The Haunted Palace (1963) – Review

Roger Corman’s The Haunted Palace is a slice of H. P. Lovecraft shot through an Edgar Allan Poe lens. It’s gothic, it’s spooky, and it’s got just enough B-movie weirdness to make you grin through the fog. This is the kind of movie where the atmosphere does most of the heavy lifting—because the plot sure isn’t in a hurry to make sense.

In 1765, Arkham, Massachusetts—where everyone looks like they’ve just crawled out of a mist machine—the locals are deeply suspicious of the mysterious Joseph Curwen (Vincent Price) and his too-fancy “palace” perched above the town like a haunted wedding cake. A young woman, entranced by Curwen’s supernatural vibes, strolls into the castle for some light demonic ritual activity. Down in the basement, Curwen and his equally sinister mistress Hester Tillinghast (Cathie Merchant) summon something big, slimy, and unfit for polite company from a covered pit. The villagers, noticing this whole “young women going missing” thing, finally storm the place. Though the girl seems fine, it’s clear she’s been brain-scrambled by black magic. So naturally, they drag Curwen out and torch him alive, because that’s how you solve problems in colonial Massachusetts. Just before turning into barbecue, Curwen curses the entire town and its future generations.

Always nice to go out with flair.

Fast-forward 110 years to 1875. Curwen’s great-great-grandson, Charles Dexter Ward (also Vincent Price), rolls into Arkham with his wife Anne (Debra Paget) after inheriting the very same palace. Because who doesn’t love inheriting a haunted mansion with a human-skin wallpaper aesthetic? The townsfolk greet them with all the warmth of a root canal and seem especially touchy about their genetic deformities. Charles, for his part, can’t shake the feeling that he’s been here before—and the uncanny resemblance between himself and that creepy painting of Curwen isn’t helping. The palace caretaker, Simon Orne (Lon Chaney Jr.), convinces them to stay, because nothing suspicious ever comes from creepy caretakers in horror films.

Also, there’s a good chance he’s a werewolf.

Before long, Charles and Anne have a nice chat with Dr. Marinus Willet (Frank Maxwell), who drops all the spooky exposition: Curwen was a warlock, the town’s deformities are due to his freaky experiments, and oh, by the way, there’s a copy of the Necronomicon lying around somewhere. You know, the usual small-town gossip. Turns out Curwen was trying to breed mortal women with Elder Gods like Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth to create a race of superhumans, which really puts “family legacy” into perspective. Willet advises them to leave, but Charles—clearly not a man who listens to advice—starts falling under Curwen’s influence and decides to stay, which is always a great idea when your ancestor was a Satanic mad scientist.

This “family legacy” has had a definite effect on the locals.

Soon, Curwen’s spirit possesses Charles completely. He reunites with his surviving cult buddies Simon and Jabez Hutchinson (Milton Parsons), who have also been body-snatching their descendants. The gang’s back together, and their weekend plans include murder, mayhem, and necromancy. Curwen starts offing the descendants of the mob that killed him—setting people on fire, unleashing mutant offspring, the works. Then he goes full creep and tries to assault Anne, which, for a cursed spirit, is a real overstep. He gaslights Dr. Willet into thinking Anne’s losing her mind, then resurrects Hester for a little posthumous romance because nothing says true love like bringing your centuries-old witch mistress back from the dead.

“Let’s go dig up my old girlfriend, shall we?”

Inevitably, the villagers light up their torches and pitchforks once again. They storm the palace (you’d think they’d have learned the first time), while Anne is about to be sacrificed to the pit monster. Dr. Willet intervenes, and in the chaos, someone torches Curwen’s portrait—the source of his power. With the curse broken, Charles briefly regains control, freeing Anne before the whole joint goes up in flames. Willet rescues the couple just before the palace collapses. But as Anne embraces her husband, we see it: that sly, knowing smile. Charles isn’t Charles anymore—Curwen’s still in there, just waiting for a sequel that never came.

For no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller.

