gavin6942 Two women are raped and killed by samurai soldiers. Soon they reappear as vengeful ghosts who seduce and brutally murder the passing samurai.Manohla Dargis describes the film as "a ghost story that's more eerie than unnerving, and often hauntingly lovely". Maitland McDonagh writes that it is "darkly seductive" and "sleek, hair-raisingly graceful, and ready to take its place alongside the other landmarks of Japanese horror history". I appreciate that the phrase is "take its place", implying it is not already there. Despite being released by no less an authority than the Criterion Collection, I don't think this is a very well-known Japanese horror film.What is really striking for me is the use of the eyebrows. A simple use of makeup, but it makes for a very creepy and offsetting feeling. The women become somehow other than human.

Mr_Ectoplasma "Kuroneko," or "Black Cat" begins with a mother and daughter in a remote Japanese forest being raped and murdered in their home by a group of samurai. Their home burns to the ground, and their black cat arrives on the scene, after which the women's spirits apparently become infused in those of the feline. Samurai in the area begin to go missing one by one, found at the site of the house with their throats torn open, prompting the leaders to send a samurai to investigate, but his relationship to the vampiric entities is far more complex than expected.A truly beautiful film in every aesthetic sense of the word, "Kuronkeo" is the kind of picture that sort of washes over the viewer in rolling waves, never quite spelling out a rigid plot but still maintaining the framework of one. Director Kaneto Shindô uses editing and cinematography to make suggestions to the audience, which are subtle but nonetheless clear, in order to communicate. This mode of storytelling is effective and at times ambiguous, but it doesn't take a genius to understand what is happening here.The most engaging aspect of "Kuroneko" is without a doubt the cinematography; Shindô makes ample use of the ink-black forest, where the ghostly daughter leads doomed samurai soldiers to her spectral house for a meal and a murder. Vengeance is the central theme of the film, and there is a feminist bent infused with the folkloric basis of the movie which gives it and additional point of interest. The visuals are dreamlike and at times surreal, with virtually the entire filming taking place at night. There are some surprisingly visceral scenes here, and as dreamy and psychological as it is, the scenes of violence are effectively shocking.Though some elements of the film may err on being dated (the women flying through the forest comes to mind), the special effects are overall very tasteful and still hold up fairly well today. Fans of classic ghost stories and other sorts of cerebral horror will no doubt appreciate the film, as it operates as both a visual piece of art as well as a bonafide old world horror story. 9/10.

Scarecrow-88 A host of depraved and food-deprived ronin pillage the food and rape a woman and her daughter-in-law, Yone(Nobuko Otowa)and Shige(Kiwako Taichi), setting their hut on fire as they lie unconscious..soon their bodies lie badly scorched, a black cat(..a recent pet found roaming their premises)licks from their bleeding wounds. During this opening sequence, director Kaneto Shindô effectively uses silence, crickets, creek water sloshing in the mouths of the heathen Samurai, and no dialogue. It's simply an atrocious act set amongst an uncivilized time where war is ravaging the land, but Shindô presents it quietly, two bodies lain in the middle of the rubble of what was once their homestead.Making a deal with an evil god from the netherworld, seeking revenge, Yone and Shige are allowed to return from the dead in human form from dusk till dawn, to rip apart the throats of Samurai, feeding from their blood, behavior and abilities akin to a feline, the black cat. It's simple at first, Shige uses her beauty to lure Samurai, now in fine garments(..still loathsome on the inside, which emerges after much Sake)to a fictitious home which exists only for the hours the ghosts roam, where they get them drunk and feed from their blood. Soon the repeated attacks, where fallen men lay dead with bleeding throats, causes the area's Samurai leader, Raiko(Kei Sato)to seek a warrior to end the threat. A warrior soon arises, Gintoki(Kichiemon Nakamura), the lone survivor in a slaughter between two companies in Ezo, Northern Japan between Samurai and barbarians, who is called on to kill the "monsters". The conflict that results is that the ghosts are Gintoki's mother and wife! And, even worse, Gintoki must kill them or die at Raiko's sword.Kaneto Shindô depends on several visual techniques in shaping his ghost tale of revenge mainly through the use of fog and repeated images of Yone in flight and on the attack. The powerhouse story is what ultimately works the best in Shindô's movie, I think, because Gintoki is caught in quite a conundrum he can not seem to escape. His quandary is that he's indebted to his leader, Raiko, to rid their land, mainly the Rajomon Gate, of the predators devouring the Samurai, yet the difficulty of attacking your own mother becomes quite a problem that's not easy to resolve. Making matters worse is that Yone can not tell her son the reason why she and Shige commit their fiendish attacks. The film didn't quite end the way I expected, and I ponder it's meaning. Why would Gintoki fall for such an obvious trick regarding the guarding of a decapitated arm in his protection from Yone? Quite a tragic story, very emotional, specifically what Shige accepts in order to enjoy days of love with Gintoki, and how Yone must resort to trickery to gain an advantage over her beloved son. Quite an eerie score, spooky uses of a forest at night, and the throat attacks are quite ferocious. Minor masterpiece from the director. A haunting finale as Gintoki aimlessly pursues his mother, going mad, with winter snow used quite strikingly. Potential following I presume in the future as horror fans become more aware of it's existence.

freakus Very similar to Shindo's masterpiece "Onibaba". A mother and daughter-in-law seek vengeance on the samurai class for the suffering they have been put through. Female spirits luring lustful men to their doom is a very common theme in Japanese ghost stories ie. Ugetsu, Kaidan, etc. In this tale there is the added conflict when the son/husband is sent to destroy them. Very well done and very creepy.