rating:
a.k.a. Kyuketsu dokuro sen
(lit. Vampire Skeleton Ship)
company: Shochiku Films
year: 1968
runtime: 80′
director: Hiroshi Matsuno
cast: Kikko Matsuoka, Masumi Okada,
Yasunori Irikawa, Ko Nishimura,
Nobuo Kaneko, Norihiko Yamamoto
writers: Kyuzo Kobayashi
and Kikuma Shimoiizaki
cinematography: Masayuki Kato
music: Noboru Nishiyama
not on home video in the USA
order this title from Amazon.co.jp

This 1968 horror effort from Shochiku may not be the most obscure of pre-70s Japanese genre stuffs, but it’ll do in a pinch.  Released day and date with the same company’s oft overlooked Genocide – War of the Insects, this tale of ghostly vengeance emanating from a mysterious fog-bound ship received little in the way of attention in the United States or elsewhere upon release, and doesn’t appear to had any kind of wide distribution anywhere outside Japan.  Though far form rare (Shochiku released the film on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD – the latter of which has seen no fewer than three budget priced re-releases in the past few years), The Living Skeleton still rates as ‘unknown’ for all but the most ardent of genre cinephiles – a sad fact well deserving of change.

Effectively the last of the short run of genre efforts Shochiku produced in 1967 and 1968, The Living Skeleton looks to have also been the most tightly budgeted, not that this hampers it in the least.  Minimalist design and a utilization of real locations coupled with an intelligent application of black and white ‘Scope photography help lend much-needed effectiveness to the film’s bizarre series of events.

The tale begins on the freighter Dragon King, which has been taken over by a motley band of good-for-nothings (led by a mysterious scarred man in sunglasses) looking to get their hands on the cargo of gold the ship is carrying.  The passengers and crew, their legs bound by shackles and chains, are gathered on deck, where they are gleefully massacred by the thieves.  With the witnesses dead and the gold theirs, the murderous thugs set the Dragon King drifting out across the vast Pacific.

Three years later all is quiet on the Japanese coast.  In a small seaside church lives Saeko (Kikko Matsuoka, Black Lizard and You Only Live Twice), who was taken in by kindly priest (Masumi Okada, The Space Giants) after her only living family, her sister Yoriko, disappeared under mysterious circumstances three years earlier.  Moody and frequently depressed, Saeko divides her time between serving the church that took her in and cavorting with her would-be suitor, young restaurant owner Mochizuki (Yasunori Irikawa).  Of course things can’t stay quiet forever, and a while out on a fun-filled afternoon dive Saeko and Mochizuki stumble upon a gaggle of floating skeletons, all chained together by their feet.  Such a discovery can only be an omen of bad things to come and soon the Dragon King itself, enshrouded in ethereal fog, appears just offshore.

Strangely drawn to the ghostly freighter, Saeko convinces Mochizuki to take her out to it just as a storm erupts around them.  Mochizuki is left to his own devices when their motorboat capsizes, forcing him to head back to shore to seek the help of the priest.  Saeko manages to make it onboard, however, where she finds many more chained skeletons and the captain’s log, which reveals his fear that some enterprising pirates may be after his prized cargo.  The sounds of a whimpering woman draw Saeko’s attention away from the book and towards the passenger cabins.  There, and with no small mount of surprise, she finds her long lost sister, Yoriko (also Kikko Mitsuoka) . . .

Elsewhere in the area are living the disbanded cadre of murderers, having split their treasure and gone into hiding.  Suetsugu (actor and television cooking personality Nobuo Kaneko, Goke – Body Snatcher From Hell) has taken to running a popular cabaret, where he must frequently contend with former cohort Ejiri, who is being steadily destroyed by his compulsive gambling and alcoholism.  Another has become a realtor, still another a salvage diver (Noriyuki Yamamoto, Goke – Body Snatcher From Hell).  One by one the men are haunted, by visions of the Dragon King, ghostly bats and the spirit of the murdered Yoriko.  Soon they are threatened by a spate of accidents.  Suetsugu is nearly killed when a gas leaks into his home while the salvage diver is strangled to death by the chained and floating skeletons while on the job.

