Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters

Kimiyoshi Yasuda's 1968 film is the first entry in Daiei's Yokai trilogy. A greedy developer, working with a corrupt shrine official, tries to drive people out of a tenement building and demolish the shrine behind it. He makes the fatal mistake of hosting a hundred ghost stories ceremony without performing the closing cleansing ritual, and opens the door to the yokai. What is interesting is the use of the supernatural as a mechanism of justice: the yokai do not come at random, they come for the person who has done wrong. The solutions are entirely practical: puppets, makeup, hidden wires. They look primitive now, but the best-known screen depictions of the creatures of Japanese folk belief come from here. The film swings between a lightness suitable for children and genuinely harsh horror scenes. Who it's for: viewers interested in Japanese genre cinema, yokai folklore and 1960s practical-effects horror. Who it's not for: anyone expecting modern horror impact, or who will find the simplicity of the story insufficient.