Black Cat Mansion (1958)

Women will literally turn into a giant cat monster rather than go to therapy.

Women will literally turn into a giant cat monster rather than go to therapy. A deliciously macabre piece of Japanese gothic horror, sometimes melodramatic, occasionally bizarre, but consistently atmospheric, Black Cat Mansion feels like a dusty nightmare unearthed from the darkest corner of an old haunted house. I'm an absolute sucker for the lighting in this film; it's gorgeous, presenting its spooky surroundings as a decaying, shadowy space where every corridor feels as though it is concealing fresh unpleasantness. Director Nobuo Nakagawa wastes little time establishing the film's rather oppressive mood, using stark black-and-white and lush colour photography to fill its rooms with deep shadows and stark contrasts that give the supernatural shenanigans an appropriately nightmarish quality amid the lurid melodrama and gruesome imagery. Despite its breezy runtime, the film gets bogged down by a completely disjointed narrative, usually with a tendency to jump between characters, time periods and revelations at the drop of a hat; while the cast deliver decent performances, there's little reason to care for them beyond seeing the events play out. A wonderfully old-fashioned, if uneven and occasionally unintentionally funny slice of well-executed ghost-story nonsense, Black Cat Mansion nevertheless casts an unusually atmospheric spell, making the supernatural feel beautifully, irresistibly sinister.

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