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Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: January 10th, 2023.
Director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Cast: Naomi Tani, Misa Ohara, Taiji Tonoyama, Tomoko Mayama, Kôji Fujiyama
Year: 1975
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A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse – Movie Review:
Directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi and released by Toei in 1975, A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse takes place in the Japan of the late fifties where the government if clamping down on prostitution in Tokyo. This causes Genzô Kakinuma (Taiji Tonoyama), a Tokyo-based brothel owner, to turn his house of ill repute into a much classier Turkish bathhouse, keeping his stable of beautiful women employed and avoiding trouble with the local authorities. This doesn't really cut down on the skin trade, of course, as Kakinuma's new business model allows patrons to rent a room in the bathhouse with a female attendant where whatever happens behind closed doors remains their own business, but it at least gives the owner an out if the police catch anything untoward going on.
Yukino (Naomi Tani), however, is the one woman in his employ who isn't completely onboard. She's in love with Yûzô Shikauchi (Hideo Murota) who wants to take her and her younger sister, Mayumi (Misa Ohara), away from all of this. While Yukino believes that Yûzô's marriage proposal is earnest, what she doesn't realize is that he's heavily in debt to some local yakuza and for that reason she won't be getting out of her work at the bathhouse any time soon. What neither Yukino nor her employer know is that Yûzô is carrying on behind both their backs with Kakinuma's wife, Utae (Tomoko Mayama). While Yukino toils away at her job, her fiance rapes her sister and, when Yukino finds out and protests, she's beaten in retaliation. Making matters worse for the poor woman, it turns out that Yukino is pregnant with Yûzô's child, at which point she's bound and then beaten further, to the point where she miscarries and then dies from the assault. Yûzô and Utae hide her body behind a wall in the bathhouse.
As time goes on and business picks up, Genzô thinks things are going great with no idea what his wife has been a part of. Sadly for him, he turns out to be the murderous couple's next victim, which causes his daughter Natsuyo, (Terumi Azuma), to kill herself, but not before Yûzô sexually assaults her. While all of this is going on, Yukino's black cat starts acting strangely, as does Mayumi, who has taken her late sisters place as one of the establishment's most popular employees. From here, things get considerably stranger and definitely more haunted, but we'll leave it that so as not to spoil a fantastic final reel.
What starts out as a strange mix of softcore sexploitation, drama and crime film elements goes beautifully off the rails as it moves to a fantastic conclusion pulling in elements of the Japanese ghost cat movies that were trending around the time that A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse was made. Shot with loads of style and a fantastic use of color, the movie always looks great and it’s set to a really strong score as well. The production values are great overall, this is quite a polished and well put together effort in pretty much every way that you’d want it to be.
As to the cast, the beautiful Naomi Tani is in fine form here, bringing her inimitable screen presence to the film. A definite asset to the movie, she’s graceful and sexy but also more than capable of handling the dramatic elements and the horror elements once they erupt from the plot. Misa Ohara is also very good as her sister, bringing some solid depth to her character as her arc evolves. Taiji Tonoyama plays the sleazy brothel owner really well, but it’s Hideo Murota and Tomoko Mayama as the true villains of the film that really shine. Alongside Tani, they’re the main draws for the film as each gives an appreciably malicious turn.
A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse – Blu-ray Review:
A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse arrives on a region free 50GB disc and is taken from a brand new 2K restoration of the original 35mm negative. The AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer is framed at 2.35.1 widescreen and it looks great. Taking up just under 22GBS of space on the 25GB region A locked disc, the picture quality is top notch. Colors look fantastic and we get nice, deep black levels throughout. The image avoids any noticeable crush and is free of obvious noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression problems. The image retains the natural film grain it should but outside of some infrequent specks here and there, remains almost shockingly clean throughout. No complaints here, this is a really solid transfer.
The only audio option for the feature is a 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track in the film’s original Japanese language. Optional subtitles are provided in English only. Sound quality is also very good. The track is properly balanced and free of any hiss or distortion. The score has some nice depth to it and the sound effects have a decent amount of punch behind them.
Samm Deighan starts off the extra features with a new audio commentary track that gives a good overview of the ghost cat film trend and how this movie mixes it up with pink film tropes, making it a pretty interesting and unique crossover. She details the fantastic title sequence, what sets Japanese exploitation films apart from other country's efforts, the quality of the cinematography and the production values overall, details on the different cast and crew members that worked on the film including the illustrious Ms. Tani, where both Toei and Nikkatsu were at during this period and how they competed in the sex film arena, Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's directorial style and career, the way that women are portrayed in the film and how this affects the story as well as the gender relation issues that pop up in the movie, the arthouse qualities in this picture, elements of Poe's work that creep into the picture, the effectiveness of the film's horror elements, the sense of female competition that recurs throughout the movie and the film's intense finale.
The disc also includes a new interview with Patrick Macias about Toei exploitation cinema in the 1970s titled White Cat In Showa Soapland that runs for seven minutes. Here he goes over how the movie is based on a true story to an extent, the events in Japanese history that shaped the story in the movie, the ghost cat movie trend in Japanese film history, Toei's failed attempts to get out of the sexploitation market only to then embrace them in an attempt to outdo Nikkatsu, Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's part in all of this, the importance of Naomi Tani's casting in the movie and other details on the cast and crew.
Macias also shows up in Silent Waves, which is a four minute "Pocket Guide To Toei Horror" that goes over their genre entries which were considerably less frequent than their competitors some of their stand out horror entries from the fifties and sixties, the way that they tended to combine horror with other genres like action or sex films and the studio's tendency to push horror elements to the forefront in their TV shows like Kamen Rider before then really embracing horror with their Ju-On film series.
Finishing up the extra on the disc are an original theatrical trailer, a Mondo Macabro promo reel (featuring promos for Blood Lust, The Howl Of The Devil, The Killer Of Dolls, Woman Chasing The Butterfly Of Death, and Human Animals), menus and chapter selection options.
A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse - The Final Word:
A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse is a pretty wild mix of sex, sleaze and horror but not without elements of inspired arthouse style. Benefitting from a really strong cast and solid production values, it builds to what turns out to be a pretty wild ride. The Blu-ray release from Mondo Macabro looks fantastic and contains a few decent supplements that explore the history of the film and those who made it. Highly recommended.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray screen caps!
