The Living Skeleton

Kyuketsu Dokuro Sen

Japan

1968

81 Min

Black and White

2.35:1

Japanese

Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
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SCR Kyuzo Kobayashi, Kikuma Shimoiizaka

CAST Yasunori Irikawa, Nobuo Kaneko, Kikko Matsuoka, Kô Nishimura, Masumi Okada

In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighter’s violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of kaidan (ghost stories), doppelgänger thrillers, and mad- scientist movies, Hiroshi Matsuno’s The Living Skeleton is a wild and eerie work, with beautiful widescreen, black-and-white cinematography. —The Criterion Collection

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swordofdoom

24Mar13

look out! that bat's carrying a string!

Corinne likes this

AKFilmFan

7Feb13

Mixing the effectively creepy with the hilariously cheesy, this Val Lewton meets Scooby Doo ghost story is solidly entertaining pulp.

Mr. Arkadin

28Nov12

Holy crap what a great movie. The comparison (in tone, atmosphere) to Lewton's films is right on, especially as it shares the same deep streak of perversion (stripping Saeko's body so it can be stored for a scene in that Black Knight's suit of armor?!?!) and the same class of masterful b&w photography. Manages to be genuinely eerie as it shuffles from one horror sub-genre to the next, deploying each with equal skill.

dana danger likes this

Mr. Arkadin

28Nov12

Also, another pulp-art Japanese film that spends a fair amount of its running time examining the role of Christianity in Japanese society.