A Rarity From Shockiku

In the West, this obscure Japanese exploitation gem (Kage no koruma, '70) from Shockiku was sold as a killer kid movie. There is a kid who may or may not be malevolent, but the film is really about a salaryman's (Go Kato) affair with a childhood sweetheart (Shima Iwashita). To keep the affair under wraps, he (Kato) is forced to manufacture extravagant lies to keep his wife from discovering the deception.

The little boy, Ken-chan (Hisato Okamoto), is the mistress's son, and Kato is not comfortable with the boy. Much of his discomfort is fueled by his guilt, and he begins to suspect that the boy is plotting his comeuppance. Perhaps the English title provides a clue to Kato's paranoid mind set. The boy represents the darkness within self? Is he so guilty that he's contemplating suicide?

Although attempts were made to sell the film to Western distributors, it was never widely distributed anywhere.

Putting The Bad Seed ('56) aside, it's Western marketing campaign predated The Omen ('76), the film that launched a hundred pre-teen horrors. In tone and pitch, it shares similarities with a film I like very much, Robert Mulligan's The Other ('72). Although the emphasis is on the boys' POV in The Other, it is a fitting companion piece.

The film's cinematographer, Takashi Kawamata, shot a handful of excellent Japanese movies including Immamura's Black Rain.

The director of this, Yoshitaro Nomura, also made Village of Eight Gravestones and the amazing Kichiku (The Demon).

This has a gorgeous, shadowy look, and traverses smoothly between eroticism and suspense.

Outside Japan, Nomura ought to be much better known. His work is superb.

Evil Children Whose Wrong is Right

The "Evil Child" genre, ignited long ago by The Bad Seed ('56), then nurtured into popular culture in the 70's by David Seltzer's The Omen ('76) and Frank De Felitta's Audrey Rose ('75), spawned dozens of imitators. The genre never died, but it did slip into a coma.

The cover art for Joanne Fluke's The Stepchild ('80) had a heavy Bad Seed influence with its titular villain appearing to be Patty McCormack's slightly younger sister.

Author Joanne Fluke now specializes in mystery thrillers with culinary themes. Titles include Cherry Cheesecake Murder, Peach Cobbler Murder, and Chocolate Chip Cookie murder. They sound like slightly more adult Enid Blyton titles to me.

She jumped on the bandwagon with The Stepchild, her first book, and certainly demonstrated a strong affinity for the mystery genre. The book is light on real horror, though.

I found James Gordon's The Stone Boy (Charter, '84) in a wooden bin outside a suburban newsagency in Melbourne. It wasn't getting much respect in the hot sun and its fifty cent price tag didn't bode well for its content.

Nonetheless, I was captivated by its stark cover art and cover copy that really grabbed my attention: "The worst has happened. Your son is coming home."

How could I resist that?

The Stone Boy is a solid horror story, written in the first person, about a man facing an uncomfortable past (his son). It has a very effective climax that I didn't see coming.

The book opens with an old children's folk rhyme that I first heard when I was a child. It establishes the tenor of novel:

One afternoon
in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys
got up to fight;
back to back
they faced each other,
sword in hand,
they shot each other;
a deaf policeman
heard the noise
and came and shot
the two dead boys

Definitely worth a read.

The film of the same name, produced in '84 only, is not related to the novel.

Another first novel, The Other Child (Pinnacle Books, '79) was written to capitalize on the burgeoning evil child genre also, even though it was more concerned with an evil adult who coveted another woman's child. Once again, it was more of a mystery than a balls-to-the-wall horror outing.

I've always been partial to the book's striking cover art. There is something so wrong but so right about a pretty little girl with a gun.

Author Margaret Chittenden continues to write mysteries.