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Inugami no Tatari

Curse of the Dog God

Japan 1977
produced by
Kanji Amao, Akio Anzai for Toei
directed by Shunya Ito
starring Shinya Owada, Jun Izumi, Masami Hasegawa, Emiko Yamauchi, Nobuo Kawai, Koji Miemachi, Kayoko Shiraishi, Shinya Ono, Noboru Mitani, Nenji Kobayashi, Hideo Murota, Mizuho Suzuki, Akiko Koyama, Kyoko Kishida, Iwao Dan, takeshige Hatanaka, Takashi Ito, Kengo Miyaji, Yuki Nohira, Jiro Sagawa, Gozo Soma
written by Shunya Ito, music by Shunsuke Kikuchi

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Somewhere in rural Japan, 3 uranium prospectors find a rich uranium mine, but also destroy a shrine dedicated to the Dog God and kill a dog.

Six months later: Kano, one of the prospectors, marries Reiko, daughter of village leader Kenomochi, which seems to pretty much settle the deal between the village near which he has found the mine and his company. Only a small farmer, Tamori, opposes the deal because he considers the land that will be mined his. Incidently it was Tamori's son Isamu whose dog the prospectors have killed.

Back in Tokyo, Kano's two colleagues die unnatural deaths and his wife goes mad, which all might have to do with the curse of the dog god. Kano and Reiko return to the village where Kenomochi hires all sorts of spiritists to have her exorcised, but to no avail, she dies. Everybody for some reason blames Tamori and family for the death, and they are soon regarded witches. Only Kano begs to differ, befriends the Tamoris, becomes sympathetic to their refusal to mine uranium, and grows especially fond of family daughter Kaori, who has loved him ever since before he had married Reiko.

However, then disaster strikes when the village well is poisoned, and while it's clear to Kano that this is a side effect of the mining, everyone else feels more comfortable in blaming the Tamoris, and eventually, a gang of local bikers kills all of them but dad Tamori in a most gruesome fashion. Dad builds a shrine to the Dog God and sees that Mako, the youngest daughter of Kenomochi is possessed - even though she's the only one aside from Kano who has shown sympathy to them.

In the finale, Kano finds out the whole dirty truth about the village and the Kenomochis: Decades ago, Kenomochi stole Tamori's land - quite legally, using some crooked deals. For this, Tamori cursed his eldest son, Sawa, whom Kenomochi has since kept in a cage in his shed, away from everyone's sight. But now, Sawa has somehow freed himself, and carnage soon follows which leaves pretty much everyone dead, and it doesn't get any better when possessed Mako joins the fight. Ultimately, Mako and Kano are the last two standing, and Kano somehow tries to lift the curse from Mako, but kills her in the process, and then kills himself to repent. It's only then that it turns out that Mako, unpossessed, has survived after all.

The last scene shows a funeral procession that passes Kano's burning coffin. When Mako approaches the coffin, Kano rises from it, but melts in the fire surrounding him ...

 

A subtly directed, very atmospheric and even creepy story full of well-placed shocks and quite a bit of gore - that nevertheless fails to convince. Basically, there's way too much story cramped into the film's 100 minutes of running time, and the story seems to go nowhere in particular, and simply refuses to resolve in a satisfying way, instead throws in a sudden subplot for no other reason than to get as many characters as possibly killed in the finale. And the final scene with Kano emerging from its burning coffin is ridiculous. On top of that, while the film has a decent cast, the characters are uniformly pale and two-dimensional, in other words unable to carry the overly complex story.

But again, the film is at least well-directed and well-acted, so it's not a total loss - it's just not very good, either.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
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