Sunday, October 1, 2023

70's Asian Horror Part Eight

DEMONS
(1971)
Dir - Toshio Matsumoto
Overall: GOOD

Ultra-moody and bleak, Toshio Matsumoto's second theatrically released full-length Demons, (Shura), is a psychological samurai film that utilizes an artful, stripped down presentation to explore a world of amoral nihilism.  Masterfully shot in expressionistic black and white by cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki, Matsumoto's intimate direction lets the melodramatic tragedy play out in an ethereal manner and many of the shots are staged in a way befitting to kabuki theater.  There is virtually no musical score and the tormented bouts of madness are edited interchangeably within the narrative so that the viewer experiences the traumatic, hallucinogenic strain of events just as its central, doomed, exiled, and betrayed ronin Katsuo Nakamura does.  Since most of the film maintains a carefully paced aura of dread, the shocking violence cuts through when it does emerge and the ending is particularly unforgiving, slamming home a revelation where nobody wins in a world with greed, obsession, and deceit running rampant.  Far from a feel-good movie and miles away from providing popcorn-munching excitement, it is a powerful, starkly stylistic work for the later period of the Japanese New Wave.

A HAUNTED TURKISH BATHHOUSE
(1975)
Dir - Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Overall: GOOD

Tonally bonkers, miserable for large sections, and merely teasing the viewer with demonic cat lady mayhem until the last fifteen minutes, all of this makes A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse, (Bakeneko Toruko furo, Kaibyô toruko buro, Mysterious Cat in a Turkish Bath, Phantom Cat Turkish Bath), a unique, erotic Pinku eiga/horror hybrid.  Set in 1958 when Tokyo's Red Light District is under bureaucratic attack, a sex worker establishment switches gears in name only to that of a bathhouse, which is about the only plot point with any semblance of reality attached to it.  From there, three different women end up getting battered, abused, manipulated, raped, or all of the above by arguably the worst human being in any piece of fiction, played effectively by villainous character actor Hideo Murota.  Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi maintains a fantastical visual aesthetic that predates Dario Argento's Suspiria by two years, bathing much of the movie in unnatural, eerie lighting that creates a vivid nightmare vibe that only enhances such deplorable, otherworldly plot points.  Largely unpleasant and bordering on torture porn throughout its running time, the brutal sexual violence aimed at the women is oddly juxtaposed by wacky sex scenes set to comical music where dorks make goofy faces as naked and soaped-up bodies rub their nether-regions.  When Murota and his sadistic cohort Tomoko Mayama finally get their comeuppance, the film goes off the rails in a delightful manner, but there is enough sleazy, oddball style before that to keep one engaged.

HELL
(1979)
Dir - Tatsumi Kumashiro
Overall: MEH

Though it bares zero plot similarities to Nobuo Nakagawa's 1960 masterpiece of the same name, filmmaker Tatsumi Kumashiro's version of Hell, (Jigoku, The Inferno), is a kindred spirit that still takes the cinematic opportunity to portray the underworld in all of its bizarre, nightmarish glory.  Besides two moments that merely tease such a thing early on, unfortunately the film only indulges in the abyss during the final twenty-odd minutes which are odd indeed.  Gigantic devils with unkempt manes of hair, a tree that weighs your geisha to determine how heavy your sins are, fire pits, people turned into flesh-eating bugs, a human meat grinder, and mountain region sets with artificially swirling green skies make up the surreal visuals once Mieko Harada's doomed protagonist finally arrives there.  The movie could easily afford to trim about a half-hour of the meandering, miserable melodrama that comes before that though, involving icky incestual love affairs and family grudges that linger on for decades.  Every character that we meet can either never get a break and is relentlessly judged or is just a miserable, vindictive person.  Why everybody cannot keep their genitals away from their half-siblings is never made compelling and it becomes a frustrating waiting game with no one to root for in the process.  Such a dour approach was likely intended, but it is more despondent than thought-provoking.

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