Living Skeleton (1968)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Troubled young woman Saeko (a fine and touching performance by the lovely Kikko Matsuoka) has a strong psychic bound with her twin sister who was murdered along with several other people on a ship by bloodthirsty pirates. A few years after said massacre the vengeful ghosts of the victims materialize to exact a harsh revenge on the folks who killed them. Director Hiroki Matsuno keeps the absorbing story moving along at a steady pace, maintains a solemn tone throughout, and adroitly crafts a spooky gloom-doom atmosphere. Moreover, the seaside town setting and a dark take-no-prisoners sensibility -- one of the guilty tries to elude detection by passing himself off as a priest! -- further enhance the overall eerie mood. Masayuki Kato's sharp black and white cinematography offers several striking visuals. Only the hokey looking skeletons detract a bit from this otherwise sturdy and satisfying supernatural shocker.

A gang of pirates commandeer a ship and kill everyone on board. Three years later in a seaside village, a Catholic priest (Masumi Okada) has offered shelter to Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka) as her twin sister, Yoriko (also Matsuoka) has disappeared with her new husband at sea.Professor Wheeler Winston Dixon referred to the Criterion Collection's eclipse set, calling the film "the most accomplished and sophisticated of the quartet in terms of its visual structure and narrative" and along with 'Genocide', "easily the most interesting entries".Indeed, the use of shadows and tints reminds me of some of Jacques Tourneur's best work, and accompanied by the music which seems quite atypical of Japanese film, this stands out as quite a one-of-a-kind film. Definitely a must-see, and it was wise of Criterion to single it out for wider inspection.

Some times it takes 35 or more years to find the source of a picture thats haunted you since childhood. My Mom got me this illustrated history of horror films back in the early 1970's an in it was a picture of a frightened girl on the deck of ship terrorized by an odd skeleton. Its an odd picture (http://www.trashpalace.com/images/LivingSkeletonDVDR2.jpg) that made me want to know what the film was that went with it. (actually the image is not in the film and is just a publicity photo-possibly the only one since until recently its the only image I've seen, and recently I've only seen screen captures).The problem seeing the film is that apparently its never been released here in the United States. I'm not sure why, though I'm guessing that the film's black and white cinematography was deemed a drawback for US release when most films were being released in color (this would have been released in the US 1969 at the earliest).I finally fund a copy of the film at the Wizard World convention in New York. It was sans subtitles but I could pretty much work out what was going on, and get creeped out by it.The plot has to do with a bunch of pirates who kill everyone on board a ship and steal a treasure. Sometime later a woman, a relative of one of the victims, and her boyfriend end up setting in motion a series of events that begin to bring justice to the pirates, who are now on dry land, and herald the return of the ghostly ship.This is a strange film that was eerily shot in black and white. The film balances light and shadow to fantastic effect. Much of the film seems to be an odd marriage of Japanese sensibilities and Western style images, with skeletons, bats, vampires, and a Christian church. The plot doesn't completely make sense as we are often in a world of dream logic. Images of the massacre haunt the people there as well as those caught in the supernatural web. Things are often not what they seem. The effect is not so much a straight forward film but a cinematic tone poem that gets under your skin.I'm explaining this badly but if you pop this in and turn off the lights I think you'll find that the film will give you a few shivers Now to find a copy with English subtitles...

Made a decade before Carpenter's "The Fog", this is clearly that film's inspiration, and what glorious pulp horror it is.A scar-faced pirate and his cronies gun down a dozen men and several stunningly beautiful women. One woman grips the trouser leg of her killer as she dies, triggering a series of events that will see watery vengeance visited on the miscreants.This has a mysterious fog surrounding a quiet coastal town, a haunted ship of the dead, a local priest who carries a terrible secret and a ghostly, beautiful woman whose appearances strike fear into the hearts of evil men.It is made with incredible affection for its subject matter and total sincerity. Not once does it wink at its audience or betray its genre origins. No, it is proud to be a pulp horror film.Some of the special effects are not exactly believable, but these are part of the key to the film's charm. There is some model work of a ship crossing the ocean shot through clouds that is both incredibly artificial and incredibly beautiful. The "living skeletons" themselves, though not expertly incorporated into the central narrative, are beautiful.Highly recommended for true lovers of fantastique films.