woman is a yōkai. These supernatural creatures can be malevolent, they can be benevolent or they can be neutral. Sometimes they’re merely mischievous. Sometimes they’re deadly. The Snow Woman in this movie is also somewhat vampiric.

The Snow Woman in the film does not just take on the physical form of a woman. She develops a woman’s emotions. We assume that in some way this is due to the power of love.

By 1968 filmmakers in Japan (and indeed in all countries) had developed astonishing skills in cinematography, lighting, makeup and practical effects. Skills which are now mostly lost. To do a remake of this movie today you would have to use CGI and it simply would not look as good.

Everything looks unreal, otherworldly and mysterious which is of course exactly right.

The Japanese were particularly good with makeup effects and the makeup work here is superb - it conveys an other-worldly feel without being in the least crude.

This movie was based one of Lafcadio Hearn’s retellings of Japanese ghost stories. If you haven’t read Lafcadio Hearn do so immediately. You will thank me. Start with Kwaidan.

This is a horror story, of sorts, although quite different from western horror films. Don’t expect non-stop thrills and gore. This is also a supernatural love story. Very highly recommended.

This film is included in the Radiance Film Japanese gothic horror Blu-Ray set. The transfer is immaculate.

Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death (1978)

Kim Ki-young’s Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death (also known as Killer Butterfly and several other titles) is a 1978 Korean horror movie. Although whether it’s really a horror movie can be debated. It’s certainly an exercise in weirdness.

At a picnic a young woman offers a young man named Young-gul an orange juice. She then tells him the orange juice was poisoned and that they will both die. Young-gul survives.

He then tries to kill himself. He is obsessed with death.

A strange old man turns up in Young-gul’s seedy apartment and tries to sell Young-gul a book on the will. The old guy claims that he cannot die. When it’s put to the test it appears that the old guy might be right, in a way.

Young-gul gets a job with an archaeologist who collects skulls. He is trying to prove that Korans are descended from Genghis Khan’s Mongols. Young-gul finds a 2,000-year-old skeleton for him.

This is when Young-gul encounters the ghost. In Chinese and Japanese folklore ghosts are corporeal. They can even have sex. They can also fall in love. On the evidence of this movie that is true of Korean folklore as well. The ghost is a very attractive young woman. She wants to have sex with Young-gul. She wants his love. She also wants to eat his liver. Young-gul doesn’t know much about women. He wonders if all girls are like this.

Later Young-gul gets mixed up with the archaeologist’s daughter. She is obsessed with death as well. She is a virgin. The archaeologist offers to pay Young-gul to pop her cherry.

There’s also a cop investigating the headless corpse mystery. And strange masked guys stealing corpses.

There’s still more weirdness to come. And butterflies are important.

I have to confess that this is my first Korean movie and I also know nothing of Korean culture so I may be missing some cultural nuances in this movie. It’s not always easy to understand the humour of other cultures. It’s possible that quite a few scenes in this movie were being played for laughs. Or the movie might just be very crazy. It is very crazy, but maybe it’s supposed to be crazy in a funny way.

There are plenty of horror movie elements here but this does not feel like a horror movie. It feels like an art-house movie or an experimental film.

It’s a depressing movie obsessed with death. Maybe it’s supposed to be about the triumph of death over life, or the triumph of life over death.

I like weird movies but I did not find watching this movie to be an enjoyable experience.

It is however undeniably very very strange and morbidly fascinating. They don’t make movies like this any more. In fact sane people never did make movies like this.

This was a very low-budget movie. The special effects are laughably bad. I don’t mind bad special effects if they’re done in a fun way but in this case they’re just very very bad. It includes the worst skeletal transformation scene I have ever seen in a movie.

I have no idea what the director was trying to achieve in terms of tone. Despite all the weird goings-on it doesn’t really achieve an effectively creepy atmosphere but maybe Kim Ki-young was just aiming for morbid artiness.

It’s a movie that should tick all my boxes (I generally like arty horror) but somehow it just never grabs my interest. I don’t think I could honestly recommend it but it might just be a case of a movie that doesn’t work for me but might work for others so I’m hesitant to advise people to avoid it. It sure is weird.

Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death is available on Blu-Ray from Mondo Macabro.

The Living Skeleton (1968)

In the late 60s Japan’s Shochiku studio made a short-lived and tentative attempt to break into the booming market for science fiction, horror and monster movies. Criterion’s Eclipse Series 37 DVD boxed set When Horror Came to Shochiku includes four of the movies made at Shochiku at that time. When Horror Came to Shochiku is a cool name for a boxed set but a bit misleading since these movies are not quite what one would think as typical late 60s horror films.

The Living Skeleton (Kyûketsu dokuro-sen), made in 1968, is one of these four movies.

You have to bear in mind that this is not a low-budget independent film. It was made by a major studio, with the resources of a major studio. It was made by people who had learnt their craft in a studio system. They were professionals. They knew how to make movies. It has a certain amount of major studio polish.

