The Mansion of the Ghost Cat

This bakeneko-mono (ghost-cat story) is one of the B-features that built the Nakagawa cult. Present day scenes in monochrome (a doctor takes his ailing wife to her Kyushu hometown for a rest cure; they rent Spiraea Mansion, where the wife is terrorised by a vengeful spook) frame a long flashback in colour to the Edo period, when the mansion was home to the clan warden Shogen (Shibata, giving the most outré performance). It turns out that Shogen killed his go teacher in a fit of rage and subsequently raped the man's blind mother. Before killing herself, the mother charged her beloved cat with avenging them both, creating a demonic hag with cat's ears to claw Shogen and his descendants into their graves. More amusing than scary, but it has some fine macabre touches and the 'Scope framing is lively.