Gothika (2003) #507

 

Ghost movies were a popular and common sight in the late 90's and early 2000s and Dark Castle Entertainment was there to provide. First they remade popular films originally made by William Castle, such as "House on Haunted Hill" and "Thir13en Ghosts" before creating their own original material, such as "Gothika". A start studded film, starring Halle Berry, Charles S. Dutton, and Robert Downey Jr. and John Carrol Lynch, "Gothika" is a haunting ghost story taking place in a naturally scary location, a psychiatric hospital. Some may find the pacing of the movie a bit clunky when compared to today's sensibilities, but it felt quite at home in the horror films of its time. The production has some great value and visuals, except for some fire effects later in the film.

Halle Berry plays Dr. Miranda Grey, who works in a remote rural hospital in Connecticut with her husband Douglas, and good friend Dr. Pete Graham. One night while driving home, Miranda narrowly misses a young woman standing in the middle of the street, crashing her car. When she approaches her, Miranda is engulfed in flame before she falls unconscious. When Miranda awakes, she finds that she's being held in the very hospital that she works in, and that she is the sole suspect in her husband's violent murder. 

Miranda befriends a patient of hers, Chloe, who she begins to better understand the trauma and struggles that she's going through. One night, Miranda witnesses Chloe being raped, and that her claims of abuse were not delusions. She sees a tattoo design on Chloe's attacker, but no one believes her either. Miranda has problems of her own as she is haunted by visions of the girl from the accident. The ghost begins to torment Miranda by carving the words "Not Alone" on her arm, as well as throwing Miranda against the wall, making it seem like she's trying to kill herself. Miranda is able to escape from the hospital after the attack and drives to a farmhouse that Douglas was renovating. Looking for clues that she's had vivid visions of, Miranda finds a mattress and various torture tools, including a video camera. One of the video tapes shows Douglas killing a young girl on the mattress. Police arrive and arrest Miranda, but find another girl that Douglas had kept locked up

Miranda is taken to the police station for questioning. While waiting to see what happens next, Douglas's best friend, the sheriff Bob Ryan, comes to interrogate Miranda. Miranda tells bob that Rachel, her ghostly tormentor, was set up to look like she committed suicide, but the visions she's been given make it seem more like a cover-up. Being accused of his involvement in her murder, which he was, Bob tries to sedate Miranda but ends up getting injected instead. During the struggle, it's revealed that he is Chole's rapist. Rachel's ghost appears, and Douglas shoots at her, igniting a fire in the station. Burning alive, Miranda shoots Bob, setting Rachel's spirit free. 

Then sometime later, both Miranda and Chole are free, moving on with their lives after their trauma. 

Session 9 (2001) #469

 

"Session 9" is a dark, haunting psychological thriller about a team of asbestos removers working in an old asylum and how one the the team members comes across tape recordings of one of the more puzzling cases that took place there many years ago. Directed by Brad Anderson and starring David Caruso, Peter Mullan, and Larry Fessenden.

Gordon owns an asbestos abatement company that wins a highly sought after contract to clean out a large abandoned mental hospital with it own infamous history. Part of the contract that Gordon agreed to was that his team would finish the job in only one week, much to the dismay of the team's supervisor Phil. Before the project even begins, the team members have their own personal demons to contend with. Phil is dealing with a breakup with his girlfriend, Hank has a gambling problem and is sleeping with Phil's ex, Mike who is a law school dropout with an anger problem, and Gordon's nephew Jeff who has an extreme fear of the dark. It's not long before the project starts to fall apart, including Hank's disappearance and Mike finding a set of tapes from the sessions of one of the patients. 

The narrative's pace is steady throughout so it never feels too slow or fast and the scenes build well upon each other while the session tapes act as interludes. It feels like a proper ghost or haunted house story, achieving a chilling and frightening atmosphere without gore and violence. This movie makes you think and multiple viewings offer hidden clues that you may have missed previously. It's all about the interpersonal relationships and the rundown hospital.

