Synopsis
A ship is attacked at sea for its cargo by a group of thieves who murder a newlywed doctor and rape his wife. Three years later her twin sister is kidnapped by the same pirates, who begin to die strange deaths...
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Living Skeleton
Cast
Director
Producer
Writers
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Cinematography
Assistant Director
Lighting
Production Design
Composer
Sound
Studio
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
Kyûketsu dokuro-sen, The Living Skeleton, O Esqueleto Vivo, El Barco De Los Esqueletos Vivientes, The living Skeleton, 吸血骷髅船
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
09 Nov 1968
- Theatrical
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Holy hell this is fantastic. The DNA of this movie feels so ahead of time in the way you can trace it forward to so much stuff I'm surprised it doesn't have a bigger following. I'm thinkin' Twin Peaks, The Fog, Lady Snowblood, fuckin' uhhhh Ghost Ship??? An absolutely perfect balance of artfully & patiently crafted, but still hokey "bats on strings" B-movie. 10 out of 10 October mood. Kikko Matsuoka big gothic Meiko Kaji energy.
Addendum: the original Japanese title for this translates to 'Bloodsucking Skull Boat' which makes me love this even more.
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After watching The Living Skeleton, I was so pumped to check out what other efforts director Hiroshi Matsuno had to offer. Surely, it would be a filmography of great gems like this. But, to my horror, he only has one other film to his name. What a shame, because The Living Skeleton is one of the most engagingly strange and atmospheric Japanese horror films of the 60s! The story begins with a blast of violence. A ship's crew being mowed down by out of control pirates. It then segues into a haunting ghostly revenge tale full of underwater skeletons and bats before throwing us some wild melty sci-fi twists in its final act. Kikko Matsuoka is an incredible presence in…
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Gloomy coastal, tragic love story with a double dose (because it's identical twins, get it) of revenge! This would make a great, creaky old haunted pairing with The Fog. I'll definitely be revisiting this sometime in like, I'm guessing late October? When the temperature finally drops below 60 degrees again. If that ever happens. Maybe it will not. Maybe there won't be an October. I'm kind of a bummer tonite, sorry.
I was going to also watch The X From Outer Space but might save that for tomorrow or next week. I'm reading Ruth Franklin's bio of Shirley Jackson and I just want to keep reading that until I pass out. The light woke me up at seven in the morning, wtf is that bs? Instead of sleeping in until ten or whatever. So I'm really tired. Also have lots of fun stuff to watch tomorrow for 70's horror!
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Viewing another Shochiku genre movie from the late 60’s came about due to-as happens sometimes-a recommendation from a Letterboxd mutual. In a comment, they mentioned that every other film in the When Horror Came to Shochiku DVD boxset was better than The X from Outer Space, singling out Goke, the Body Snatcher from Hell (something I’ll tackle either in September or October) and this picture. As nothing was on the agenda for last night, why not? The picture on the Criterion Channel stream was DVD-quality but as it was my only option…
The film wasn’t quite what I expected—not a negative by any means. The cold open is a band of modern pirates boarding a freighter and killing everyone on…
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Spooky revenge from beyond the grave, served up like a gothic fog in a monochromatic tomb.
The Living Skeleton starts right in the thick of it with a ship full of innocent people getting slaughtered by a ruthless gang. The ship disappears, the bodies are never found. 3 years later, one particular victim onboard has a twin sister still mourning the loss and wondering where she is.
Cue the underwater skeletons, deadly bats, and one massive haunted freighter named Dragon King and let this vengeance tale roll out like a Scooby Doo episode for the exploitation crowd.The main highlight here is the heaps of style. Like Mario Bava and Seijun Suzuki sweating over a meticulous cauldron, all moody shots…
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● Shibō Shū ● Mid-Year Challenge: Japanese June
Film: 13 of 30This movie is a love song to Western Horror. I immediately thought of Barbra Steele when I saw that beautiful girl. From then on familiar tinges of Hammer and Giallo seemed unmistakable. There's something about a ghost story that takes place on the water that feels like a different kind of haunting. The sea is so mysterious and holds secrets. I was reminded of familiar gothic atmospheres in films such as 'The Fog' and 'Night of the Seagulls' (as Fred Anderson also pointed out). Also the Hammer film 'The Snorkel' came to mind. There's something very simple but effective about the whole thing. The score rules and I just love this movie. That's all I have to say.
