When Keiko's brother fails to return from a visit to his girlfriend, Yuko, she takes her fiancé, Hiroshi to find out what happened to him. Yuko's mother claims he left after he found out that Yuko had been killed in a car accident just a few weeks ago. But, something isn't right. Keiko spots Yuko. Hiroshi investigates strange sounds, but is halted in his investigation by Yuko's mother, and attacked by her mute manservant, Genzo. After investigating in town, Keiko is more certain that Yuko is alive and that her brother is somewhere in that house. Hiroshi turns up something strange at Yuko's grave, leading to two deaths. What Yuko discovers is even worse.
The Vampire Doll (1970) is the first film in a trilogy of Western style vampire movies made by Toho Studios in the 1970s. The feel is very much as if Toho made Hammer movies, but with a Japanese sensibility fused onto it. Visually it's striking, and it has a very dreamlike feel to it as the plot unfolds. The cast is quite good, though these aren't any actors I recognize from anything else. I'm finally seeing this for the first time on glorious bluray, but it feels like a movie that I would have caught at 11:30 at night on a UHF channel way back when, and that's a complement. In a month of viewing more misses than hits, so far, this one's a win.
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