Stray Observations:

• Only in Arkham can you get torched alive for sorcery and have your descendants blamed for centuries. Small towns, man.
• Why do they always give the witch/warlock “final words” before setting them on fire? They’ve got to know those words will be a death curse of some sort.
• The villagers burn Curwen but leave his house standing. Because clearly, the problem was the guy, not the demon pit in the basement.
• It’s amazing how everyone looks identical to their ancestors of a century ago. Is this because of supernatural shenanigans or a shallow gene pool?
• Anne spends most of the movie alternating between being gaslit and looking confused, which is frankly the appropriate response to everything happening.
• Every time someone says “Elder Gods,” Vincent Price’s eyes twinkle like he’s just been handed a brandy snifter full of sin.
• Neat trivia: Boris Karloff was originally supposed to play Chaney’s role, but he got sick filming Black Sabbath. The Lovecraft curse strikes again!

Karloff did get to face off against Price in The Raven.

Roger Corman was at the height of his Gothic period here, crafting moody, fog-soaked terror on budgets that wouldn’t cover the catering on a modern Marvel movie. The Haunted Palace is lushly atmospheric, the kind of film where the camera practically swims in candlelight and shadow. Corman’s direction is surprisingly restrained, focusing on slow-building unease rather than cheap shocks. He knew how to get the most out of a few castle sets, some dry ice, and Vincent Price’s cheekbones. The pacing can be glacial, sure, but when you’re in a Corman film, that’s part of the charm—it’s like watching doom unfold in slow motion, one dramatic close-up at a time.

Lovecraft drama is serious drama.

Floyd Crosby’s cinematography deserves special mention. A veteran of Corman’s Poe cycle, Crosby bathes the film in eerie greens, yellows, and torchlight oranges that make every cobweb shimmer like it’s alive. His use of wide shots gives the decrepit palace real dimension—it feels like a living entity, suffocating and seductive all at once. Even on AIP’s shoestring budget, the visuals are rich, painterly, and claustrophobic. It’s proof that Gothic horror doesn’t need money—it needs mood. And Daniel Haller’s art direction—heavy on shadowy corridors and cursed portraits—gives the movie a grandeur far beyond its budget.

Who wouldn’t want to move into that lovely matte painting?

Of course, the irony here is that The Haunted Palace isn’t really a Poe film at all. It’s based on H. P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, making it the first (and arguably best) Lovecraft adaptation ever put to screen. With Richard Matheson taking a breather from the Poe cycle, Charles Beaumont stepped in to write the screenplay—bringing his trademark blend of eerie intellect and pulpy dread. Corman wanted to credit Lovecraft properly, but AIP, ever the opportunists, slapped “Edgar Allan Poe’s” on the title and sprinkled in a few lines of Poe poetry for legitimacy. Thus, Price quotes a bit of “The Haunted Palace” mid-film, looking as confused as the audience. Corman protested, but the studio shrugged—Poe sold tickets, Lovecraft didn’t. Classic AIP.

Fifty Shades of Lovecraft.

The cast does wonders with the material. Vincent Price, by this point a Corman mainstay, delivers a terrific dual performance: sympathetic as the mild-mannered Charles and deliciously evil as the resurrected Curwen. Few actors could shift between mournful and malevolent so effortlessly. Debra Paget, in her final film role, does her best with the thankless “worried wife” archetype, while Lon Chaney Jr. adds some monster-movie gravitas as Simon, though he looks about ready for a nap at all times. The supporting players, including Frank Maxwell as the sensible Dr. Willet, keep things grounded amid the supernatural chaos.

Price always got beautiful co-stars.

In conclusion, The Haunted Palace stands as a weird, wonderful bridge between Corman’s Poe-inspired Gothic horrors and true cinematic Lovecraftian madness. It’s moody, melodramatic, and delightfully unhinged—a fog-soaked fable of curses, possession, and the hazards of buying real estate in Arkham. Beneath its melodrama beats the heart of real cosmic horror, even if AIP tried to bury it under Poe’s name.

The Raven (1963) – Review

Few films manage to blend the macabre and the ridiculous with such cheerful abandon as Roger Corman’s The Raven. A Technicolor romp through Gothic castles, candlelit laboratories, and magical duels, it’s part horror, part farce, and all campy charm. With Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff hamming it up in the best possible way, The Raven proves that even Edgar Allan Poe can be good for a laugh.

In the year 1506, the melancholic sorcerer Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) still mourns the death of his wife Lenore, much to the exasperation of his patient daughter Estelle (Olive Sturgess). His nightly brooding is interrupted when a talking raven appears at his window. The bird, in a nasal and distinctly put-upon tone, claims to be Dr. Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre), another magician who’s been transformed into avian form by the nefarious Dr. Scarabus (Boris Karloff). Craven, ever the gentleman alchemist, agrees to help and brews a potion to restore Bedlo’s rather grumpy human form. He does have a few pointed questions as to how this all happened.

