Mondo Macabro Releasing A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse

[Ian Jane]

Standard edition coming soon.

[BW Haggar]

So I finally caught up with this one this evening - hugely enjoyed it.

Sure, there are a couple of rape-y bits, along with some totally sleazy outbursts of vaguely consensual, roman porno-style sex and one extremely unpleasant scene of sexualised violence, but it's nothing that seasoned pinky violence fans won't take in their stride, and not half as grim as I'd feared based on Dom's review above.

Moreover, it's all done in wildly OTT '70s Toei pop/comic book style, very much reminiscent of Yamaguchi's 'Wolf Guy' and 'Sister Street Fighter', with frantic pacing, freaky gel lighting, a totally zonked out psych-jazz score and Hideo Murota really going all out, practically twirling his non-existent moustache, as the hideous, rascally villain of the piece... which all helped sweeten the pill.

For all that though, it still feels less rushed and more skillfully put together than many mid-70s Toei joints, with great atmos & photography, imaginative direction and solid performances during the first hour.... and then when the bakeneko monster turns up and starts wreaking havoc in the final act, it's pretty much Peak Mondo Macabro, giving us a heroic dose of everything I feel that label is all about -- in fact, if the film has one failing, it's that at this point I pretty much forgot about the revenge narrative, turned off my brain and just enjoyed the ride, as blood sprayed, lightning crashed, cats howled, angles went dutch and freaky/primitive special effects did their thing. A fine evening's entertainment.

[Takuma]

A member at BD.com forum pointed out that the Mondo BD actually runs a little shorter than the Toei master that has been available until now.
- https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...9#post20574529

I was curious about this too, so I decided to compare my Mondo Macabro BD (which arrived yesterday) to the Toei Channel TV broadcasting which I recorded a few years ago. The answer is the BD release is frame cut. Frames with damage / splice lines have been removed from the end and / or beginning of shots. This explains the roughly 40s difference in running time between the Mondo BD (1:20:37) and my TV recording (approx. 1:21:20).

Take a look at this screenshot comparison I made. Here you can see the last and first two frames in consecutive shots (call them frames 1, 2, 3 and 4)

Toei Channel (TV)









Below you can see the same scene on Mondo BD.

Mondo BD





If you look carefully, those are frames 1 and 4. I can't post frames 2 and 3 (the ones with splice lines) because they are missing from the BD.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to advocate against buying the Mondo BD. I love the disc. I just thought I should clarify what's causing the run time difference.

In other news, I enjoyed Patrick Macias' brief video extras, though I couldn't help but to notice he got fooled by IMDb. The film's Japanese title is Kaibyo toruko buro, not Bakeneko toruko furo (incorrect reading of the kanji in 怪猫トルコ風呂). I think tried to submit correction to IMDb years ago but they don't believe me.

[BW Haggar]

Thanks for the heads up on this Dom. I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive, but when it does, I'll make sure it goes straight on the "movies to watch on my own" pile.

What with it being a Toei production directed by Yamaguchi, I guess I was holding out for some wild n' crazy antics ala 'Wolf Guy', but realistically, it's still a mid '70s pink film with a revenge/horror theme, so... plenty of rapin' seems inevitable really.

[Dom D]

It's been a little while since I've watched an out and out exploitation film. That wasn't quite what I was expecting when I put this on for some Halloween viewing with the little lady. I was expecting something a little more Hausu-ish but by gad, there's a lot of rape in this... Literally years since I watched something this rape-y.*

Disappointed I didn't enjoy it that much. It looks fantastic. All that gel lit 2.35 photography done the way only the Japanese can do it. It drags though. Enjoyed the wacky set up. Enjoyed the cat woman ghost at the end who brought back happy memories of Monkey Magic demons but all the raping in the middle got a bit repetitive. Maybe I'm getting too old for something this grim. Christ I hope not...

* I realised after posting this that I told a lie. T
I recently watched The Tombs Of The Blood Mummy and that had a hell of a lot of rape. Of course it was being conducted by a Blood Mummy which significantly alters the tone of such scenes.

[Takuma]

"A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse.. better than Disneyland" . that needed to be on the back of the box. lol

Haha, true!

(though to clarity, I was stating the order of events there... I went to see Bathhouse first, then I went to Disneyland, and then watched Karate Warriors. Bathhouse and Karate Warriors were both better than Disneyland! )

[Jason C]

Looking forward to my copy arriving.

I have fond memories of watching this in 35mm at Laputa's Kazuhiko Yamaguchi retrospective about 7 years ago:
https://rockshockpop.com/forum/movie...990#post188990

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse --＞ Disneyland --＞Karate Warriors. That was the program of my Tokyo trip, no kidding

"A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse.. better than Disneyland" . that needed to be on the back of the box. lol

[mjeon]

I agree AngelGuts, a very fun movie.

[AngelGuts]

Utterly fantastic film, and a beautiful disk from Mondo-Macabro. Ghost Cat/Pinky Violence and Naomi Tani on loan from Nikkatsu.

[Takuma]

Looking forward to my copy arriving.

I have fond memories of watching this in 35mm at Laputa's Kazuhiko Yamaguchi retrospective about 7 years ago:
https://rockshockpop.com/forum/movie...990#post188990

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse --＞ Disneyland --＞Karate Warriors. That was the program of my Tokyo trip, no kidding

[mjeon]

My replacement disc arrived yesterday.

[Ian Jane]

[FnordChan]

My copy was shipped out before they put it on hold while waiting for the replacement discs. I can confirm that things are kinda wonky with the disc as initially released; it didn’t work on my PS4 but, thankfully, was absolutely fine on my PS5. The film itself is delightfully trashy and looks terrific, so hopefully they’ll have those corrected discs (and the standard edition) out in short order.

[Darcy Parker]

How the hell does that kind of fuckup even happen?

I can understand a disc not playing on a few players, but most?

[Ian Jane]

From MM...