Yokai Monsters - Spook Warfare
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List Price: $19.98
Features
• Anamorphic
• Color
• NTSC
• Subtitled
• Widescreen
In Theaters : 1968
DVD Release : 20 May, 2003 |
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Yokai Monsters - Spook Warfare Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Spooks on the warpath
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Okay, it's a cheesy monster movie. But it's a GOOD cheesy monster movie.
"Yokai Monsters - Spook Warfare" is one of the best examples of old Japanese horror, with traditional monsters in a comic battle of wits and magic. While a lot of the costumes aren't very convincing -- unsurprising for the 1960s -- it's a funny and very weird story.
A pair of Arab tomb-raiders are pillaging an ancient Babylonian ruin, when they accidently set free the ancient vampire Daimon. Daimon travels (for no apparent reason) over the sea to Japan, and takes over the body of the magistrate. After he trashes shrines, kills the dog, and starts sucking blood out of his servants, his daughter Chie (Akane Kawasaki) and her boyfriend Shinhachiro (Yoshihiko Aoyama) start to figure out that there's something wrong.
Daimon also evicts the house's water demon (or kappa), who flees to the Monsters' Shrine to ask for help from other apparitions. The other spooks don't believe him, until a pair of fleeing children confirm his story. Now they must wage war against a creature much more powerful than any of them -- and even killing Daimon might not end the battle.
Women with two faces. Kappas. Long-necked goblins. And ghosts with long weedy hair. Most of these aren't familiar to American moviegoers, but anyone who knows about Japanese lore will know why these are all in this movie. And it's loads of fun to see them try to oust the outside that's infringing on their turf.
What makes this movie different from most period flicks is the sense of humor. The various spooks tend to bumble and make mistakes (including getting sucked into an enspelled jar), before finally taking on a hundred-foot-tall Daimon. And the dialogue tends to be kind of wacky, at least (there's a special "Monsters Social Register" book).
Since this movie was made in the 1960s, there are a lot of rubber suits -- Daimon looks like a rubber dinosaur, and a lot of the spooks have papier-mache heads. And I won't get into that one-legged umbrella. But the actors do a good job with odd body language (like the kappa's flailing and crouching), and the humans even get some cool swordfights.
"Yokau Monsters - Spook Warfare" lives up to its name, with plenty of Japanese monsters and goofy antics. A charming cult film. |
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Yokai Monsters - Spook Warfare dvd movie.