“So, you were drunk while magicking?”

Bedlo explains that Scarabus cursed him after an “unfair” duel of magic and, between complaints about feathers and lack of brandy, urges Craven to join him in confronting the villain. Craven has another reason to go: Bedlo swears he saw Lenore (Hazel Court) alive and well at Scarabus’s castle. Despite a magically possessed coachman’s attempt to stop them, Craven, Bedlo, Estelle, and Bedlo’s ambitious son Rexford (Jack Nicholson, in his early, wild-eyed glory) set off into the misty night. Naturally, Rexford and Estelle fall in love before the horses have cooled their hooves.

“Trust me, I’m going to be big in pictures.”

Once at the castle, the ever-courteous Scarabus greets them with a smile as sinister as a poisoned teacup. Bedlo, trying to show off, attempts a little storm-summoning to prove his mettle and is apparently struck dead for his troubles. But this being Peter Lorre, the “death” is short-lived. Rexford soon discovers Bedlo alive, hiding behind a curtain and sheepishly admitting he struck a deal with Scarabus to lure Craven there. Meanwhile, poor Craven finds his supposedly dead wife alive and well and in league with Scarabus, and not in a “bewitched” way, but to learn the dark arts.

I can certainly see what Scarabus wants out of the deal.

When our heroes try to flee, Scarabus catches them and locks them in a dungeon. Bedlo, terrified of torture, begs to be turned back into a raven and promptly flaps away, leaving his son behind. But in a moment of redemption, he returns to free Rexford and aid Craven. What follows is the pièce de résistance: a magical duel between Craven and Scarabus, complete with levitating chairs, fireballs, lightning bolts, and enough hand gestures to shame a Shakespeare troupe. Scarabus sets his own castle ablaze, but Craven triumphs. Lenore tries to rekindle their relationship (pun intended), but Craven, having learned his lesson, lets the castle — and his faithless wife — burn. In the smouldering aftermath, Bedlo, still a raven, tries to convince Craven to turn him human again. Craven’s deadpan response… 

“Quoth the raven—nevermore.”

Stray Observations:

• There’s no real reason this film is called The Raven except that Corman liked the poem and maybe someone found a fake bird in storage.
• That said, the film opens with Vincent Price reading the Edgar Allan Poe poem, and that alone is worth the price of admission.
• Vincent Price somehow manages to look elegant even while stirring potions in a smoking cauldron the size of a bathtub.
• Boris Karloff, despite the heavy robes, delivers menace through diction alone; every “Craven” he utters could curdle wine.
• Lenore’s plan to fake her death to become Scarabus’s girlfriend feels less “diabolical” and more “poorly thought through.”
• Lenore is also a stepmother to Estelle, which should have been the first clue that she’s a little villainous and not to be trusted.
• The climax ends in a wizard duel like no other; not since the fight between Merlin and Mad Madam Mim in Disney’s The Sword in the Stone has magic been this fun.

Scarabus ends up with egg on his face.

Roger Corman’s The Raven is a testament to the director’s genius for turning scraps into spectacle. Working with his usual modest budget and lightning-fast shooting schedule, Corman crafts a movie that looks richer and livelier than many studio productions of the era. The sets are hand-me-downs from earlier Poe adaptations, but under Corman’s direction and Floyd Crosby’s lush cinematography, they shimmer with candlelight, colour, and cobwebbed grandeur. Crosby, who shot everything from High Noon to House of Usher, gives The Raven a storybook elegance but with a lighter tone; every shot glows like an oil painting dipped in mischief.

A gleeful bit of mischief. 

As an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s immortal poem, The Raven is about as faithful as a cat in a birdcage. Richard Matheson’s script uses Poe’s title, Vincent Price reading from the poem, and a few gothic trimmings as a launchpad for a gleefully absurd fantasy comedy. Instead of psychological torment, we get bumbling wizards, talking birds, and marital infidelity played for laughs. Some Poe purists might shudder at the liberties taken, but honestly, if Poe is rolling in his grave, it’s probably from laughter. Matheson knew that a direct adaptation of the poem would make a five-minute short, not a feature film, so he did the only sensible thing: he made it fun.