The movie was filmed in Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts. The hospital itself greatly inspired Anderson's script as well as a real life trial concerning a man who violently killed his wife after she burnt his dinner one night. The crew had no need for sets, using what was already left in the hospital. The hospital has since been demolished, but not before leaving a part of it's legacy on film for all horror fans to enjoy

We Are Still Here (2015) #427

"We Are Still Here" is an amazing ghost story that doesn't pull any punches and just wants to have gruesome scary fun. The first act is full of over used tropes and themes that makes you wonder why you're bothering with this movie at all but then it all makes sense and comes together as the second and third acts kick in and the film surpasses any and all expectations. Horror veterans Barbara Crampton ("Re-Animator" and "From Beyond") and Larry Fessenden ("Jug Face" and "I Sell the Dead") drive the film forward wit the help of Lisa Marie ("Mars Attacks") and Andrew Sensenig. Director and writer Ted Geoghegan delivers a great film and makes the brilliant move of keeping the movie under 90 minutes long; every scene is there for a reason, even during the ending credits. What I love most about this ghost story is that it turns into a monster movie and the supporting make-up and special effects are outstanding. More movies need to be brave enough to be so bold and have fun.

After the accidental death of their son, Anne and Paul move out into a snowy rural area of New England, where they hope the seclusion will help them heal from their emotional wounds. However, Anne soon begins to believe that their son's spirit is with them in their new home. After two weeks, they are visited by a couple of the townspeople who tell Anne and Paul about the horrible history associated with their house, which was originally built in 1800's as the town's mortuary. Still believing that the ghostly activity is due to their son, Anne invites her friends, two spiritualists, to come and determine if the ghost is their son or the previous owners. Soon the dark secret of the town is revealed and the all hell breaks loose.

Unfriended (2015). #418

I'm going to guess that most people won't like "Unfriended" very much, but there will be enough people who will think it's great; I'm honestly still undecided. For everyone who was turned off by the webcam only point of view, those who didn't want to watch a group of teens play on Facebook or instant messenger, your time is better spent watching something more action packed. For everyone else who enjoys a very slow burn, decent character development, and subtle reveals, "Unfriended" delivers quite nicely. After watching this movie I felt both cheated of my time and yet entertained. Dear reader, I'm still confused by my feelings...

I want to applaud the filmmakers efforts in trying something new but I also want to smack them around for making it so boring! Granted, the film eventually finds its pacing but the journey there is slow and painful (for the viewer). The second half of the film is actually fun to watch and after the first few deaths, the story really takes shape. The actors do a great job of being a group of annoying suburban teens. And the film's on screen special effects are minimal and its best that way. The story line itself is simple and only needed a stern editing for the first half.

Worth checking out if you enjoy ghost stories told in an unique way.

Not the most compelling stills from a movie

Sanatorium (2013) #410

Cliches buried beneath cliches is the best way to describe 2013's "Sanatorium". It's yet another found footage movie about another group of film makers going into a closed down asylum/madhouse/hospital/haunted house to record the rumored ghosts that walk the hallways. First there's the typical "did you hear that?" or "did you feel that" moments followed by an obvious supernatural occurrences, which leads to the violent "run for your lives" panic that ends with the eventual death of everyone. There's also the young new couple that you're supposed to care about that's introduced in the beginning, the jerk, and the typical nice guy that's just there to do his job.

Chances are that you've seen this movie before even if you haven't; it feels that generic. The film "Grave Encounters" is the first film to come to mind. But even though it is that generic, I really enjoyed this film; this style really appeals to me and I could watch variations of this story line over and over. For everyone else, if this was the first time this type of film had been made, it would be great. It's a solid ghost movie with a spooky back story and a slow build of tension until thing go crazy at the end. But it's not and so I would suggest "Grave Encounters" instead, just for the freaky moments (ghost in the corner and the bath tub) that are in it.

