Based on a kabuki play written in 1825 by Nanboku Tsuruya, The Ghost of Yotsuya (Japanese Title: Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan) is one of the most popular and famous of all Japanese ghost stories. It has been filmed countless times over the years but Nobuo Nakagawa’s 1959 version of The Ghost of Yotsuya might be the definitive version. The story is one of fate, passion, betrayal and revenge – all classic themes of kabuki theatre and Greek tragedy.
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Montague Rhodes James, better known as M.R. James (1862-1936), was a celebrated author and medievalist scholar from the U.K. who is best known today for his many ghost stories. Horror film buffs in the U.S. were first exposed to his work when director Jacques Tourneur adapted his short story “Casting the Runes” for the 1957 film Curse of the Demon (it was titled Night of the Demon in the U.K.). To date, that still reminds the most famous M.R. James theatrical feature but that doesn’t mean the author’s work hasn’t been adapted in other memorable renditions, most of them as made-for-television productions from England. One of the most famous is James’s short story, “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” from 1904, which has been filmed twice by the BBC, one in 1968 entitled Whistle and I’ll Come to You starring Michael Horden and a remake from 2010 with the same title that featured John Hurt.
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Remember the 1984 comedy All of Me, directed by Carl Reiner? In that film, Lily Tomlin plays a dying heiress who plans to have her soul transferred into the body of a younger woman but something goes wrong in the process and she ends up inhabiting the body of an attorney (Steve Martin). Imagine a horror fantasy variation of that premise and you have Li Gui Chan Shen (English title: Split of the Spirit, 1987), a Taiwanese film from director Fred Tan.
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Ever since the international box office success of The Exorcist in 1973, horror films dealing with religion and priests have usually focused on demonic possession. This trend even continues today as witnessed by the release of The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) and The Exorcism (2024), both starring Russell Crowe. A refreshingly different approach to this often formulaic subgenre is L’Arcano Incantatore (English title: The Arcane Sorcerer), a sadly overlooked but richly atmospheric period thriller from Italian director Pupi Avati, which premiered in 1996 but never received an official theatrical release in the U.S.
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Cinema Sojourns 