Kuroneko: Kaneto Shindō

In the dead of the forest waits a woman cloaked in white.  If you are alone, and if you are a samurai, she will invite you to her house where she lives with her young daughter.  Sake is served, pleasantries exchanged, and soon the young woman will take you in her arms.  You may notice a fleeting glimpse of charred flesh and singed clothes...but not for long.  By the time you are coupled with the daughter, it is too late; the trap is sprung.  For you have just fallen prey to a family of ghosts who in life were raped and murdered by samurai and have taken a vow to kill and drink the blood of all samurai. Soon the local lord grows restless and sends a powerful samurai to vanquish them.  If only it didn't turn out that the samurai was the son and husband of the two ghosts before he was kidnapped away from them...Such is the story of Kuroneko, a sinister ghost story of revenge and sorrow.  Director Kaneto Shindō uses almost no special effects, but instead uses smoke, fog, and people suspended from wires to pronounce the film's horror.  The film may be a simple ghost story, but Shindō takes it deadly serious.  He infuses the story with critiques of the samurai and feudal classes.  For instance, the local lord where the ghosts reside refuse to believe that samurai are the villains in this story.  He pompously believes that the samurai serve the lords who rule the land with grace and fairness.  Of course, he never leaves his palace, opting instead to send samurai after samurai to their deaths in pursuit of the ghosts.  Shindō films with all of the care and construction of an ikebana master.  For in this world, the social and class systems hide behind barriers of protocol and order to protect themselves from the vulgarities and horrors of their own doing.

8/10