Inugami no tatari

Made in the '70s when occult movies were in vogue in Japan. The style is carryover from the '60s movie, but the actors are all ME generation whom many are still active in the movie and TV industry.

Ryuji Kanou (Shinya Oowada) is an engineer from an uranium mining company who comes to a small village in Japan where he finds the uranium mine he's looking for. His company decides to mine the uranium, but the local god starts to kill all the people that are involved.

Word Inugami I think was popularized my notable Japanese science fiction writer Kazumasa Hirai in his Wolf Guy series novels. Inu is a dog, but Inugami can also be read as ookami, which can mean either great god, or a wolf. The story is a play on this word where a wolf god comes after the people who've destroyed its shrine and puts a curse (tatari) on them.

The production is good, but the style is dated by today's standards. The story as with many Japanese movies, doesn't run smoothly, and things happens rather abruptly, and randomly. First of all there's no central protagonist in this movie. One constant is the Inugami that's attacking everyone that it seem fit.

The movie probably has limited audience acceptance due to its heavily localized topic. If you're a fan of Japanese cult classics from the '60s and '70s, this probably will be a good movie to watch.