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The Living Skeleton

The Living Skeleton

1968
Horror
1h 20m
In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighter's violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of kaidan (ghost stories), doppelganger thrillers, and mad-scientist movies, Hiroshi Matsuno's The Living Skeleton is a wild and eerie work, with beautiful widescreen, black-and-white cinematography. (criterion.com)
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The Living Skeleton

1968
Horror
1h 20m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 49.2% from 57 total ratings

Ratings & Reviews

(57)
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Rated 23 Nov 2014
86
89th
It's always fun to expect a dud and get a bang. The Living Skeleton is an exceptionally disturbing ghost story/proto-slasher with gorgeous visuals and deaths that would make Jason Voorhees blush. Also features the one thing I love more than bad dummy deaths: Rubber bats!
Rated 18 Oct 2013
90
84th
This Japanese New Wave revenge film is barely comprehensible, but consistently entertaining. There's facemelting, skeleton armies, and double crossings enough for everyone! Huzzah!
Rated 28 Apr 2017
80
77th
I love picturing someone pitching The Living ... ... ... Skeleton and all these Japanese investors exploding. Wild movie.
Rated 11 Aug 2013
76
38th
It's cinematically pretty, but the story feels very slapdash, and while the atmosphere is good, it feels weird to have a consistent atmosphere alongside an erratic narrative. Also, there was no Living Skeleton! I was very let down by that fact.
Rated 07 Feb 2016
73
61st
Definitely liked it better until the ending. The stuff with the priest was easy to see but was enjoyable nonetheless. Great photography throughout. Nice use of music as well
Rated 25 Oct 2015
4
34th
The gorgeous b&w widescreen photography and the foggy seaside locale makes this watchable but the narrative is admittedly schlocky and uninvolving. Gets pleasantly weird towards the end. Seems to combine a lot of elements at once without really succeeding at any of them. Words of interest: fake miniatures, ghosts, fake bats, acid, mad scientist, don't trust the priest (!), attractive Japanese women, face melting, mass murder, skeletons, sunglasses, and REVENGE.
Rated 29 Jul 2013
40
12th
This film might have inspired John Carpenter's The Fog as there are a lot of curious similarities. Unfortunately this is nowhere near as good as the latter film. There are some eerie visuals but the film is not able to overcome its low budget, bad miniatures and rubber bats.
Rated 29 Oct 2017
65
62nd
A surprisingly effective horror film from Japan. You can tell it's very low budget but some of the effects pretty damn cool. The music is also used well with a blend of Jazz and jarring horror music riffs. Enjoyable but still kind of forgettable.
Rated 24 Dec 2013
76
45th
A creepy but absolutely bonkers piece of work. It plays well as an atmospheric ghost story for quite some time, aided by some very nice B&W photography, but some seriously insane twists start piling up and it gets unpredictable fast. It becomes great, moody fun. Some old horror funhouse style effects (rubber bats, skeletons, dry ice) add charm.
Rated 08 Dec 2015
3
38th
Shades of Diabolique, though with more of a supernatural vibe. Certainly, by a long shot, the best "haunted ship" film I've ever seen.
Rated 10 Nov 2023
80
64th
O esqueleto vivo estreava há 55 anos no Japão. Quando vi gente comparando com Carpenter e Lynch minhas expectativas aumentaram bastante, por isso mesmo a decepção foi maior. É um bom filme, com ótima atmosfera, mas não vamos exagerar, né? Box Versátil Obras-primas do Terror Horror Japonês volume 2.

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