Director Kevin Connor telegraphs every element of the simple plot: a ghost love triangle from 1840 Kyoto is doomed to remain at the house where husband killed his wife, her lover and himself. New tenants Ted (Edward Albert), an American photo-journalist in Japan plus his wife Laura (Susan George) and daughter Amy (Amy Barrett) fall prey to the pesky ghosts, who ultimately involve family friend Alex (Doug McClure) in a sexy and bloody reprise of the triangle.
Otami (Mako Hattori), the original adulterous wife, set everything in motion by stealing an ivory-carved fetish from a witch, that Laura finds in the house and keeps as a talisman.
Pic plods along, with the transparent, double-exposure ghosts periodically moving into and possessing the leads' bodies, while causing typically unsettling phenomena in the nondescript house. Only scare occurs when Amy and a femme friend are subjected one night to a plague of insects and large "possessed" crabs, a throwback to the cute rubber beasties Connor previously spotlighted in his series of Doug McClure sci-fiers such as "The Land That Time Forgot".
Contrived final reel is quite funny, with a local Zen monk performing a "house exorcism" on cue, but Ted disobeying orders and letting Alex in, allowing the ghosts to scurry back into the house. At first the ghosts act as a rooting section for the brawling Americans, but then possess their bodies to turn the fight into a karate match and ultimately a bloodbath.
Cast is earnest in this silly assignment, with George delivering a convincing U. S. accent and shedding her clothes ably (along with the other leads) for okay softcore sex scenes. Studio work (at Toei) and views of Japan are mundane. Malevolent "House" titles in the horror genre remain a durable format, with pic falling in the realm of Dan Curtis's "Burnt Offerings" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" plus a nod to all those Nipponese ghost pictures such as "Kwaidan".
My review was written in May 1982 after a Midtown Manhattan screening.
