Alex Klotz

Don't expect 70s Eurohorror in the vein of Jess Franco and the like, and don't expect anything ingenious like the efforts of the director's father. It's a loose adaptation of motives by early romanticist Ludwig Tieck, and since there was no vampirism in literature back then, THERE ARE NO VAMPIRES IN THIS MOVIE EITHER! Just Liv Ullman coming back from the dead after 10 years and strangling children. Great locations, good acting, but neither a convincing drama nor a satisfying horror film. But I've seen much worse than that and young Ornella Muti's a treat. And I like the fact that some screenwriters of the seventies got back to classic seldom filmed literature (like Ado Kyrou did in the far superior 'Le Moine') instead of copying plotlines, themes and motives that have been used a thousand times before.

Although somewhat inferior to Nobuo Nakagawa's black and white version of a similar story, Borei Kaibyo Yashiki, this movie makes extensive use of its color footage, especially when showing the apparitions in a ghostly green light or the pond from the title tinted red. The furry cat-ghost-woman DOES look a bit ridiculous, as do some rather cheapish superimposed images, but the marvelous cinematography and the effective score still work pretty well to create a very creepy atmosphere. All in all, another example to make you wish more of these classic Japanese ghost chillers will be released for today's western audiences.

This is actually a very nice movie with good actors, a very imaginative plot and some great cinematography. But the extremely melodramatic music made some scenes almost impossible for me to take them serious, although this definitely is a serious movie about love and death. A bit more humor would have helped to increase the overall impression, though.