Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit (1968) User Reviews

A cat and a swamp

[Angel_Peter · 7/10 · 3 March 2019]

An evil vassal kills his lord to take over the castle and the lords wife. The lords wife drown herself together with her beloved cat in the cursed swamp to avoid this fate.....

This is a haunting Black and white movie. I would not really call it scary but I think it is a good supernatural movie. Acting and fight scenes are also quite fine. The story is not one of the wonders of this world but fine enough for this kind of movie.

So who would I recommend this movie to? People who are interested in Japanese horror or super natural will most likely have a good time here if they can live with black and white and maybe not the best effects in the world.

Every bit as good as NOTLD

[JohnSeal · 8/10 · 22 December 2020]

There are only two entries in the '1968 horror films shot in black and white' sweepstakes, and they're both stone cold classics. Likely, though, you've only heard of one of them, a little flick from Pittsburgh entitled Night of the Living Dead. Ghost Cat of the Cursed Swamp is the other, a Japanese feature from Toei Studios set in the Shogunate Era and relating the difficulties encountered by the locals after a woman commits suicide in a swampy marsh. It doesn't sound like much, but as long as you can put up with some court melodrama you'll be richly rewarded by Ghost Cat's incredibly spooky atmosphere and parade of shocks, some of which are...genuinely shocking. Not to be missed.

Drag the waters

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 28 April 2023]

Held in conjunction with the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies' presentation of Alexandra West's multimedia lecture The Cat Came Back: Feline Familiars in the Horror Genre, the new 2K restoration of Bakeneko: A Vengeful Spirit screened this weekend at Salem Horror Fest.

Also known as Ghost Cat of the Cursed Pond, this explains what happens when Nabeshima Naoshige murders Ryuzoji Takafusa in an attempt to get his land, his power and his wife Lady Takafusa, who would rather drown herself and her cat familiar in a swamp than suffer underneath this man. Also: Takafusa is killed by being sealed up in clay.

Years later, Naoshige has learned nothing and tries to assault another woman, Yukiji (Kyoko Mikage), then claims that he will behead her entire family if she doesn't leave her fiancee Yuki Jonosuke (Kotaro Satomi) for him. The young lovers are faced with a horrible choice before they find Lady Takafusa's cat mud-caked cat on the shore. It has not forgotten the past and is thirsty for blood and ready to take revenge for the lives stolen by the rich and powerful. You get what you ask for when you anger the spirits of the swamp during the festival meant to appease them. As Yukiji and Yuki die in the swamp, the cat drinks deep of their plasma and sets into motion its horrific reprisal.

Soon, one of the many wives of Naoshige, Lady Hyuga (Machiko Yashiro) has clawed hands - yes, like a cat - and is feasting on the many severed arms of her victims.

Director and writer Yoshihiro Ishikawa covers this film in inky darkness and by the end, unleashes severed arms crawling for the dead, beheadings, psychotic freakouts and the entire family of Noashige paying for his behavior. Ishikawa also directed The Ghost Cat of Otama Pond and wrote Mansion of the Ghost Cat if you need more Kaibyo - ghost cat - films. There's also Kuroneko, Blind Woman's Curse and Hausu.

This one has a truly hateable villain, doomed heroines and that ghost cat whose eyes cast a shadow across everything in this film. A magical exploration of myth and cinema; one that I can't wait to watch again when Severin releases it this year.