Oculus (2013) #387

I've never liked split narratives that follow separate story lines that occur in the past and the present because I feel that any tension that is built is lost in one timeline when it switches back to the other. In the 2013 horror movie "Oculus", this technique is used to various degrees of success; the first 30 minutes was difficult to follow but the film finds a pleasant rhythm switching back and forth in the second act. It follows two siblings, both as pre-teens and as young adults, as they deal with an evil, possessive mirror that has a long history of being owned by people who have all suffered bizarre and gruesome deaths. The movie was written, edited, and directed by Mike Flanagan, expanding a short film that he had created in 2005. Overall, I enjoyed the film and noticed several similar themes that are found in the film "1408" and "The Amityville Horror".

A young family moves into a new house, where the father purchases a gorgeous antique mirror to decorate his office. The mirror is evil and soon possesses the parents who turn viciously on their two children. The son is blamed for his parents death and is sent to a psychiatric facility for 11 years while his older sister becomes obsessed with learning the history of the mirror and eventually obtaining it for a scientific experiment to prove that it is supernatural. The two siblings meet at their childhood home, where the sister has set the mirror up with a series of video cameras and computers to record and track the occurrences within the room. It's not long before the mirror begins to effect the two and the objects within the house, including making the plants wilt and influencing the siblings without them realizing it. Will the siblings resist the mirror's evil force or will they end up victims like all of the mirror's previous owners?

Favorite moment - When Kaylie (the sister), bites down on a light bulb after the mirror tricks her into thinking that she picked up an apple.

1408 (2007) #384

"1408" has instantly become one of my favorite Stephen King adaptions, so much so that I want to find the short story that inspired the film and read it. This film has a solid beginning, middle, and surprisingly, a very satisfying ending. It's a ghost story that works and that feels fresh and unique, with a clever twist that I haven't seen before. John Cusack is brilliant as Mike Enslin, a talented novelist who begins visiting "haunted" locations and writing books about his experiences. Mr. Cusack carries the weight of the film as he is in every scene and is supported by only a handful of other actors for brief moments; a prolonged scene with John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson is truly delightful.

Mike Enslin is a novelist who writes about supernatural places and events, although he is a skeptic and doesn't believe in what he writes about. He receives an anonymous postcard from the Dolphin Hotel with a message "Don't enter 1408" written on it. Mike learns that dozens of people had died in that room in various gruesome ways.  He goes to the hotel to stay the night, finding legal loopholes to force the hotel management to allow him into the room. Gelarld Olin, the hotel manager, tries his best to dissuede Mike from going into the room by giving him a file full of pictures and police reports of some of the victims. Mike takes the file, a fancy bottle of scotch, and his wits with him into the innocent looking room, ignoring everyone's warnings. It's not long after his investigation begins that he realizes that there might be something to about the room after all....

Sadako 3D (2012)

"Sadako 3D" is another chapter in the "Ringu" Japanese saga, this time focusing on a cursed video clip that makes the viewer commit suicide after hearing the words "You're not the one". The film has it's scary moments and tries to return to the powerful chilling level that "Ringu" first brought to audiences around the globe. This is outright horror film and doesn't try to be anything but that. The story is an interesting take on the "Ringu" saga and freshens up the Sadako mythology. The film was shot in 3D and the scenes are beautiful to watch on a non-3D screen. The acting is solid and the CGI effects are not nearly distracting as they can be in other films. I'm excited to see the sequel, "Sadako 3D 2" that was filmed and released last year.