The Living Skeleton opens in fairly spectacular style. A freighter, the Dragon King, has been captured by pirates. The setting is contemporary - it’s worth remembering that piracy still goes on today. These pirates are particularly ruthless and the crew and the handful of passengers are massacred.

Three years later we meet a young woman named Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka). She lives in a small Japanese costal town. She is an orphan and along with her identical twin sister Yoriko was more or less raised by the village priest. He’s a Catholic priest - Japan has a large Catholic community.

Saeko is a nice girl but she has been troubled since her twin sister disappeared. The sister is assumed to have been drowned when the freighter on which she was travelling went down in a typhoon. Of course the audience knows that the twin sister was killed by those pirates.

Saeko has a boyfriend, Mochizuki (Yasunori Irikawa). He’s a decent guy and they plan to get married.

They go scuba diving and see something unexpected - skeletons.

Later they see a ship. Not on the bottom of the sea, but afloat. Maybe it’s the ship on which Yoriko met her fate. Saeko wants to reach the ship, she does so, and she is disturbed by what she finds.

Then things get spooky for a bunch of people all of whom have something to hide. What they have to hide is connected with the events on board the Dragon King.

Viewers will have their suspicions about what is going on but it may not be so simple.

This is one of those movies that plays around with genre. You think you know what kind of movie it is and then you start to think it’s not that sort of movie at all. And then you find yourself thinking it could belong to any one of several genres. Is anything supernatural going on? Certainly strange creepy things happen. We’re kept guessing. Maybe we’ll get a definite answer at the end. You’ll have to watch the movie yourself to find out.

There are some nicely crazy plot twists.

There’s a touch of ambiguity to at least one major character. We might understand a character’s motivations without entirely approving of the actions to which those motivations lead.

We have to talk about the special effects. There are some very obvious miniatures shots. I don’t mind that. In fact in a movie such as this where you’re not always entirely certainly that everything you see is real or truthful obvious special effects can be an asset. There are some really ambitious effects shots and they’re often quite effective and disturbing.

This film was shot in the ’scope aspect ratio in black-and-white, a combination I always find rather appealing. The cinematography is suitably moody.

This movie has a lot of the qualities you expect in a horror exploitation movie combined with some genuinely unsettling atmosphere. It has some outlandish moments and a few crazy moments.

Overall The Living Skeleton is entertaining with enough weird touches to make it a cut above average. Highly recommended.

The DVD transfer is very good. So far I’ve watched three of the movies in the boxed set. The X from Outer Space (1967) is goofy fun while Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968) is delightfully demented.

The Haunting (1963)

The Haunting, released in 1963, has the reputation of being one of the best ghost movies ever made. There was a remake in 1999 which I haven’t seen and don’t intend to see. It is the original 1963 version with which we are concerned here.

This was from the start a personal project for Robert Wise. He had read Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House and knew he just had to make it into a movie. The movie retains the novel’s New England setting but was shot in Britain. MGM’s British branch offered Wise the budget he needed.

Anthropologist Dr John Markway (Richard Johnson) is obsessed by the idea of scientifically proving the existence of the supernatural. For this he needs a haunted house. The notorious Hill House is ideal - it has a particularly sinister reputation. He will also need witnesses. He needs people who have had some previous encounter with the supernatural. Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris) and Theodora (Claire Bloom) seem suitable. The two women along with Dr Markway and Luke Sannerson (Russ Tamblyn), the nephew of the house’s current owner, will spend several days at Hill House.

Spooky things start to happen early on. Lots of disturbing noises. Cold spots. All clear signs (to Markway) of ghostly presences.

The story of the movie is the gradual disintegration of Eleanor. She provides voiceover narration so this is very much her story. Eleanor is pretty crazy to begin with. She has wasted her youth caring for her invalid mother. She is guilt-ridden over her mother’s death. She feels she doesn’t belong anywhere. It’s also a fair assumption that she is both sexually and emotionally frustrated. She is timid and mousy. We can be quite certain that she is a virgin.

We can be quite certain that Theodora is no virgin. She’s Eleanor’s polar opposite - sophisticated, worldly, confident, comfortable with being a woman, outgoing and sexy.

There is immediate tension between these two women.

Apart from the noises nothing obviously supernatural happens. The four people in the house cannot be certain at first that there is anything inexplicable going on. Odd noises in old houses are not unusual. Dr Markway believes the sounds are evidence of the supernatural, but that’s what he wants to believe. Eleanor becomes convinced that the house wants her in some way. She becomes increasingly distraught and unstable.

The spiral staircase scene is terrifying but again there’s no certainty that anything supernatural is occurring. It’s a decaying old house and such houses are full of perfectly natural dangers. Of course eventually someone is going to crack and try to escape, but will the house let anyone leave?

Wise, cinematographer Davis Boulton and and production designer Elliot Scott create the right gothic atmosphere without resorting to the obvious. There are no cobwebs. No crypts. No mysteriously empty coffins. No mysterious figures glimpsed on the battlements. Wise and Boulton do employ plenty of camera tricks. Exterior shots of the house were shot using infra-red film. Wide-angle lenses were used. Things look distorted, but in a fairly subtle way which adds to the creepiness. Eleanor thinks the house is watching her and that’s the impression the audience gets as well.