“Should I recite the poem again?”

The cast is where The Raven truly soars. Vincent Price is both dignified and delightfully arch, bringing a winking self-awareness to Erasmus Craven’s genteel melancholy. Boris Karloff’s Scarabus is all gravitas and sneering charm, an aged villain whose power is more theatrical than terrifying. Peter Lorre, meanwhile, steals every scene as Bedlo, improvising with reckless abandon and throwing Karloff’s carefully rehearsed lines off course, much to the latter’s irritation. Young Jack Nicholson, as Bedlo’s son, holds his own against the veterans, while Hazel Court brings her usual fiery elegance to the duplicitous Lenore. It’s a pretty stacked ensemble of veterans and newcomers alike — a lineup so good it feels like Corman summoned the horror genre’s Mount Rushmore for one big magical duel.

How can you not love this group?

In conclusion, Corman’s The Raven may not be Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, but it’s a rollicking, candlelit romp through Gothic absurdity. Equal parts spooky and silly, it’s a showcase for three of horror’s greatest legends having the time of their lives, directed by a man who could conjure atmosphere from fog machines and leftover sets.

Beastly (2011) – Review

There’s a special kind of confidence required to take one of the most durable fairy tales ever told and run it through a 2011 teen drama filter, complete with glossy lighting, questionable tattoos, and emotional beats that feel like they were focus-grouped by people who think irony is a personality trait. Beastly tries to drag Beauty and the Beast into a world of private schools, daddy issues, and designer angst, and in theory, that’s not a terrible idea. In practice, it lands somewhere between a CW pilot and a cautionary tale about why not every classic needs a glow-up.

Kyle Kingson (Alex Pettyfer) is your standard-issue rich, pretty, deeply unpleasant high school monarch, the kind of guy who thinks humility is something that happens to other people. His father, Rob Kingson (Peter Krause), a TV news anchor with all the warmth of a marble countertop, has clearly raised him on a strict diet of appearances over substance. So naturally, Kyle decides to publicly humiliate Kendra Hilferty (Mary-Kate Olsen), not realizing she’s a witch, because in this universe, bullying comes with magical consequences. Kendra responds by turning him into a bald, scarred, tattooed version of Hot Topic’s worst nightmare and gives him a deadline to find true love, or stay that way forever. Nothing says “learn empathy” like a supernatural makeover.

“You know my sister is the Scarlet Witch, right?”

Exiled to a fancy Brooklyn townhouse like a disgraced influencer, Kyle is left to brood with only Zola Davies (LisaGay Hamilton), the maid with infinite patience, and Will (Neil Patrick Harris), a blind tutor who somehow signed up for this nonsense. Meanwhile, Kyle’s father does what any loving parent would do and emotionally vanishes the second things get inconvenient. As the clock ticks toward spring, Kyle fixates on Lindy Taylor (Vanessa Hudgens), a former classmate he previously ignored because she wasn’t part of his curated aesthetic. After saving her drug-addicted father from dealers in a scene that escalates from zero to felony homicide at record speed, Kyle blackmails her father to move Lindy in with him for her “protection,” which is definitely not weird at all.

Are we supposed to eventually sympathize with this Douchebag?

Under the alias “Hunter,” Kyle plays Phantom of the Opera in his own house, refusing to show his face while Lindy understandably grows tired of living with a disembodied voice and a suspiciously controlling host. Eventually, he reveals his appearance, and instead of running for the hills, Lindy sticks around because the plot requires it. They bond over books, shared trauma, and the general lack of better options, while Kyle scribbles a love letter that he’s too terrified to deliver. In a side quest that feels like it wandered in from another script, he begs Kendra for more time, and she instead hands out bonus rewards like restoring Will’s vision and sorting out Zola’s immigration status, because apparently this curse comes with a perks package.

“Does this magic come with dental coverage as well?”

The drug dealer subplot limps back in, Lindy’s father overdoses, and Kyle finally hands over the letter, only to immediately regret it when Lindy hits him with the dreaded “you’re a good friend” line. Heartbroken, Kyle retreats just as Lindy realizes she actually loves him, because timing is everything, and these two are spectacularly bad at it. She declares her love as she’s leaving for a school trip, breaking the curse and restoring Kyle to his original Abercrombie form. Lindy doesn’t recognize him at first, because the movie needs one last contrived misunderstanding, but once she connects the dots, they kiss on the street like a perfume ad. Off to the side, Will can see again, Zola gets her green cards, and Kendra quietly continues her side hustle of life-altering interventions, targeting Kyle’s dad next.

