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Classic Obake Movies (Warning: some spolers)
6 years ago
The opinions expressed on this page are my own and do not reflect those of Fur Affinity or of any other.
"Si quid per iocum dixi, nolito in serium convertere."
("If I have said anything in jest, do not turn it into a serious thing.") -Plautus
"Si quid per iocum dixi, nolito in serium convertere."
("If I have said anything in jest, do not turn it into a serious thing.") -Plautus
And when I said "Classic", I mean C L A S S I C! All the movies listed here were made before 1980, and are one's that I've seen on Turner Classic Movies, which play them from time to time. You're probably going to recommend me some, most likely more recent ones (like Jun On [The Grudge-seen it], or Ringu [The Ring]), but don't bother, I probably won't be seeing them anyway.
Anyway, here's my list and my impressions:
Onibaba ["Demon Hag"] (1964) & Kuroneko ["Black Cat(s)"] (1968)
Dir: Kaneko Shindo
Both these movies are based on well known Japanese ghost stories, and both share a common theme of how the horrors of war end up leading to horrors of the karmatic kind. In Onibaba, war causes desperation, and desperate people do desperate, (and sometimes despicable) things in order to survive, it's a little hard to find sympathy for the characters here, but there's a lot of pity to go around.
In Kuroneko, a samurai has a moral quandry when the demons he's been ordered to slay turn out to be the vengeful spirits of his mother & wife, who have taken the form of "obake neko" (cat demons). (Oh, if you're looking for cute cat-girls, forget it. A fuzzy claw here, maybe a glimpse of an ear there, but that's it.)
Yotsuya Kaidan ["The Yotsuya Ghost Story"] (1959)
Dir: Nobuo Nakagawa
If you've seen the anime series "Ayakashi: Samurai Ghost Stories" then you know this one. It's considered to be the most famous (and infamous) story of superatural revenge in Japan and has inspired many artists for over 200 years (including this one), and is [supposedly] inspired by an actual event.
The Best:
Kwaidan (1964)
Dir: Masaki Kobayashi
This one is the best one ever made. It even got an Academy Award nomination for best Foreign Language Film. This is an anthology movie based on the stories of the 19th Cent. author Lafcadio Hearn, and is made up of 4 tales:
"The Black Hair":
A samurai leaves his poor wife for a better (but joyless) life, and ends up REGRETING it big time! Most of this story is slow and boring, but the climax is pretty scary due to it's minimmalist useage of sound effects and "Dead Silence."
"Yuki Onna (The Snow Woman)":
Definately not "Frozen." A vampiric winter apparition falls in love with a poor young woodcutter. Very pretty use of set design and art direction. (Hint: "see" for yourself.)
"Hoichi the Earless":
This is the longest story in the movie and is in two acts. The first act is the dramatic conclusion of the "Heike Monogatari" (Tale of the Heike Clan) in which in 1185, the Heike (or Taira) clan met their defeat at the hands of their rivals the Genji (Minamoto) clan, at Dan-no-ura, in the Shimonoseki Straits, the battle that ultimately lead to the establishment of the Shogunate rule of Japan for the next 700 years. And establishing this locale as "haunted" to this very day.
The second act takes place several centuries later, in which a blind minstrel is summoned by the ghosts of the fallen Heike clan in order to perform the aforementioned ballad, of which he is really good at.
If you thought the cinematography of the last one was beautiful, this story is mindblowing.
"In a Cup of Tea":
How do you end a movie with such a epic climax as the last one? Pehaps with a anti-climatic finish perhaps? Anyway, this one is based on an "unfinished" tale that begs the question on what would happen if you "swallow a soul"....?
Well, that one was the best, now here's the Scariest:
Jigoku (1960):
Dir. Nobuo Nakagawa
"Jigoku" means "Hell" in Japanese, and this movie is Japan's answer to Dante's "Inferno." When I first saw this movie listed in the TV guide, I thought, "Hmm, 1960, how scary can this movie be?" I WAS SOOOOO VERY WRONG!!! This movie knocked down "Poltergiest" from my top spot on the Scariest Movie I Have Ever Seen list, which it held for, like 30 years!
