Kuroneko (1968)

[Drunk Monk]

A classic Japanese B&W horror love story. The title means 'black cat' which play as significant a role in the yokai world as they do with the wiccan. 

It's a dark period of war. A band of samurai descend on a farm house to find a woman and her mother-in-law. It goes badly. Fortunately the family black cats absorb their vengeful spirits and they vow to trap and kill samurai to drink their blood at Rashomon gate (remember that was based on a short story collection by Akutagawa). This gets complicated when the husband/son of the cat ghosts returns from war as a samurai charged to slay the demons killing samurai at Rashomon gate. 

It's brilliant use of B&W in how it highlights the ghosts so eerily. The ghost women has such range with the stoic geisha-heavy make up - they are the spookiest. There's a lot of black in this - it's minimalistic in its use of light - as should be for a horror-rom. Some of the scenes are stark black, with only slivers of light refractions, or kimonos vanish, only defined by the bright white mon (crests). It's a cinematic masterpiece. 

There's a lot of quiet, awkward silence, and swords. You need a sacred sword to kill a ghost, ya know? And yes, that is a euphemism. 

D00MHallow33n recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Black Cat (1934)

I figured I'd just add this to this thread since it's the same title, still Criterion, just older and Hollywood. Stars Karloff and Lugosi, and claims to be based on the Poe story, but the black cat is hardly in it. Bela is a psychiatrist. Boris is an architect who built his rather mod mansion on top of an old fort where the two fought a grim battle. A couple, let's call them Brad & Janet because they are negligible, and Bela, and his man (a stout quiet hit man sorta dude) are in a car crash near Boris' mansion. They take shelter there. But Boris has a secret and it's pretty dark. He has the body of Bela's ex-wife stuffed, or preserved somehow in a dungeoness basement of the fort, along with lots of other bodies of women, and he's 'married' Bela's daughter. 

It's interesting to see these two without make up, in what then must've been a modern horror. It's just quirky now. One of the worst fight scenes ever. Bela kills the cat, off screen with a thrown knife (because he's phobic of cats) and the cat comes back, the very next scene, the cat comes back, it just couldn't stay away. That's all the cat really does - scare Bela at a few critical moments, die in the first one, and then come back. 

The soundtrack was almost continuous - big band symphony like so many old movies. Karloff plays Toccata and Fugue on a pipe organ. That's cool. 

This needed more cat. Or a sword fight. Or a dance number. 

Not D00MHa11ow33n recommended.