User Reviews

Saeto (Kikko Matsuoka) had believed that her identical twin died when her ship went down in a typhoon. However, one day, while out scuba diving with her fiance, they discover skeletons connected by chains and begin to piece together what really happened to Yoriko.

This movie starts horrifyingly as we get the backstory: Armed pirates had commandeered Yoriko's ship in order to seize the gold bullion it had been carrying, and they mowed down all of the passengers in a hail of machine-gun fire. In begging the killers to stop, and by drawing attention to herself, Yoriko had made her own death worse.

This horrible truth shatters Saeto's ability to exist in the present. Haunted by the past, she cannot rest until she takes revenge. Her fiance Mochizuki (Yasunori Irikawa) is always with her, to soothe and support, as steadfast a comfort as the similarly sidelined lover in Carlos Saura's 1986 flamenco love epic "El Amor Brujo."

Running parallel to Saeto's deepening madness, this movie descends into confusion and chaos as it proceeds from its stunning opening scene. Though it lessens in power as it proceeds, its message is important. As author Judith Herman has noted in her classic book "Trauma and Recovery," trauma demands to tell its story.

LIVING SKELETON is a film I first discovered in 1974 when I read Dennis Gifford's PICTORIAL HISTORY OF HORROR MOVIES. I saw a photo of a fearful-looking woman with a weird skeleton coming up behind her. I have wanted to see this film ever since and now I finally have managed to see a subtitled copy. For those of you who have seen this photo I am referring to, (and from what I can discern, it is the only publicity photo ever used for this movie), I am afraid I must tell you that this shot is nowhere to be found in the final movie and was probably a paste-up created to send to magazines like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND but I am not sure LIVING SKELETON was ever distributed in the United States. I would assume U.S. distributors like A.I.P. probably figured they couldn't translate so dense a plot into English by dubbing and passed on it. That photo caused me to search out this film for years to come and now my search has finally been rewarded. Okay, now that I have addressed that subject, on to the actual movie itself. If you want to be surprised by seeing the movie for the first time as I was, please do not read any further because I cannot discuss the film without giving away certain details. The movie is well worth seeing so if you want to get it fresh, see the movie before reading the rest of this review.

A couple of people have mentioned similarities to John Carpenter's THE FOG and there are a few but I personally think they are minor. It might have inspired Carpenter if he saw it but although there are some common elements like derelict ships, fog and priests, that is about the only parts I found to be like the Carpenter film. Honestly, I didn't really understand the plot too much. The subtitles were obviously written by someone who did not use English as a native language and some of the translations are downright hilarious such as a guy being shot at who says, "It is boring". Really? I have never been shot at but I would think it would be anything but boring. The opening of this film seems very similar to that of GHOST SHIP (2002). From that point on, I kept seeing what appeared to be the same people killed and then walking around like nothing had ever happened. Some of the deaths are quite gruesome for 1968, although the Japanese were already way ahead of Americans in their acceptance of graphic violence. This film has wonderful black and white photography. Very moody and atmospheric. There is an air of gloom and doom from start to finish. The plot started off with me able to follow it but after awhile I just kind of gave up and enjoyed the pretty pictures, the fine music score and the nifty gore special effects which while not always realistic are still pretty shocking for their time. Various people get bumped off by what I presume was a ghost but I couldn't tell if good guys or bad guys were being killed. Most of the deaths were not that spectacular until the climax and the climax is a Lu-Lu. It's well worth seeing the movie for the climax alone. It does kind of wrap things up pretty tightly for a movie I didn't really understand for much of it's running time, I must say. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention and need to go watch it again - and it's worth watching again I believe. My final verdict on this film is that it doesn't make much sense but you shouldn't let that keep you from seeing it and as for the LIVING SKELETON itself, there isn't one, except in the title. There ARE skeletons mind you - just no living ones. It's the creepiest Japanese film I ever saw.

Troubled young woman Saeko (a fine and touching performance by the lovely Kikko Matsuoka) has a strong psychic bound with her twin sister who was murdered along with several other people on a ship by bloodthirsty pirates. A few years after said massacre the vengeful ghosts of the victims materialize to exact a harsh revenge on the folks who killed them.

Director Hiroki Matsuno keeps the absorbing story moving along at a steady pace, maintains a solemn tone throughout, and adroitly crafts a spooky gloom-doom atmosphere. Moreover, the seaside town setting and a dark take-no-prisoners sensibility -- one of the guilty tries to elude detection by passing himself off as a priest! -- further enhance the overall eerie mood. Masayuki Kato's sharp black and white cinematography offers several striking visuals. Only the hokey looking skeletons detract a bit from this otherwise sturdy and satisfying supernatural shocker.

Some times it takes 35 or more years to find the source of a picture thats haunted you since childhood. My Mom got me this illustrated history of horror films back in the early 1970's an in it was a picture of a frightened girl on the deck of ship terrorized by an odd skeleton. Its an odd picture (http://www.trashpalace.com/images/LivingSkeletonDVDR2.jpg) that made me want to know what the film was that went with it. (actually the image is not in the film and is just a publicity photo-possibly the only one since until recently its the only image I've seen, and recently I've only seen screen captures).

The problem seeing the film is that apparently its never been released here in the United States. I'm not sure why, though I'm guessing that the film's black and white cinematography was deemed a drawback for US release when most films were being released in color (this would have been released in the US 1969 at the earliest).I finally fund a copy of the film at the Wizard World convention in New York. It was sans subtitles but I could pretty much work out what was going on, and get creeped out by it.

The plot has to do with a bunch of pirates who kill everyone on board a ship and steal a treasure. Sometime later a woman, a relative of one of the victims, and her boyfriend end up setting in motion a series of events that begin to bring justice to the pirates, who are now on dry land, and herald the return of the ghostly ship.

This is a strange film that was eerily shot in black and white. The film balances light and shadow to fantastic effect. Much of the film seems to be an odd marriage of Japanese sensibilities and Western style images, with skeletons, bats, vampires, and a Christian church. The plot doesn't completely make sense as we are often in a world of dream logic. Images of the massacre haunt the people there as well as those caught in the supernatural web. Things are often not what they seem. The effect is not so much a straight forward film but a cinematic tone poem that gets under your skin.

I'm explaining this badly but if you pop this in and turn off the lights I think you'll find that the film will give you a few shivers Now to find a copy with English subtitles...