Before long Suetsugu is the only member of the co-conspirators left alive.  He travels to the church where Saeko had been living and confronts the priest there, unmasking him to reveal a familiar scarred face . . .  Convinced that the present threats to their existence originate from the Dragon King and anxious to put an end to them once and for all, the pair take to sea, unware of what deadly surprises await them onboard.

A big part of what separates Shochiku’s trio of cult horrors from the multitude of contemporaneous efforts is their rejection of camp sensibilities in favor of unwavering and oppressive nihilism.  The end of the 60s was as tumultuous a time period as any in recent history, a time of escalating Cold War tensions and of social unrest both within Japan and elsewhere.  Goke – Body Snatcher From Hell and Genocide – War of the Insects were more direct in their politics (both voice opposition to the Vietnam war and feature apocalyptic nuclear imagery), and while The Living Skeleton makes no overt comment on the time in which it was made it certainly reflects the sense of dread and unease that pervaded it.

Even with the primary setting being a church, The Living Skeleton is void of either hope or forgiveness.  Yoriko is gunned down by a future priest in the act of pleading for the lives of her fellow passengers, an act her sister Saeko refuses to forgive in favor of delivering a violent supernatural revenge.  It’s important to note that Saeko, in turn, receives no forgiveness once her revenge is through – she stays aboard the crippled and sinking Dragon King, choosing to spend eternity with those who suffered before her.  Saeko’s lover Mochizuki is left entirely alone, a common thread in Shochiku horror, having seen the world he knew destroyed in a single night.  It may not be apocalyptic in the same sense as Goke‘s alien extermination or Genocide‘s insect swarms and mushroom clouds, but its as unsettling on a personal level as either.

The argument could be made that The Living Skeleton is anti-Christian outright, its only religious character proving to be a deceitful, murderous and irredeemably nasty individual who harbors a fetishistic desire for the young woman in his care.  It could also be read, more aptly I think, as a wider statement on the godlessness of man.  Unfortunately, the writing by Kikuma Shimoiizaka and Goke alum Kyuzo Kobayashi leaves the parsing of themes within The Living Skeleton a difficult undertaking at best.  The exposition, as was the case in Genocide – War of the Insects, is a disjointed mess at times, making it hard to follow basic plot developments much less divulge the meanings thereof.

For all the difficulties it may pose from a critical perspective The Living Skeleton‘s frequent illogic does help to re-enforce the sense that the supernatural is afoot, making possible any manner of strange happenings that would be ludicrous under normal circumstances.  Indeed, when Suetsugu and the de-masked priest descend upon the Dragon King they leave the natural world behind entirely, willingly wandering into its hellish depths and ignorantly welcoming whatever torments await.  Said torments are of Shochiku’s usual bizarre variety, chief among them being a crazed living-dead doctor (the newlywed husband of Yoriko, played by Ko Nishimura, Sword of Doom) who dines on the flesh of the dead and has a strangely huge collection of acid-filled medical flasks.  It is the latter that prove the end of the Dragon King, melting it away in the most impressive of the film’s few special effect sequences.

However stringent the budgetary limits on The Living Skeleton may have been, it manages a handsome and atmospheric aesthetic that bests that of many of its contemporaries.  Hiroshi Matsuno (a talented television and film director with one piddly credit listed at the IMDB) and photographer Masayuki Kato embellish the iffy drama with ample doom and gloom, filling the monochrome ‘Scope vista with haunting images of long dim corridors and ghostly ships on the horizon.  Composer Noboru Nishiyama provides a suspiciously derivative but none the less effective score punctuated with somber harmonica and guitar riffs.  At times it mirrors Ennio Morricone’s work on Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, which would begin its theatrical release a month later in December of 1968, and John Barry’s earlier contributions to the James Bond franchise.

The Living Skeleton is readily available as a Region 2 DVD release from Shochiku, which presents the film in a wonderful anamorphic widescreen transfer.  The release is bereft of either English audio or subtitles, unfortunately, and no English friendly alternatives seem to be available at the moment.  Still, The Living Skeleton is a wonderful piece of forgotten genre cinema ripe for rediscovery, especially for those willing to overlook its narrative inconsistencies – language barrier be damned.  Recommended.