The first half of the movie is pretty boring, basically a crime drama about two college guys who [acidentally] run over a Yakuza gangster, and it all goes downhill from there, and when I say down, I mean all the way down. Then the movie goes to Hell, litterally! And here's where it gets super gory as all the characters suffer one grisly torment after another. (Yes, there is such a thing a Buddhist Hell, and it's just as bad as the Chistian one, with some small differences.) As you all know, I don't like gory movies, and I managed to last about 3/4 through before I had a major anxiety attack, and threw up, and was traumatized for about a month afterwards. This is not gore for the sake of titilation, this is gore with CONTEXT and MEANING! I didn't bother to see how it ended.
(Note: last year, I did build up the courage to see the last 5 minutes of the film, just to see how it ends. Fortunately, by that point, the worst was over.)
Then I found out that this movie is a milestore in Japanese Horror, specifically, it's the first to truly use graphic gore to such extent. Should've read the reviews first, and for once, my knowlege of Japanese folklore was more of vulnerabily than an insulation.
...And now the weirdest:
House (1977):
Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi
What can I say about this cult classic except "What the #$%^! were these guys smoking!?!"
The studio wanted a "Jaws" rip-off, what they got instead was a haunted house horror-comedy. Not surprisingly, it bombed on its initial release, but like many bad movies, it developed a popularity over the years. There's a lot I can say about it, but I won't deprive you of the joyous tourture of trying to figure this one out. Just have your bong ready if you have one.
A word of warning though: If you suffer from light-sensitive magrines or epilepsy, don't see this movie. It has stroboscopic visual effects at the end.
Honorable mentions:
Goke: The Body Snatcher from Hell (1968):
A sci-fi horror flick which seems like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" in Japanese. Survivors of a plane crash must deal with an alien that turns people into vampires...Only for the final two survivors to discover that they're not on some desert island as thought, but on the Japanese mainland, and the alien invasion is already over. Earth lost!
The Living Skelleton (1968):
Gee, 1968 must've been a really popular year for obake movies. This one is more of your typical low-budget B-movie fare. 'Nuff said.
And that's my Halloween movie recomendations. All these films appear on Turner Classic Movies on occasion, and are a part of TCM's Critireon Collection.
Anyway, here's my list and my impressions:
Onibaba ["Demon Hag"] (1964) & Kuroneko ["Black Cat(s)"] (1968)
Dir: Kaneko Shindo
Both these movies are based on well known Japanese ghost stories, and both share a common theme of how the horrors of war end up leading to horrors of the karmatic kind. In Onibaba, war causes desperation, and desperate people do desperate, (and sometimes despicable) things in order to survive, it's a little hard to find sympathy for the characters here, but there's a lot of pity to go around.
In Kuroneko, a samurai has a moral quandry when the demons he's been ordered to slay turn out to be the vengeful spirits of his mother & wife, who have taken the form of "obake neko" (cat demons). (Oh, if you're looking for cute cat-girls, forget it. A fuzzy claw here, maybe a glimpse of an ear there, but that's it.)
Yotsuya Kaidan ["The Yotsuya Ghost Story"] (1959)
Dir: Nobuo Nakagawa
If you've seen the anime series "Ayakashi: Samurai Ghost Stories" then you know this one. It's considered to be the most famous (and infamous) story of superatural revenge in Japan and has inspired many artists for over 200 years (including this one), and is [supposedly] inspired by an actual event.
The Best:
Kwaidan (1964)
Dir: Masaki Kobayashi
This one is the best one ever made. It even got an Academy Award nomination for best Foreign Language Film. This is an anthology movie based on the stories of the 19th Cent. author Lafcadio Hearn, and is made up of 4 tales:
"The Black Hair":
A samurai leaves his poor wife for a better (but joyless) life, and ends up REGRETING it big time! Most of this story is slow and boring, but the climax is pretty scary due to it's minimmalist useage of sound effects and "Dead Silence."
