Kaidan Honsho nanafushigi

With the current steady increase in Western knowledge of and interest in the Japanese supernatural, I think this film could earn a much wider audience. It's the tale of a samurai who encounters two fishermen who have trapped a mischievous tanuki and tell him they plan to kill and eat it. (Tanuki, or raccoon dogs, are real Japanese animals, but they are also a common form taken by shapeshifting prankster yokai, and this is one of those.) In his late wife's honor, the samurai buys the creature from the fishermen and sets it free. That night the tanuki, in the form of a human girl, appears in his room telling him of its gratitude and promising to protect him forevermore. Meanwhile, the samurai's no-good, drunken, womanizing son is plotting with his girlfriend to do away with dad and inherit his fortune... but the supernatural protector isn't having that! There follows a cavalcade of murders, apparitions, plots and counterplots, and a final battle in which a slew of classic yokai show up to wreak havoc. It is great, spooky fun, with a very satisfying ending. I wouldn't call it horror, but any fan of the "Yokai Monsters" films or Miyazaki's "Pom Poko" will feel right at home with it.