“Quick, call 911.”

Stray Observations:

• The film drops “my son has been magically cursed” into a modern New York setting and everyone just… accepts it. No questions, no follow-up, just another Tuesday in Manhattan, apparently.
• His “beast” look is less cursed prince and more “lead singer of a band that never got signed.”
• Lindy gets hurled down a metal fire escape, and Kyle’s response isn’t “hospital,” it’s “how can I leverage this into a romantic arrangement?” Nothing says true love like light coercion and a complete disregard for basic medical care.
• Lindy moves into a stranger’s house because her dad said it was fine. Stellar parenting across the board.
• Kyle hides from Lindy for days in his own home, which she tolerates longer than any rational person would.
• The curse includes immigration benefits and medical miracles, because why not bundle social policy into a fairy tale?
• Kendra’s rules are vague enough to change whenever the script needs a shortcut. Magic as narrative duct tape.
• Lindy falls in love under circumstances that would make a hostage negotiator raise an eyebrow.
• The big transformation reveal hinges on Lindy not recognizing the only guy she’s been living with because he… got better skin.

Lindy is sweet and all, but not very bright.

While based on Alex Flinn’s 2007 supernatural romance novel of the same name, director Daniel Barnz reportedly drew inspiration from the romantic comedy Say Anything, aiming to frame this as a modern teen romance where vulnerability breaks through surface-level obsession. On paper, that’s actually a solid angle. Teen culture is practically engineered around appearances, social currency, and the quiet terror of being judged, so translating Beauty and the Beast into that ecosystem makes thematic sense. The problem is execution. The film confuses aesthetic modernization with emotional depth, as if swapping castles for penthouses and ball gowns for hoodies automatically makes the story relevant. It doesn’t. You still need characters who feel like people, not mannequins waiting for a lesson to land.

“You are so crazy, Wildcat.”

Barnz and cinematographer Mandy Walker go for a hyper-polished, almost sterile visual style, all glossy surfaces and carefully curated gloom. It looks expensive in that early-2010s way, but it never feels magical. The original story thrives on contrast between fear and tenderness, isolation and connection. Here, everything exists in the same muted emotional register, like the film is afraid to commit to either fantasy or realism. No one’s asking for singing teapots, but some sense of wonder would’ve helped. Instead, the movie just sits there, insisting it’s meaningful without doing the work to earn that feeling.

We do get lots of roses, so that’s something, I guess.

And then there’s the fatal issue: you don’t care about Kyle. The entire premise hinges on watching a deeply flawed person grow into someone worthy of love. That only works if you believe there’s something redeemable under the surface. Kyle starts as unbearable and never quite evolves past “slightly less unbearable.” His arc feels obligatory rather than transformative, like he’s hitting story beats instead of actually changing. If the audience isn’t rooting for him, the central romance collapses, and with it, the entire film.

I was rooting for him to see jail time.

Vanessa Hudgens, fresh off High School Musical, does what she can with a role that mostly requires her to look concerned and occasionally forgiving. Her performance is limited, sure, but she at least feels like she’s attempting to locate a human being in the script. Compared to Alex Pettyfer, she might as well be delivering a masterclass. Pettyfer’s Kyle is a void of charisma, a black hole where emotional nuance goes to die. When he’s “transformed,” the heavy tattoos and scars don’t make him monstrous so much as bizarrely decorative, like someone lost a bet with a makeup artist. He ends up looking less like a cursed soul and more like a rejected Smallville villain of the week. It’s hard to buy into his suffering when the film can’t decide whether he’s supposed to be frightening, tragic, or just mildly inconvenient to look at.

Note: In the book, Kyle turns into an actual nightmare creature, which is why his only available tutor is blind. Here, he looks like the lead singer of a death metal band, and society still treats him like he’s unfit for daylight.

On the plus side, Neil Patrick Harris injects some badly needed levity, playing his scenes with a knowing, slightly mischievous charm that suggests he understands exactly how ridiculous this all is. He manages to carve out a few genuinely entertaining moments, even if the script doesn’t quite deserve the effort. Mary-Kate Olsen, meanwhile, fully commits to Kendra’s offbeat energy, embracing the character’s oddball unpredictability in a way that at least keeps things from feeling completely lifeless. Unfortunately, these performances register as brief flashes of personality in a film that never builds any real momentum, like sparks hitting damp pavement and fizzling out before they can ignite anything worthwhile.

