It couldn't be more different from the other Kiyoshi Kurosawa films I've been watching recently. He's flexible, e.g. he started out on pink films, and this was actually a film-game co-release. Its other half was a Capcom 8-bit video game that's been called one of the greatest ever horror games and helped inspire Resident Evil.

Another factor, though, was the producer, Juzo Itami (who also plays a grizzled old local in the film). After its theatrical run, Itami re-shot scenes and re-edited it for home video and TV. Kurosawa went ballistic, sued and lost, so today the only available version is Itami's. I don't know if the original is actually a lost film, but no one's seen it since 1989. That said, though, personally I wouldn't assume automatically that Kurosawa's version must have been better and that Itami was a philistine. I actually like Juzo Itami a lot. He's an interesting writer/actor/director whose work could be challenging enough that he was probably murdered by a yakuza gang he'd been about to spotlight in his next film.

Anyway, this film I watched this morning is a laugh. It's a 1980s horror flick, but sometimes more like Ghostbusters than John Carpenter. It's not afraid to be lurid and cartoonish, with comedy bits. (A garage owner's trapped under the truck he was repairing. "Pull the lever!" Our heroine obeys and the truck falls further. "Pull the lever UP!!!") Anyway, a TV production team wants to investigate a haunted house that no one's entered for thirty years. The estate's manager says "no", but then his boss suggests giving these TV idiots permission to see whether they all die or not.

There's also horror SFX from Dick Smith, aka. the Godfather of Make-Up. It's glorious. There's a joy to be found in pre-CGI practical effects like these. This isn't a gore film, but its most memorable feature is its special effects shots. (An eye popping out made me laugh.)

Our heroes are:

1. Kazuo Hoshino (producer) = useless and wrong about everything, but his heart's in the right place. Also, he's a widower.

2. Emi Hoshino (sort of tagging along, really) = daughter of Kazuo and wants him to marry again.

3. Akiko Hayakawa (producer) = ends up being the heroine. She's played by Juzo Itami's wife, Nobuko Miyamoto, but this isn't just nepotism because she's a Japanese Academy Award winner. That said, though, I don't know how seriously she was taking this one. She has to do lots of Horror Reaction Shots, some of which are more convincing than others.

4. Asuka (presenter) = a bit weird and self-absorbed.

5. Ryou Taguchi (cameraman) = lowbrow ordinary bloke, fancies Asuka.

They want to uncover the last fresco of a dead artist. Little do they know that spectacular deaths and a ghost demon monster thing are waiting for them.

The music and the acting (especially Nobuko Miyamoto) are both liable to be melodramatic. There's only one moment where the film feels what I think of as Kurosawa-ish, i.e. quiet, understated and sinister. The haunted house's backstory is impressively nasty, but the film's tone reduces its emotional impact. This one's jolly. It's not high art, but I enjoyed it. It's highly watchable, in that 1980s horror flick way that's full of energy and fun. Look at that comedically enormous axe, for instance, or the way Grizzled Old Bloke (Juzo Itami) tells our heroes they'll need to concentrate like steel to survive... and then immediately drinks some whiskey. I love that guy.