The Curse of the Ghost (1969)

directed by Kazuo Mori

Japan

94 minutes

3 stars out of 5

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As evidenced by other adaptations I've reviewed on here, I'm a HUGE Yotsuya Kaidan fan. This particular version eluded me for a long time, and it was one that I was very interested in due to Akiji Kobayashi (best known either from Ultraman or Kamen Rider, depending on if you like Ultraman or Kamen Rider more) playing Naosuke. I have to say I'm not the biggest fan of the English title because it takes the emphasis off of whose ghost we're talking about here: the original translates to Ghost Story of Yotsuya: Oiwa's Ghost.

In the role of Iemon we have Kei Sato, who should have been fairly perfect for it considering his track record of playing various yakuza baddies and scumbag samurai - he's just got one of those good villain faces - but I think he plays it almost too casually. There is something interesting in an Iemon who does his evil deeds with a kind of matter-of-fact boredom, which is what Sato delivers here, but I just feel like his performance is a little too flat at times when it could have been more intense. Kazuko Inano plays Oiwa and does a very good job, her theatricality as Oiwa's ghost making up for the flatness of Sato's performance. Kobayashi is good as Naosuke, he's definitely got the voice to play a kind of shady, rascally type of guy, but again, aside from Oiwa, nobody feels like they have all that much going on here.

The best part of any Yotsuya Kaidan adaptation is the way things descend slowly down an irreversible path of violence and misery. It starts when Iemon and Naosuke commit near-simultaneous murders, and becomes locked in place when Iemon makes the decision to kill his wife so he can marry Oume. Everything after that - if the movie does what it should - is a guilt-ridden nightmare, the viewer dragged into Iemon's visions of Oiwa's phantom tormenting him. What I really enjoyed about the way Curse of the Ghost executes this aspect of the story is the score. It's not music per se, but a kind of unsettling, rhythmic pulsing noise that pervades much of the film. At times you can forget it's there, but when things start ramping up, it almost has the effect of making you feel like something is behind you. The composer for this score seems to have been Ichirō Saitō, who has a very high pedigree; he's credited with the music for such renowned films as Ugetsu, Sound of the Mountain, Floating Clouds, and Late Chrysanthemums. I think his work on Ugetsu is particularly relevant to what he does with Curse of the Ghost.

All in all I wouldn't say this was my favorite version of the story; it lacks the depth of character of Kinoshita's adaptation or the sheer sweaty terror of Nakagawa's, but it hits all the beats and it has a very convincing Oiwa. Even a Yotsuya Kaidan adaptation that just does the bare minimum is still a Yotsuya Kaidan adaptation. If I may steal a quote from Letterboxd user Rui Ozpinhead that sums up how I feel: "It's hard to completely mess up due to the quality of the source material."