Yatsuhaka-mura

This may be a story about a supernatural curse, or a murder mystery with a naturalistic explanation, or both; you don't know for sure until the end. It plays as a fusion of the two. A couple of the characters are as weird as the eerie cave where the revenge story plays itself out to the end. Sometimes the movie is like a dynastic soap opera, sometimes it delves into Hammer Films territory, as in the gory flashback showing the massacre of the eight warriors whose spirits may--or may not--be taking revenge on the descendants of their betrayers. The story is about the probable last of the line, who is drawn to the village and becomes embroiled in family clashes, mysterious deaths, dark secrets, and at the end, the hostility of a (not very convincing) mob. The actor in the role is compelling, and the movie is interesting enough, but very long for its story, making several of its points over and over, as if it were in rough cut (and with all that, at least one (possibly) supernatural figure goes unexplained). The photography is of the period, with too many zoom shots. All in all, the effect is of a B picture that didn't know when to quit.