Everybody is talking about the hot new "cursed video" that is out. Rumor has it that if you find it and watch it, you'll end up killing yourself immediately afterwards after hearing the words "You're not the one". No one really believes this and the thrill of seeing it is too much for some, including s high school student. The student's teacher, Akane, finds out that the student had looked for the cursed video on her phone earlier that day. When another student begins watching the video, after she found an Error 404 message, the video pops up once she's alone. She watches as a man is killed by a woman with long crazy hair, but when the ghost's arm reaches out of the video screen, Akane saves the student in the nick of time. The ghost grabs Akane and says that "You are the one". Meanwhile, two police detectives are working on the series of suicides, with the younger one believing that the cursed video is the reason behind it all, going so far to prove his point by watching the video and falling prey to it's curse. The older detective then tracks down the creator of the film, Kashiwada. Kashiwada's home looks like a movie set but the detective discovers that Kashiwada was trying to resurrect Sadako Yamamura by throwing women with long black hair down the well. By doing so, he only created imperfect versions. To find the perfect host for Sadako's spirit, he created the cursed video. Now Akane and the police detective must put a stop to Kashiwada's twisted plan before Sadako becomes flesh and blood once more!

The Shock Labyrinth (2009)

The movie was less than ten minutes in when I first noticed major themes and details that both appear in Takashi Shimizu's films "Tormented" and "The Shock Labyrinth". "The Shock Labyrinth" was made two years before "Tormented" and set the tone by using the same location of the fun park located in the shadow of Mt Fuji and the "hospital" neighboring it. In fact, the hospital in "The Shock Labyrinth" is actually another carnival ride, set up as a haunted house attraction. The next detail I noticed between the two films was the over emphasis on the spiral staircase; in fact, both movies center in on someone falling from the staircase. The final and most important shared detail between the two films is the rabbit doll! In "The Shock Labyrinth", the doll is actually a backpack that one of the main characters is wearing and in "Tormented", the two main characters are actually watching "The Shock Labyrinth" when the doll magically floats out of the screen and into young Daigo's hands. "The Shock Labyrinth" isn't as strong of a film as "Tormented" but it does contain more scares and overall creepy moments. 

Ken has returned to his old hometown after moving away ten years ago. While his friend Motoko is picking him up, Motoko's girlfriend Rin is visited by a panicked old friend Yuki. Motoko and Ken soon join Rin and everyone is shocked to see Yuki, who is still in a state of distress. They bring Yuki to her parents home, where her younger sister Myiu insists that Motoko is dead, at least that was what her late father had told her. Yuki is badly injured in a fall and the four teens take her to the nearest hospital, but once there, they can't find anyone to help them and Yuki runs off into the darkness. The four teens go off and look for her but begin to have visions of the past and they become aware that there are not in a hospital but in an old carnival haunted house that they had snuck into ten years ago, and quickly remember the horrible accident that occurred. The four teens are faced with the decisions that they made ten years ago and the consequences of dealing with Yuki's angry spirit..... 

Pray (2005)

"Pray" is a 2005 Japanese horror film concerning ghosts. The movie jumps right into action and keeps the viewing trying to figure out what is going on. There might have been something lost in translation because there are a few facts that don't seem entirely clear to me and so I may have to watch it again to see if I missed something...otherwise, the movie is overly complicated for no real good reason. The scares and violence are kept to a minimum in this film and the atmosphere doesn't carry the weight of the movie as other Japanese ghost films have been able to.


Mitsuru and his girlfriend Maki have kidnapped a young girl named Ai, and the three head to Mitsuru's old school which has since been closed and abandoned. When they call her parents to demand a ransom for her return, they're told that Ai had died a year ago. Ai soon disappears inside the school even though the two adults had drugged her with sedatives. The tension between the two quickly builds to screaming matches as they search the school grounds for Ai. Mitsuru begins to have subtle visions that confound him. While looking for Ai, Mitsuru finds three of his friends at the school, claiming that he had told them that this was a cool place to hang out. Mitsuru finds the girl but lets her run off after having more visions. Soon, one of Mitsuru friends is killed and is found with his left hand severed off. Is Ai more than she appears to be or is there something even more sinister hiding inside the school?