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“There’s trouble brewing onboard.”
The Doctor’s Wife
I hate to say it, but it’s true: Catholic priests in Japan can never be trusted. A waterlogged, salt and blood Shochiku sci-fi horror, with lots of Christian Cross imagery that points toward something unsettling, like the skeletons chained to the bottom of the sea, and the ghostly freighters lurking in the bay, and the rape/revenge doppelganger ghost seeking retribution on the the gold pirates who raided The Dragon King.
Take note, this should be played dark. Some legitimately creepy imagery, and a last 20 minutes that throw so many left field genre twists at the viewer (candlestick murder, masked boss, mummy girl, mad doctor) that it’s head spinning, in a good way. I appreciate Criterion dropping these bizarre, late 60s fright-films into their DVD Eclipse Series, but if this ever gets a high-def upgrade, I'll be running toward a rewatch. Those deep blacks deserve better.
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Shackled skeletons floating near the bottom of the sea. A cluster of bats fluttering around. A ghost ship on the horizon surrounded by an unnatural fog. A vengeful spirit approaching. The Living Skeleton is loaded with striking imagery as it tells its tale of revenge in which a group of pirates begins dying one by one after seeing the spirit of a woman they murdered years before. It's an atmospheric, melancholic, slow burn of a ghost story with a lovely, gothic visual aesthetic. I saw this referred to as nautical gothic (in an article by Nathaniel Thompson) and not only do I love that term but it's a perfect descriptor for this movie. I'd love to see Criterion upgrade this one to blu-ray from their old When Horror Came to Shochiku set.
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Petition to change the English title back to its original Japanese title which, if I’m reading the kanji correctly which, of course I am because it’s fucking kanji, literally translates to "Bloodsucking Skull Boat." I mean it wouldn’t magically make the movie anything more than slightly above average, but at least when you’re sitting around the campfire in a year or 50 telling your great grand kids about electricity and drinking water and road warrior and whatnot you can casually bring up like "hey so I saw this movie called The Living Skeleton when I was about your age." "sure thing, gramps." vs "hey so I saw this movie called fucking BLOODSUCKING SKULL BOAT when I was about your age."…
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A little dry but absolutely loaded with fake bats and dollar store skeletons
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Being the only film directed by Hiroshi Matsuno, The Living Skeleton has often been described as the love child of David Lynch's Twin Peaks and John Carpenter's The Fog. An atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, mixing elements of ghost stories, doppelgänger thrillers and mad-scientist flicks, married only by its unconventional direction, editing and beautiful black-and-white photography. From Matsuno's direction to Noburo Nishiyama's Morricone-esque music, it's an engagingly haunting, wild and eerie work, interspersed with bouts of violence and grim murder, all led by Kikko Matsuoka's incredible performance. Representing the peak of Shochiku's dalliance with horror convention, The Living Skeleton is a chilling and genuinely unnerving black-and-white update of the bygone Kaidan tradition.
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Wow wow wow! Prize for the funniest and most unhinged movie featuring ghosts I have seen this October:)
Which you wouldn‘t expect as it starts as quite a banal murder mystery/ but as it takes speed and momentum, it kind of leaves the train tracks so to say and there is a serious escalation in the level of unpredictability, cynicism, and even pure madness in it 😜, that was soooo gratifying.
Let me recap:A murder
More murders
1960s Hip twin sisters („Twins, Basil, twins“)
Some skeletons.
A villain that looks remarkably like Dr Evil / Blofeld in You Only Live Twice
A hot priest
A dog (as good an actor as that of Anatomy of a Fall I swear)…