1950s Nobuo Nakagawa Horror Part Two

THE CEILING AT UTSUNOMIYA

(1956)

Overall: MEH

 

This pedestrian, period-set shogun drama from director Nobuo Nakagawa predated his better and more renowned horror works, and in fact there is only a single scene here that comes nearly an hour and ten minutes in which can qualify it as anything in the "horror" camp, by a stretch mind you.  The Ceiling at Utsunomiya, (Kaii Utsunomiya tsuritenjô, Ghost of Hanging in Utusunomiya), is typical of other chambara films from the era, concerning rival factions, shady political deals, shoguns and hired assassins caught up in deadly ploys, troubled romances, and abused peasants.  The script is convoluted to a fault, bouncing between its various characters that are difficult to keep up with and whose conflicts become tiresome, only with a few stagey sword fighting scenes thrown in between your typical wailing melodrama.  When the lone supernatural sequence arrives, it seems noticeably out of place considering that there is no macabre atmosphere or build up at any point beforehand.  When the ceiling of the title finally collapses on its intended victims, (long story), tragedy is mostly subverted as far as our main players are concerned, so even though it is anticlimactic, at least some of the good guys make it out OK.

 

VAMPIRE MOTH

(1956)

Overall: MEH

 

Similar both in its script and presentation to Toho's earlier Ghost Man, Vampire Moth, (Kyûketsu-ga), is another crime film where beautiful models are targeted and bad guys wear sunglasses to cover up their faces.  There are also no supernatural elements whatsoever, despite what the misleading title suggests.  In fact, the word "vampire" especially does not belong, as the mysterious killer with a horrifying fanged mask is consistently refereed to as a wolf man, with even a flashback sequence alluding to the whole getting bit under a full moon dealie.  No such lycanthropian antics are present either though as the story revolves around detectives trying to catch and discover the identity of a wacky killer and the characters who are caught up in his scheme.  There are some precursor elements to Italian giallos which would start to dominate the thriller spectrum the following two decades, (particularly with Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace which has one or two direct similarities here), but director Nobuo Nakagawa also utilizes a more restrained tone that hearkens back to early sound films.  There is little to no dramatic music,  and the cinematography is heavily inspired by German Expressionism.  Still, the story involving inner-fashion designer turmoil is hardly interesting and highly confusing, with the whole thing quickly becoming, (and remaining), a chore to sit through.

 

THE LADY VAMPIRE

(1959)

Overall: MEH

An unfortunately forgettable undead movie coming from director Nobuo Nakagawa, The Lady Vampire, (Onna kyûketsuki), is adapted from a novel by Soto Tachibana that plays like a contemporary-set Japanese Dracula in some respects, except a sluggishly uneventful one.  Here, Shigeru Amachi's lead blood-sucker has an adverse reaction to moonlight which does not burn him in a manner that the sun usually would, (just a simple pair of sunglasses renders him fully able to commute in the daytime), but instead aggravates his vampire symptoms tenfold in the way that such lunar rays affect werewolves.  Otherwise, he travels a long distance to reclaim a woman that he turned to the dark side twenty-years ago who has a noble blood preference.  He also has a dwarf assistant, but otherwise there are no defying attributes to either his character or his ordeal.  The plot runs through various monotonous scenes that become easier and easier to check out of, and the whole thing loses momentum before the first act is even finished.  Nakagawa still has an eye for fetching imagery here or there, plus Amachi's makeup effects are creepy in earlier scenes, becoming silly once he is rendered old and decrepit in the finale.