“This movie is such a bummer, I’m going to retire from acting.”

In conclusion, Beastly isn’t a disaster so much as a missed opportunity dressed up in trendy clothes. The idea of reimagining Beauty and the Beast through the lens of modern teenage obsession with image had real potential, and you can see flashes of that intention buried under the surface. But intention doesn’t carry a film. Weak character development, inconsistent tone, and a baffling mix of realism and fantasy leave it feeling hollow. It wants to say something about inner beauty and personal growth, yet never convinces you that its central character has earned either. What’s left is a glossy, awkward retelling that gestures toward meaning without ever quite grasping it.

Onibaba (1964) – Review

Few horror films slither under your skin quite like Onibaba. Kaneto Shindō’s tale of wartime desperation, lust, and moral decay feels at once ancient and timeless. A fever dream of sex and survival set in a world where human cruelty makes ghosts redundant. Stark, sensual, and shot in eerie black-and-white splendour, it’s a film that transforms a windswept field of reeds into the gates of hell itself.

In 14th-century Japan, not far from Kyoto, two women—a mother-in-law (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura)— eke out a grim existence amid the chaos of civil war. As soldiers flee through the endless sea of reeds, the women ambush them, murder them, strip them of armour and weapons, and toss the corpses into a deep pit hidden in the tall grass. Their grim routine is interrupted only when they take their loot to a wily merchant named Ushi (Taiji Tonoyama), who trades them food and lewd propositions. The world outside is disintegrating, but the reeds whisper that survival, however monstrous, must go on.

“It’s a living.”

One day, a familiar face returns: Hachi (Kei Satō), a neighbour who had gone to war with the older woman’s son, Kishi. When the women ask about Kishi’s fate, Hachi grimly admits that they deserted the army, and Kishi was killed while stealing food. The mother-in-law blames Hachi for her son’s death and warns the younger woman to stay away from him. Naturally, this only makes the younger woman want him more, because nothing spices up forbidden love like a haunted swamp and the constant threat of starvation.

Splendour in the Grass.

Hachi and the younger woman’s nightly escapades soon become the talk of the reeds. She sprints through the grass like an Olympic athlete just to get some action, while her mother-in-law grows furious and jealous, worried that she will be left to die alone. When seduction and pleading fail to stop the affair, the older woman turns to supernatural measures. Enter a lost samurai general (Jūkichi Uno), wearing a grotesque Hannya mask to protect his supposedly beautiful face. She kills him, steals his mask, and discovers his face beneath is a nightmare of rot and ruin. Inspired, she dons the mask to terrify her daughter-in-law away from her lover.

Yep, that would scare me straight.

The deception works, for a while. But as rain falls and passions flare, nature itself seems to turn against the older woman. Her mask fuses to her face, her trick becomes her curse, and the line between demon and human blurs into a moral quagmire. When she begs her daughter-in-law to help remove the mask, her flesh tears away with it, revealing a monstrous visage beneath. The younger woman, convinced her mother-in-law has truly become a demon, flees into the night. The older woman follows, shouting, “I’m human!” as they leap across the pit, the final boundary between sin and damnation, before the screen cuts to black.

This is something right out of E.C. comics. 

Stray Observations:

• The reed field was real and enormous—director Kaneto Shindō shot on location in sweltering heat, where the cast had to dodge snakes and mosquitoes. That’s a solid work ethic.
• Hachi is basically the horniest man in medieval Japan, and the younger woman runs to him like she’s training for Onibaba: Tokyo Drift.
• The “pit of death” is never explained—was it natural? A sinkhole? The world’s worst well? Either way, it’s a convenient plot device and a health hazard.
• The mother-in-law states, “We’ve done nothing wrong. No demon can come after us.” I guess multiple murders weren’t considered “wrong” back in feudal Japan.
• That mask? Based on an actual Noh theatre mask used to represent jealous female spirits. It’s beautiful, creepy, and cursed—a triple threat.
• The demon mask in Onibaba was so creepy it gave William Friedkin ideas; he basically said, “What if this nightmare had a cameo in The Exorcist?” and thus, the white-faced demon was born.