"Yuki Onna (The Snow Woman)":
Definately not "Frozen." A vampiric winter apparition falls in love with a poor young woodcutter. Very pretty use of set design and art direction. (Hint: "see" for yourself.)
"Hoichi the Earless":
This is the longest story in the movie and is in two acts. The first act is the dramatic conclusion of the "Heike Monogatari" (Tale of the Heike Clan) in which in 1185, the Heike (or Taira) clan met their defeat at the hands of their rivals the Genji (Minamoto) clan, at Dan-no-ura, in the Shimonoseki Straits, the battle that ultimately lead to the establishment of the Shogunate rule of Japan for the next 700 years. And establishing this locale as "haunted" to this very day.
The second act takes place several centuries later, in which a blind minstrel is summoned by the ghosts of the fallen Heike clan in order to perform the aforementioned ballad, of which he is really good at.
If you thought the cinematography of the last one was beautiful, this story is mindblowing.
"In a Cup of Tea":
How do you end a movie with such a epic climax as the last one? Pehaps with a anti-climatic finish perhaps? Anyway, this one is based on an "unfinished" tale that begs the question on what would happen if you "swallow a soul"....?
Well, that one was the best, now here's the Scariest:
Jigoku (1960):
Dir. Nobuo Nakagawa
"Jigoku" means "Hell" in Japanese, and this movie is Japan's answer to Dante's "Inferno." When I first saw this movie listed in the TV guide, I thought, "Hmm, 1960, how scary can this movie be?" I WAS SOOOOO VERY WRONG!!! This movie knocked down "Poltergiest" from my top spot on the Scariest Movie I Have Ever Seen list, which it held for, like 30 years!
The first half of the movie is pretty boring, basically a crime drama about two college guys who [acidentally] run over a Yakuza gangster, and it all goes downhill from there, and when I say down, I mean all the way down. Then the movie goes to Hell, litterally! And here's where it gets super gory as all the characters suffer one grisly torment after another. (Yes, there is such a thing a Buddhist Hell, and it's just as bad as the Chistian one, with some small differences.) As you all know, I don't like gory movies, and I managed to last about 3/4 through before I had a major anxiety attack, and threw up, and was traumatized for about a month afterwards. This is not gore for the sake of titilation, this is gore with CONTEXT and MEANING! I didn't bother to see how it ended.
(Note: last year, I did build up the courage to see the last 5 minutes of the film, just to see how it ends. Fortunately, by that point, the worst was over.)
Then I found out that this movie is a milestore in Japanese Horror, specifically, it's the first to truly use graphic gore to such extent. Should've read the reviews first, and for once, my knowlege of Japanese folklore was more of vulnerabily than an insulation.
...And now the weirdest:
House (1977):
Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi
What can I say about this cult classic except "What the #$%^! were these guys smoking!?!"
The studio wanted a "Jaws" rip-off, what they got instead was a haunted house horror-comedy. Not surprisingly, it bombed on its initial release, but like many bad movies, it developed a popularity over the years. There's a lot I can say about it, but I won't deprive you of the joyous tourture of trying to figure this one out. Just have your bong ready if you have one.
A word of warning though: If you suffer from light-sensitive magrines or epilepsy, don't see this movie. It has stroboscopic visual effects at the end.
Honorable mentions:
Goke: The Body Snatcher from Hell (1968):
A sci-fi horror flick which seems like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" in Japanese. Survivors of a plane crash must deal with an alien that turns people into vampires...Only for the final two survivors to discover that they're not on some desert island as thought, but on the Japanese mainland, and the alien invasion is already over. Earth lost!
The Living Skelleton (1968):
Gee, 1968 must've been a really popular year for obake movies. This one is more of your typical low-budget B-movie fare. 'Nuff said.
And that's my Halloween movie recomendations. All these films appear on Turner Classic Movies on occasion, and are a part of TCM's Critireon Collection.
...And then he made it naughty, so you can't show it to your kids. (There's full body nudity in it.)
Doesn't make it any less f-ed up though. Still trying to figure out the deal with the banannas.