The Vampire Doll

NO SPOILERS

If you like Hammer style Vampire films.Give it a shot.TOHO has three Dracula films.This one, Lake Of Dracula and Evil of Dracula.All three are excellent in their original language versions.Now, don't expect "Victorian Era" vampire horror here, like in the Hammer films.This is Japanese after all.All three films have great atmosphere and some very creepy scenes.I write this review for this particular one because it has no other reviews.And it deserves one. TOHO is better known for its giant monster flicks(Godzilla etc.) I would assume most would shy away from a TOHO "Vampire" flick.Don't!! Its well worth your time.Very much out of character for TOHO and a darn good effort on their part.Its a shame many horror fans don't know of this or the other two titles.Its just one guys opinion that these films belong in any "Vampire" film lover's collection.

Kazuhiko Sagawa (Atsuo Nakamura) returns from the USA to Tokyo and immediately travels to the countryside in a stormy night to see his fiancée Yûko Nonomura (Yukiko Kobayashi) in an isolated house in the woods. Her mother Shidu Nonomura (Yôko Minakaze) tells that Yûko died in a car accident two weeks ago. Kazuhiko spends the night in the house and during the night he overhears and sees Yûko in the nearby cemetery. A couple of days later, his sister Keiko Sagawa (Kayo Matsuo) convinces her fiancé Hiroshi Takagi (Akira Nakao ) to seek her brother out at Yûko's house where they disclose the mystery of the Nonomura's family.

"Yûrei yashiki no kyôfu: Chi wo sû ningyô", a.k.a. "The Vampire Doll", is an atmospheric vampire movie produced by Toho studios. It is interesting to see the Japanese view of vampire and how scary the make-up is. The plot is satisfactory and will not disappoint any fan of the genre. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Boneca Vampira" ("The Vampire Doll")

Note: On 14 August 2021, I saw this film again.

Fascinating attempt by Toho to capitalize on recent Western vampire movies like the Hammer flicks. This movie has all the gothic trappings one would expect from its Western counterparts, but folds in a dose of the kind of wacky storytelling the characterizes other Japanese horror movies. The Vampire Doll seems pretty conventional (not in a bad way), until out of nowhere we get a bunch of exposition that tells the strangest, out of left field backstory, which,we learn, led up to the events of the movie.

Stylistically, the biggest mistake here is the overuse of day for night shooting, which also happens to be a failing of a lot of the Hammer movies. Nonetheless, between the fog and the excellent soundtrack with very creepy wailings and wind, this one is well worth seeing for fans of Gothic supernatural horror. Lots of fun.

The first film in Yamamoto Michio's "The Bloodthirsty Trilogy" is usually viewed by fans of macabre cinema as the weakest of the three. Personally I find it stunning. Fully titled "The Fear of the Ghost House : The Vampire Doll" ("Yûrei yashiki no kyôfu: Chi wo sû ningyô") , Michio wasn't expected to turn in anything special for Toho (makers of the Godzilla films). just a simple pot-boiler rip-off of a typical European Horror.

Writers Hiroshi Nagano and Ei Ogawa however delivered a script which relied heavily on traditional Japanese ghost stories, which Michio then shot on Gothic style sets (the house, for example, is straight out of a Hammer, with oil portraits and suits of armour) with nods to western vampire tropes. The mix they created is intoxicating: full of atmosphere, genuinely creepy, and, in places, with unexpected scares of the quality of the earlier "Les Diabolics" or the later original "Ringu" ("Ring"). Highly recommended for anyone who likes classic horror, 1960s Hammer, or Asian Horror.

After a strong success on European market from Hammer horror pictures, Toho decides to make their own Vampires movies, conceived as trilogy this very first enterprise "Yûrei yashiki no kyôfu: Chi wo sû ningyô" wasn't properly a Hammer production alike, it was adapted on Japanese folklore, the Vampire doesn't bite their victims, actually they living from black birds's blood, a girl from a cursed family, falling in love for a man, however she dies afterwards for an unknown reason, she becomes a vampire, his boyfriend looking for her and disappears without a trace, the his sister worried for his sudden disappearance asking helping for his boyfriend, at this point they find the place where an old and cold woman as a mother of the dead girl, they suspicious that woman didn't say the whole truth and starting making a investigation, too much valuable tale, surprisingly good!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.