Behold, the Japanese Pazuzu!

Kaneto Shindō directs Onibaba like a ritual etched in flesh and shadow. The film’s pacing is hypnotic—repetitive by design—drawing viewers into the same endless loop of violence and desire that ensnares its characters. His camera doesn’t merely observe the reeds; it breathes with them. The landscape itself seems alive, whispering, moaning, moving in rhythm with lust, guilt, and fear. Shindō’s horror comes not from sudden shocks but from suffocating atmosphere, the terror of being trapped in a godless world where the reeds always grow back, no matter how many bodies lie rotting beneath them.

“Did I discover a plot hole?”

Kiyomi Kuroda’s cinematography is nothing short of exquisite. The high-contrast black and white accentuates both the sensuality and savagery of the story. Light flickers across wet skin, blades of grass glint like knives, and shadows seem to devour the characters whole. The scenes of the women navigating the reeds at night are among the most striking in all of Japanese cinema, like watching ghosts haunt the living. Every frame could be mistaken for a still photograph, yet the restless motion of wind and grass keeps the film alive, pulsing with primitive energy.

Every shot is a postcard of beauty and darkness.

While Onibaba is often categorized as a horror film, it transcends genre boundaries. It sits comfortably alongside Kwaidan (1964) and Kuroneko (1968)—also by Shindō—as part of Japan’s rich tradition of folk-inspired horror that blurs the line between ghost story and moral allegory. Unlike Western horror, which often externalizes evil in monsters or murderers, Onibaba internalizes it; the true horror comes from within. The supernatural here is psychological, born from hunger, jealousy, and fear of abandonment. It’s as much a feminist parable as a ghost story—an examination of women reduced to savagery by a world that has stripped them of everything else.

Fear is the mind killer.

In Japanese cinema, Onibaba occupies a fascinating middle ground between the postwar realism of Kurosawa and the surrealism of Kobayashi or Teshigahara. It’s grounded in historical suffering but elevated by mythic imagery. Shindō uses folklore not as escapism but as confrontation: a way of showing that even in the absence of warlords and spirits, humans are more than capable of becoming demons on their own.

We all have our own masks. 

In conclusion, Onibaba remains one of the great works of Japanese horror, not for its scares, but for its raw, poetic exploration of human depravity. It’s erotic, brutal, and strangely beautiful, a film that asks whether damnation is something we earn or something we inherit. In the end, the reeds keep swaying, the pit keeps yawning, and humanity keeps falling in.

Matango (1963) – Review

Sometimes Japanese horror goes for ghostly chills, sometimes for kaiju-sized spectacle. 1963’s Matango, however, takes the road less travelled: stranding a group of bourgeois day-trippers on a rotting island and feeding them psychedelic mushrooms until they lose their humanity and their dignity. Directed by Ishirō Honda, best known for Godzilla, this damp, mouldy little nightmare is equal parts survival tale, psychological study, and “Just Say No” campaign ad, with mushrooms playing the role of heroin, LSD, and dessert buffet all in one.

We open in a Tokyo psychiatric ward, where Professor Kenji Murai (Akira Kubo) is being grilled by doctors about how he ended up a gibbering wreck. He tells them his story: he went on a little yacht outing with his friends, because nothing says relaxation like day-drinking at sea with your boss, a spoiled singer, and a smarmy writer. Along for the ride: industrialist Masafumi Kasai (Yoshio Tsuchiya), skipper Naoyuki Sakuda (Hiroshi Koizumi), shipmate Senzō Koyama (Kenji Sahara), celebrity writer Etsurō Yoshida (Hiroshi Koizumi), songbird Mami Sekiguchi (Kumi Mizuno), and wholesome student Akiko Sōma (Miki Yashiro). Naturally, a storm blows in, because nobody in Japanese cinema ever rents a boat and has a nice time.

Safety Tip: Don’t brag that your boat is unsinkable.

Shipwrecked and hungry, the gang stumble onto an island where the mushrooms are man-sized, the water is fresh, and the vibe is “Gilligan’s Island” if Gilligan had a fungal infection. They soon discover a derelict research vessel, once home to scientists studying the effects of radiation, now transformed into a mouldy mausoleum of bad decisions. The logbook inside, half-rotted but still legible, warns them not to eat the mushrooms. A note, Murai, the resident voice of reason, takes very seriously. He insists the scientists went mad after consuming them. Naturally, no one listens, because otherwise this would just be a short educational film called Mushrooms: Don’t Do It.