There are so many ways this movie can be interpreted. We do eventually have fairly clear signs that something outside the range of the normal laws of nature is occurring but what it is remains obscure, and Wise wants it to be obscure. These people are isolated and highly suggestible.

Does the evil come from the man who built the house ninety years earlier, wicked old Hugh Crain? Does it come from his daughter Abigail, or from the nurse who allowed Hugh Crain’s wife to die? Does it come from some demonic entity? Does the evil come from the house itself? Or does it come from Eleanor? Is there in fact anything supernatural going on or is it just Eleanor’s madness? You will have to decide for yourself. Wise has no intention of spoon-feeding the viewer with a glib explanation. What I do like is that neither a supernatural nor a non-supernatural explanation can simply be dismissed out of hand.

The lesbian sub-text between Theo and Eleanor feels a bit tacked on but it does serve the purpose of increasing Eleanor’s feelings of isolation. Her normal instinct would be to turn to another woman for emotional support but she does not want to turn to Theo. And it certainly adds extra tension.

This is also a movie about a woman falling apart, and Eleanor has been falling apart for a very long time. She sees Hill House not so much as a threat but more as her last chance to find herself.

This would make a great double bill with Kubrick’s The Shining - there are some striking similarities in the way these two films approach the haunted house movie.

The Haunting is an object lesson in how to do horror that is very subtle indeed, and very frightening indeed. Highly recommended.

The Vampire Doll (1970)

The Vampire Doll is a 1970 Japanese horror movie, the first in what became known as the Bloodthirsty Trilogy.

Kazuhiko Sagawa (Atsuo Nakamura) has been overseas for six months. As the movie opens he is on his way to see his fiancée Yûko Nonomura (Yukiko Kobayashi). He will be staying at the home of the Nonomura family in the country for a few days. He arrives only to be told by her mother that Yûko was killed in a car accident two weeks earlier. He is of course devastated. That night he thinks he sees Yûko but of course it must have been a dream.

The focus of the film now switches to Sagawa’s sister Keiko (Kayo Matsuo). She’s worried that she hasn’t heard from her brother. Keiko and her boyfriend Hiroshi (Akira Nakao) decide to drive out to the Nonomura home to make sure that Sagawa is OK.

What they find there makes them just a little uneasy. Yûko’s mother seems a bit evasive. Keiko finds a doll that Sagawa has bought for Yûko as a present. The doll has been smashed, which seems odd. Keiko and Hiroshi are not exactly alarmed but they’re not entirely satisfied, and they’re worried that they have found no trace whatsoever of Keiko’s brother.

And they hear some slightly disturbing stories about the Nonomura family.

Something very bad happened in the past and it may be the key to what is happening now.

Speaking to Yûko’s doctor increases their unease.

What does alarm them is seeing Yûko.

The story develops in much the way you would expect a gothic horror tale to develop, with a few significant differences.

Keiko and Hiroshi start to suspect that something bad has happened to Sagawa, and that they might be in danger as well.

There’s also the Nonomura family servant, Genzo. He has a habit of attacking people and gives the impression that he sees himself as defending the Nonomura family.

This is a Japanese horror film with an unusually strong western influence. Vampires are part of the western gothic horror tradition. Vampires as such are not really a feature of Japanese folklore. The Japanese (and Chinese) concept of the supernatural is much more focused on ghosts but Japanese ghosts are not quite like western ghosts. They’re corporeal rather than being disembodied spirits.

There is a vampire in this story but in many ways this vampire is more like a ghost than a western vampire.

A lot of the familiar elements of the vampire myth are missing in this movie. There are no crucifixes or holy water and no mention of garlic. There are no mentions of stakes through the heart. The vampire does not sleep in a coffin.

Crucially this vampire does kill but does not drink blood. Blood is not the motivation for the killings. Revenge is the motivation. And revenge is the motivation you would expect of a ghost.

My impression is that this is essentially a ghost story with the apparent western influences being entirely superficial. Vampires were a big thing in western pop culture and the Japanese have always been very aware of trends in western pop culture. The Japanese have always been willing to absorb western pop culture influences but somehow Japanese pop culture remains Japanese pop culture. In this movie the vampire elements are like a seasoning but the main dish is a Japanese ghost story.

Director Michio Yamamoto provides some gothic trappings but doesn’t overdo them. He is not trying to make this movie look like a Hammer horror film. It has a certain Japanese aesthetic austerity.

The vampire makeup is also not overdone but it’s effectively creepy. There’s one brief gore scene but overall this is a movie that relies on creepy atmosphere rather than gushing blood.

The Vampire Doll manages to be a rather interesting slightly unusual vampire movie and on the whole it works. Highly recommended.

The Arrow release offers a nice transfer and there’s an appreciation by Kim Newman which is, as you would expect, informative and entertaining.