The Booth (2005)

"The Booth" is a Japanese horror film from 2005 that takes place in a haunted radio broadcasting booth. It opens with a scene from a few decades ago when the radio host took a call from a caller who claimed to have committed suicide 30 years ago. Before the producers know it, the host had hung himself in the room. Fast forward to today as a popular night time radio host and his crew are working in that old radio booth while they are in the processes of moving from one office to another. Shingo, the arrogant but charismatic host, is steadily called a liar by a phantom voice that keeps interrupting his show. Shingo begins to have flash backs from his childhood as well as events from the past few weeks and realizes that  his secret is about to be revealed or that the crew he works with is calling him out for all of his rude and patronizing comments.

What is fascinating about this film is how each caller brings up a story or situation that directly compares to Shingo, either with his co-workers or his girlfriend. The writing for this film is top notch and the suspense is carefully built up throughout the movie. I though that too much was revealed within 20 minutes but I was pleasantly surprised.

Kuchisake-onna (2007)

"Kuchisake-onna" aka "Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman" is a Japanese horror film based on the urban legend from the 1970's about a disfigured woman who kills children after asking them if she is pretty. The film is able to incorporate the urban legend and gives it an origin and expands on it in modern day Japan. The film also deals with the theme of child abuse by having the two of the main characters being victims and another being an abuser. This adds an interesting and deeper element that often isn't seen in horror movies but at the same time doesn't look in to the issue as deeply as it might have been if it was an American film.


Kyoko Yamashita is a teacher who becomes involved with the Slit-Mouthed Woman after the Kuchisake-onna kidnaps one of her students. The matter is extremely personal because Kyoko is trying to make amends for abusing her own daughter by trying to save her student, Mika, from a similar situation with her mother. Kyoko teams up with another teacher from her school, Noboru Matsuzaki, when she learns that he hears the faint words "Do you think I'm pretty" right before a child is kidnapped. The two manage to rescue a boy from the Kuchisake-onna just in time, killing her in the process. But when the corpse of the murderer suddenly turns into a local housewife, they realize that the ghost possesses people and that the terror is only beginning....

Mika and her teacher Kyoko

The Kuchisake-onna kidnapping Mika

Kyoko and Noboru fight with the Kuchisake-onna

The Kuchisake-onna makes an example of her victim

The Kuchisake-onna unmasked

Ju-on 2 (2003)

"Ju-on 2", the full length sequel to "Ju-on: The Grudge", is a surprising improvement over the original film that kick started Americans interest in Japanese horror films. The film has a stronger plot and is scarier than the the original. The effects are more effective and more profound, using photo techniques rather than out right CGI. The story is again broken up into individual chapters that focus on a primary character. The chapters are not in exact chronological order but are presented in a way that is not too confusing and makes sense when the movie is over.

The film focuses on a set of primary characters who are involved with filming a TV show inside the haunted house where housewife Kayako and her son Toshi were violently killed by their husband/father.

Kyoko is a horror movie actress and is set to make a guest appearance on a weekly TV show. This particular episode takes place and is about the violent murder of a housewife and the disappearance of her son. After filming the episode, Kyoko and her boyfriend have a horrible car accident (cause by seeing Toshi). Her boyfriend falls into a coma and she believes that she lost her unborn child; the baby turns out to be ok. While she survived her run in, her mother dies at home under mysterious circumstances.

Others at the filming also have run ins with the ghosts, including the episodes co-star, Tomoka and her boyfriend, the make-up artist Megumi, and the random disappearances of the camerman and sound guy. Only the director, Keisuke, lives more than a few days....

Favorite moment - A chilling scene where Kayako is coming for one of the characters but is stopped by another force!

Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)

The original "Ju-on: The Grudge" is an excellent Japanese horror film that inspired an American remake, allowing director Takashi Shimizu that chance to go back and tweak his original work. I was surprised at how many little differences there were and yet satisfied that the two films were still alike. The first half is almost identical to the remake with only minor differences. The sound effects and visuals are better in the remake but the ones in the original still do a decent job. The story line in the remake also makes more sense, having an American family seen moving in versus having a family already there. Otherwise, everything is more or less the same.

