Nabeshima kaibyô-den

Samurai Ureo Egawa is slight of form, but smart. He seeks to curry favor with his lord by buying a reproduction of a renowned game board over which a death had occurred and which, according to legend, mus have a death for every game played on it. He gives the board to his lord, who is enchanted. When people begin to die, there are rumors of a deadly cat monster, and people become terrified of the critters.

Japanese horror movies seem weirder than western ones in part because the mythology behind them is not as well known. Even more, they lack the over-riding Christian beliefs that suffuse so much of western art. G*d is not good, there is no over-riding sense of order, and the evil spirits can attack us not only sporadically, but when they will. Add in a central authority that is uncaring or ineffectual, and it's every man for himself.

But do these details make movies like Kunio Watanabe better? Or are we just fascinated by the unfamiliar?