Let's be realistic.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

House Where Evil Dwells, The (1982) ** (out of 4) In 1840 Japan, a samurai comes home to find his wife having sex with his best friend so he kills both and them and then kills himself. Flash forward to 1982 when an American husband (Edward Albert) and wife (Susan George) move into the house and soon start to become possessed by the trio of ghosts. Sure enough, the wife soon ends up forced into an affair with the husband's best friend (Doug McClure). I'm a sucker for a good ghost story and lord knows that the early 80s were full of them. With that said, this movie here comes as a major disappointment and I'm still scratching my head wondering why they have a pretty good story and do nothing with it. There's no doubt that the movie is hampered by some weak acting and iffy direction but hundreds of entertaining horror films can say the same thing. What really kills this movie is that the two adults are so stupid that it never really dawns on them until the very end that something wrong is happening. The movie runs 88-minutes and it's not until the 80-minute mark when it strikes the two that something isn't right even though they know the house is suppose to be haunted and a monk warns them and offers them help early in the film. Another problem are the trio of ghosts. Their first appearance is quite chilling but after that they're just this blue, glowing mess that really don't add to anything. I'm still rather confused as to why all three could be haunting these people as it seems like the boyfriend wouldn't be too happy hanging out with or haunting someone with the man who killed them. This here leads to another problem because we never get any back story on the ghosts. We never learn who they are, what led into the affair or why they're haunting this couple. There's really no reason for the haunting outside of the producers wanting this to be a horror movie. Albert and George are fair in their roles but I think the film was going for something deeper, more psychological and neither actor can pull this off. McClure is wasted in his supporting role and no one else really stands out. The early stuff with the samurai and his sword leads to some bloody action and we get a silly sex scene that's clearly trying to copy the mood and feeling of the one in DON'T LOOK NOW. On the positive side the always beautiful George has a couple nude scenes so thankfully the producers gave us that. Outside of that this is a pretty bland ghost story that really doesn't add up to anything special and in the end it really doesn't make any sense.

..IT'S THIS ONE! Very cool premise, right off the bat.Has an excellent first scene, gotta give credit where credit's due.Has solid characters and a decent enough script for a ghost story but here are the things that bothered me: Whenever the ghosts appeared, which I really liked by the way; how it was done, how it looked...the only thing was the ghost's relationship. Because of the way things went down in the first scene you'd think their dynamic would be different.Things slowed down a little too much in the middle I felt, and the crab/spider scene was just not good. BUT then the ending is actually very good! Sure, 'The Grudge' basically told the same story with a polished lens but no samurai's and that's what I liked about this movie comparatively.Please, someone one with a tempered style remake this movie.Fans of 'Silent Rage' would absolutely love this movie.

I saw this film at a pre-release screening at the Writers Guild theater in Beverly Hills. As I recall, the film's producers and director were in attendance, presumably to gage our reaction.Many scenes evoked gales of laughter from the audience, which would have been fine if it had been a comedy, but it was supposed to be a horror film.If the audience wasn't scared, it seems the filmmakers were. They delayed release for over a year. Out of curiosity I saw it again to see if they'd re-cut it; as far as I can tell, they hadn't. It was the same lousy movie, just a year older.It almost qualifies as "so bad, it's good," but it's slow-paced and boring.

The film opens with a peaceful shot of a traditional Japanese house complete with thatched roof that sits on the side of a small hill and an on screen caption appears that reads 'KUSHIATA KYOTO, JAPAN 1840'. A young Japanese trainee Samurai named Masanori (Toshiya Maruyama) walks up the winding path to the house, inside waits Otami (Mako Hattori) with whom he is having an affair behind her husband, Shugoro's (Tsuiyuki Sasaki as Toshiyuki Sasaki) back who happens to be Masanori's teacher. Shugoro unexpectedly arrives home to find his wife and student having very intimate relations with each other. His honour destroyed the enraged Samurai brutally murders both Otami and Masanori before committing suicide. Over a century later and Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert) arrives in Japan on a working holiday with his wife Laura (Susan George) and their young daughter Amy (Amy Barrett). Their close friend Alex Curtis (Doug McClure) who works for the American consulate helps them out by finding them a place to stay, you don't need me to you where! He jokingly says it's going so cheap because it's haunted, to which both Ted and Laura laugh off as they obviously don't believe in ghosts, at least for the time being that is. Almost immediately the film goes into cliché mode. Lights turn on and off by themselves, Laura has an uneasy feeling about the place and a local Zen Monk (Henry Mitowa) gives them an ominous warning for them to leave before it's too late which they ignore, of course. The spirits of Otami, Masanori and Shugoro were doomed for eternity to remain within the walls of the house because of a Majyo witches (Tsuyako Olajima) curse put upon them. But there may be a way they can break the curse, unfortunately for the Fletcher family it could potentially cost them their marriage, daughter and possibly even their very lives. Directed by Kevin Connor I thought this was a pretty average film, OK to watch once if you've got nothing better to do but after a day or two you'll probably have completely forgotten it. Nothing sticks in the memory as being particularly bad but on the other hand there's nothing particularly good about the film either. The script by Robert Suhosky from the novel by James Hardiman is a little on the dull side and strictly by-the-numbers, a lot of ghostly goings on happen throughout the film but none of it is very interesting or exciting and the flat characters and direction doesn't help things. There are couple of silly sequences like the giant plastic crabs that try to get Amy and her babysitter, Noriko (Mayumi Umeda). And there is a scene where the Zen Monk exorcises the house and the ghosts are banished outside unable to get back in, however that is until Ted simply opens the door and they just walk right back in, some exorcism! One more thing, I think it was a bad idea to have Doug McClure who was 47 when he made this, try his hand at Kung-Fu and oriental sword fighting! George gets her ample breasts out a couple of times including a very unerotic sex scene with McClure, although great pains and a couple of bed sheets that stick to them like super glue were taken to ensure no below the waist nudity was present. Apart from a couple of mostly off screen decapitations there's no blood, gore or violence to speak about. The 'transparent' ghost effects are OK but they ain't going to impress many people these days. It's professionally enough made and looks quite nice but the potential in the Japanese setting and myths is squandered as this film could have been set in America, England or any Western country without having to change a thing. An OK time waster.