Director: Tokuzō Tanaka
Year: 1968
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Kaidan yukijorô
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After getting lost in the mountains, a man and his friend seek shelter in a strange cabin to ride out a terrible snowstorm, where he manages to survive thanks to the intervention of a mysterious woman who lives in the cabin and allows him to return to his village, haunted by her ghostly specter.
Review:
For the most part, there’s a lot to like with this one. Among the better elements of this one is the fantastic setup that allows the film to explore a fairly chilling series of events at play in its central storyline. Taking inspiration from the famous story about stranded travelers finding refuge in an abandoned shack in a snowstorm and saving one who is forced never to reveal what happened unless she returns to kill him personally, offers a quick way to get everything settled in fine form, where the first half plays out as a recreation of the story pretty much verbatim with some chilling visuals. Knowing what’s going on with the fabled story means that eventually she comes to meet him in human form to secretly uphold the promise and bring the whole thing around when they get married to complete the transaction, despite his knowledge of anything, is fine for the audience since it all plays into the fun storyline at play within here.
The second half, focusing on the different attempts on their relationship once the two come together as all manner of bribery, extortion, and blackmail tracking are brought to bear on them so that everyone can get at her for her beauty, allows this to have some intriguing ideas even if they don’t always come together. Most of this section doesn’t come together in the kind of interest that serves this one all too well, featuring only scant scenes of the witchy figure in the distance performing her spells and rituals, which make for the only real chilling genre work here, when the rest of the segment is spent on trying to find ways of splitting the couple up through any means possible. Most of this is just plain dull, centered on the same thing where the thugs use their influence to gain favor in her eyes, only for none of it to be worth the running time in this manner, when this story already worked better in an anthology, lowering this one overall.
Overview: ***/5
A really solid, if somewhat lighter on the horror, genre effort, there’s a lot to like here and enjoy, with some wholly worthwhile factors that are somewhat overcome by the flaws here that do bring this down. Those with an appreciation for this era of the genre, who are curious about it, or who aren’t bothered by anything will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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