In the Japanese version there is one additional chapter that is not seen in the American version, and this particular piece is perhaps the scariest part of the movie. It takes place several years later and revolves around a high school girl who, with her three friends, went inside the house. She ran away while her friends were killed, and now she knows that they are coming for her.

The final chapter revolves around Rika, the character that was later re-written for Sarah Michelle Gellar in the remake. This chapter also takes place several years later. Rika still works for the mental health insitution, and meets up with an old friend who is now a teacher. Her friend is having to make house calls and ends up visiting the same house. Meanwhile, Rika is having visions of the ghost boy and his cat, and when she realizes that her friend is in danger, Rika tries to stop her before it's too late. But this is a horror movie, so it's always too late....

Shikoku (1999)

"Shikoku" is a slower, more spiritual, Japanese horror film from 1999. Shikoku is the name of the smallest of Japan's four main islands, and depending on the kanji used, the meaning of Shikoku is either "four countries" or "land of the dead". This fact is used as one of the primary elements in the story. The film is about ghosts but the scares and gore are minimal while the movie depends more on plot and the building atmosphere.

It revolves around three main characters, Hinako, Fumiya, and Sayori. Sayori and her family perform various spiritual rites and Japanese style seances, and all Sayroi wants is to grow up and and leave the small village so she can live life to the fullest. Instead, she ends up dying while still in school. Fumiya is the boy that Sayori has a crush on; after her death he leaves the small village and works in Osaka for three years before returning home. Hinako, seen more as Sayori's sidekick that real friend, ends up moving away to Tokyo with her parents at a young age. But before she moved, she accidentally witnessed one of Sayori's rituals, and in the next scene she is seen almost drowning in the river but is "saved" by Sayori just in time.

Several years later Hinako returns to the village to handle some affairs concerning her family's old house. She meets up with her old playmate Fumiya and learns that Sayori had drowned in the same river that she almost died in. Hinako asks who is living in Sayori's old house after seeing someone in the window, but no one does. After seeing what could be a yurei (Japanese ghost), both Hinako and Fumiya begin looking into Sayori's family history and wondering why her mother is continuing to go on the "pilgrimage" to the 88 temples that surround the island. When they find out that Sayori's mother is visiting the temples in reverse order, they realize that she might be trying to open the divide that separate the world of the living from the world of the dead in hopes of bringing Sayori back to life.

Hidako returns to her hometown.

Sayori returns to life!

Fumiya and an officer check out some vandalism.

Fumiya discovers a weird ritual site.

One Missed Call 2 (2005)

I must admit that I have never seen the original "One Missed Call" or it's American remake but it's safe to say that any viewer will pretty much gets the idea of what the story is about in the sequel without needing to see them. The theme is the same, a victim will receive a missed phone call and that the victim will receive a voice message on how they are going to die. The cursed phone call comes with a unique ring tone that the phone's owner doesn't recognize. While there are some clues that carry over from the first film, a new set of circumstances replace those and up the ante of the curse. In the film, you discover that the rash of "murders" is also occurring in not only Japan but also in Tawain, where the curse ultimately began. The suspected killer in the first film turns out to be a victim themselves and the curse is older than any one could have guessed. The race is on to fins a way to break the curse as more characters receive the cursed phone call with a mysterious date in the near future....

The Roommate (2010)

"The Roommate" is a low, low budget Japanese film that feels more like an amateurs ode to the genre of recent Japanese ghost films than an original movie. I didn't mind the acting, the story line, or the visuals but the sound effects were sometimes very grating, especially in one scene where there is supposed to me a stabbing sound. (shudder). Even though the film is full of Japanese ghost cliches, the ending was still unique and the movie was overall enjoyable. The short run time of only 70 minutes also helps.


