Another of those "House ...." movies that usually sucked, but
this i found to be a quite entertaining Karma Ghost Story that looked
surprisingly slick, and this probably due to being shot at the Toei Studios
in Japan in a film co-produced by USA and Japan.
The ghosts seen by us but not by the family looked great, the family was
likeable, the crabs was fun and Susan "Straw Dogs"-"Fright"
George was nude a lot. So, what to complain about, i was entertained,
the film was slightly trashy but slick looking and great fun.
Yes, one of the late 70's early 80's so popular "House .... etc"
movies where a family moves into some scary old house situated on
the countryside, and these crappy films have being re-made the latest
years and most often with some annoying kid stinking the film up.
This Fletcher family wasn't annoying though, Ted (Edward Albert), Laura
(Susan George) and the daughter "There's an awful face
in my soup" Amy, were quite likeable, that is before the angry ghosts
started fucking with their minds.
The film starts with an intro from 1840's Kyoto, Japan,
where the samurai Shugoro (Toshiyuki Sasaki) kills his wife Otami (Mako
Hattori)
and her lover Masanori (Toshiya Maruyama) and then commits suicide by
Seppuku and this in the bloodiest scenes of the film.
Today: The Fletcher family arrives to Kyoto and is met by their friend
Alex (Doug McClure) who has found a beautiful old house (with
an antique straw roof) in the countryside outside of Kyoto for them to
live in. Ted is a photographer and journalist or writer something
there to do a job and he has brought his family with him.
They settle in happily but very soon, already the first night, the spookery
begins when Ted hear distant murmurs and rumblings in
japanese. The ghost are able to somewhat enter the bodies of Ted and Laura
and make them act strangely, so one thing is clear, that the
three ghosts have worked out their initial differences and now works as
a Team. The reason for this is revealed at the end.
My favourite scene was the attack of the killer crabs
that were mumbling in angry japanese voices. Delightfully strange.
The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1
with an english audio DD 2.0, region 2, no extras
|