“Could be worse, it could be haunted.”

The cracks in the group widen faster than a mushroom cap in a rainstorm. Kasai hoards the food like a corporate dragon, Yoshida starts losing his grip on reality, and Koyama still dreams of turning a profit even while starving on a deserted island. Soon enough, the crew are at each other’s throats: betrayals, hogtied rich guys, a pistol-waving writer threatening violence, basically, your average yacht party gone wrong. By the time Mami starts luring people into the woods to feast on fungi like a woodland temptress, it’s clear they’re not escaping with their sanity—or their humanity—intact.

Peer pressure on Mushroom Island.

Eventually, Kasai joins the shroom rave, hallucinating Tokyo nightlife as he munches his way into a mushroom monster. Akiko too, falls to temptation, with Murai desperately trying to pull her back before realizing it’s hopeless. The island’s “residents” are revealed: once-humans, now fungal freaks, swaying in the mist like they’re at an eternal, moist Burning Man. Murai barely escapes by yacht, but the real horror is yet to come: back in Tokyo, he’s already sprouting the first signs of fungus. He concludes, with eerie calm, that humanity isn’t much different from mushroom people anyway. Somewhere in Japan, a PSA about “magic mushrooms” writes itself.

“Go ask Alice. When she’s ten feet tall.”

Stray Observations:

• Everyone immediately ignores the “Don’t Eat the Mushrooms” rule, which is the entire plot of the movie.
• At one point, the group actually cleans mould off the wrecked ship with cleaning products—as if Lysol is going to save them from radioactive fungus.
• They find one of those Hollywood rifles, the kind that has unlimited ammunition. Sadly, it’s not all that effective against mushroom people.
• Honda originally wanted the mushroom creatures to be more grotesque, but Toho demanded they be softened so they wouldn’t scare children. (As if they weren’t already nightmare fuel.)
• This movie was marketed in the U.S. as Attack of the Mushroom People, which sounds more like the name of a Scooby-Doo episode.

“We need some meddling kids and a dog.”

Ishirō Honda was no stranger to cinematic catastrophe, but Matango represented a turn toward something far bleaker than giant monster smackdowns. Gone are the city-crushing spectacles of Godzilla or the patriotic optimism of Mothra. Instead, Honda leans into slow decay: an island of rot, a group of increasingly desperate castaways, and the horrifying suggestion that surrendering to pleasure—even when you know it’s self-destructive—might be the most human instinct of all. It’s survival horror before the term existed, laced with postwar anxieties about nuclear fallout and moral collapse.

Danger: Mad Science at Work.

Hajime Koizumi’s cinematography deserves credit for transforming a single soundstage island into a damp, oppressive purgatory. The mist rolls endlessly, the jungle seems alive, and the shipwreck is one of the great haunted sets of Japanese horror cinema. But while the mood is strong, the special effects are another matter: the mushroom people costumes wobble, bulge, and flap like papier-mâché parade floats left out in the rain. What should be terrifying is instead oddly goofy, which paradoxically makes them creepier, because they suggest bodies and minds warped into grotesque parodies of themselves.

Lord of the Flies Mushroom Version. 

Placed within the larger landscape of Japanese horror in the 1960s, Matango is something of an anomaly. Where ghost stories like Kwaidan and The Ghost of Yotsuya drew from folklore and kabuki tradition, Honda’s film feels firmly modern, even cynical, rooted in the atomic age and consumerist decay. It’s less about revenge from beyond the grave and more about how people, when pushed, will devour each other, or anything they can find. In that sense, Matango is less a horror story than an allegory, and one that feels unsettlingly timeless.

“Curiouser and curiouser!”

In conclusion, Matango may not boast the spectacle of Honda’s kaiju epics or the elegance of Japan’s classic ghost tales, but it stands as one of the strangest and most haunting horror entries of its era. The pacing can feel a little too deliberate, taking its time to reach the full-blown mushroom people madness, but that slow burn seeps into your bones. It’s equal parts camp, cautionary tale, and bleak moral parable, proving that sometimes the scariest monsters aren’t atomic lizards but the choices we make when we’re hungry, desperate, and surrounded by mushrooms.