The film follows two women, the pretty and likable Tamaki, and the plain hard working Ayako. They live together in an apartment in Tokyo. You can tel pretty quickly that Tamaki has more than just a crush on Ayako and that Ayako is beginning to feel the same. One night, Ayako is surprised by a phone call from her father, who she hasn't in over ten years since moving to Tokyo. Her father shows up while she is out and Tamaki is mistaken as Ayako. Ayako's father apologizes and admits that it's been too long since he's seen his daughter. In the next scene, Ayako comes home but her father has left and Tamaki says that she couldn't convince him to stay. That night, Ayako begins to have visions of a female ghost; this ghost continues to appear throughout the film. The more that Ayako sees the ghost, the more people around the two women begin to disappear. Will Ayako find out the secret of the ghost or is Tamaki trying to hide something form her roommate?

Retribution (2006)

"Retribution" is a truly unique ghost story, at least when compared to the typical American/British kinds. In this detective story, an older detective is starting to believe that he is a suspect in a series of murders that he's investigating. A missing button is found at the crime scene, the kind that matches his coat, and his finger prints are sound on one of the murder victims. He also begins to see glimpses of a woman in a bright red dress. As the story progresses, more people are killed in the same fashion, by being drowned in salt water, by their loved ones over minor offenses. A father kills his son because the son owes a classmate $4500 and a wife kills her young husband because he was sexually aggressive with her when she wasn't in the mood. The detective soon learns that the first victim was killed by her boyfriend when she broke up with him. Cleared of any suspicion himself, the detective is still haunted by the ghost in red. The one clue connecting all of the killers, and the detective, is that they all rode a ferry daily fifteen years ago, and passed an old asylum where the girl in red was kept and evetanully died. Because none of them tried to help her, she is now causing them to kill. Will the detective solve the ghostly riddle before he kills someone hie loves or is he already too late?

Kwaidan (1964)

"Kwaidan" is a collection of four classic Japanese ghost stories that were translated, rewritten, and published by American Lafcadio Hearn in 1904. The film feels like a living painting, with minimal dialogue or action but still being stretched out to a full 183 minutes. Maybe it's because it was only 1964 or perhaps because of the Japanese culture at the time that "Kwaidan" feels like a made-for-tv movie, more of a fairy tale than horror film. Stark colors are used with obvious fake backgrounds, which adds a certain flare and unnatural feel that seems appropraite for a ghost film.

I was familiar with three of the four stories after reading Lafcadio Hearn's work and was quite impressed.

The first story, "The Black Hair", is about a poor man who leaves his wife for a rich woman, only to be be disgusted by her personality and habits. He eventually leaves her and returns to his first wife but things have changed...

"The Woman in the Snow" is a typical Japanese tale where a spirit/ghost/monster makes their intended victim promise to never tell anyone but this encounter in exchange for saving their life. The victim promises, soon marries the spirit/ghost/monster in human form, breaks the promise and is killed. The segment "Lover's Vow" from "Tales from the Darkside the Movie" was inspired from this story.

"Hoichi the Earless" is one of the more errie stories in Hearn's collection and this lives up to that telling. Hoichi, a blind musician, is living and working at a shrine. One night when he is left alone, a samurai comes and asks Hoichi to perform for his master. He is taken a ways away and performs for a full royal court, singing about the Battle of Dan-no-ura. He spends the night doing this and returns to the shrine late in the morning. This happens a few nights in a row, which concerns the priest of the shrine. He discovers that Hocihi is being led away and is performing for a full court of ghosts. Before they are able to claim his soul forever, the priest and his apprentices cover Hoichi with prayers and tell him to ignore the commands of the samurai. That night when the samurai comes, he can not see Hoichi, except for his ears which were accidentally overlooked during the preparation. The samurai ghost takes Hoichi ears and never returns.

The fourth story is an complete piece titled "A Cup of Tea" where various people keep seeing a face in their cup of tea.

"The Black Hair"

"The Woman in the Snow"

"Hoichi the Earless"

"A cup of tea"