In 1960 Ishikawa Yoshihiro, who had apprenticed under Shintoho harbormaster Nakagawa Nobuo, made his directorial debut with The Ghost Cat Of Otama Pond (Kaibyo Otama-ga-ike). The story - a young couple is caught in a web of ghostly revenge, with a black cat serving as a conduit between the worlds of the living and dead - is familiar from the era’s horror films, Nakagawa’s included, though the sumptuous production, as well as the use of color, is rare for a film by a Shintoho first-timer.
Nakagawa’s influence can be seen in everything from the use of other-worldly shades of red and green, also found in Ghost Story Of Yotsuya, to the shadowy period atmospherics of the “ghost mansion,” supplied by art director Kurosawa Haruyasu, a frequent Nakagawa collaborator. The film’s theatricality, from the sets to the performance styles, also echoes Nakagawa in his more Kabuki-esque moods.
These stylistic borrowings cannot quite disguise the fact that the master is not at the helm. Nonetheless, Ishikawa learned his lessons well - and delivers shocks and chills that would have done his teacher proud.
A young couple, Tadahiko (Date Shozaburo) and Keiko (Kitazawa Noriko), become lost while walking in the mountains, coming back again and again to the same mysterious pond. With a thunderstorm approaching they follow a black cat to an abandoned house, where they take shelter. But after seeing the spooky reflection of an old woman in a well, Keiko falls ill with a fever. A priest tells her she has been possessed by a cat spirit that resides in the pond - and will die unless the spirit is exorcised.
Flash back to feudal times. Heavily taxed villagers pressure the headman, Shinbei, to ask the high-handed magistrate for relief.
Meanwhile, the headman’s son, Yachimaru (Date Shozaburo in a double role) is in love with Kozasa (Kitawaza Noriko again) the daughter of the scheming, unscrupulous Gensai (Numata Yoichi). Among Gensai’s long list of crimes is his plot, hatched with the magistrate, to murder the headman and dump his body in Otama Pond.
Blood is washed with blood and soon the entire family - Yachimaru, his sister Akino and their grandmother - join Shinbei in death. The only exception is the family cat, Tama, who becomes an agent for ghostly revenge.
Mark Schilling