My husband became very interested in nichue movies from all around the globe. Recently he purchases a file from a Japanese studio known for the practical special effects. The movie is called Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters.
This film starts with a greedy landowner that is trying to build a brothel by kick out tenants from his tenant house and destroy their local shrine. His attack on the townspeople and shrine anger the local yokai (Japanese spirits and monsters).
Being a fan of yokai, I loved seeing all the yokai in this film. There was the long-neck woman (rokurokubi), the one-leg umbrella (karakasa kozo), faceless monk (nopperabo), and many more. This film features samurai attire, and I think that it could be shown to high schoolers. I was fun for me to answer my husband’s questions on the origins on the different monsters.
Near Halloween, I do a special lesson with my students on Yokai. It would be cool to show them this movie and possibly have students identify as many yokai as they could, or study the practical effects and create their own yokai (either in costume, sculpture, photograph, or drawing).
This is definitely a campy Japanese horror movie from the 1960s, and is one that is not very well known, so I doubt any students would have seen this prior to sharing it in class.
My students use this website to research yokai: https://yokai.com/ Warning, some of these monsters are very violent or too mature for students. I currate a list of yokai for them to research, so keep in mind to preview the yokai and possibly limit students to focus on classroom appropriate yokai.
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