Daiei Gothic Vol. 2: The Demon of Mount Oe (1960) Blu-ray Review

Radiance Films

Blu-ray Release: October 14, 2025 (as part of Daiei Gothic Vol. 2)

Video: 2.35:1/1080p/Color

Audio: Japanese LPCM 1.0 Mono

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 113:51

Director: Tokuzô Tanaka 

Note: This disc is currently only available as part of Radiance’s Daiei Gothic Volume 2 Blu-ray collection, which also includes The Haunted Castle (1969) and The Ghost of Kasane Swamp (1970). I am also using the same intro paragraphs for all of my Daiei Gothic reviews (volumes 1 & 2) and descriptions of Tokuzô Tanaka’s work and career will be shared between reviews.

Japanese ghost stories – or kaidan (sometimes translated as kwaidan) – are rooted in an ancient pantheon of conventions, stock characters, and narrative tropes. These established, often unaltered stories date back way before motion picture cameras to the Heian period (794–1185) and records of public exhibitions date back to the Noh and Kyogen theater of the 1300s, and Bunraku puppetry and the kabuki theater of the 1600s. Japanese horror filmmaking dates back to the silent era, though many early features have been lost to time. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII, the authoritative government labeled genre movies frivolous, nearly halting the production of kaidan pictures. After the war, occupying US forces discouraged period dramas, known as jidaigeki, assuming that they would cultivate national pride and encourage dissent. Since the majority of the established ghost stories took place in an older historical era, horror continued to be largely ignored.

Kaidan films finally had their renaissance during the 1950s, as US political authority waned and the region’s motion picture output was redefined by a mix of Edo era ideals and western cultural influences. This surge in horror produced several highly acclaimed films that were popular even outside of Japan, including Masaki Kobayashi’s Academy Award-nominated Kwaidan (1964) and Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba (1964) and Kuroneko (1968). While Toho stole much of the glory during the ‘60s, Daiei Studios got in on the boom early with strong showings from Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (Japanese: Ugetsu Monogatari, 1953) and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), which features a ghost among the many witnesses to a central crime.

The Demon of Mount Oe (1960)

A group of mighty warriors is sent to eliminate a demon who steals women from the imperial capital of Kyoto. On the way, they face a satanic bull, a giant spider, and a diabolical witch, but the closer they come to their goal, the more they realise that the demon they've been ordered to kill is far more human than they were led to believe. (From Radiance’s official synopsis)

As discussed on a special two-part episode of the Genre Grinder podcast, 1960 was a watershed year for horror films on an international level. Multiple countries produced uniquely modern and visually unique films, including Nobuo Nakagawa’s Eastmancolor-shot, gore-soaked, contemporary-set Jigoku. Traditional ghost stories were still very popular in Japan, though, and also got the color treatment, beginning (I believe) with Nakagawa’s Black Cat Mansion (Japanese: Bōrei kaibyō yashiki; partially color, 1958) and The Ghost of Yotsuya (Japanese: Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan, 1959). 

One film we overlooked when preparing the 1960 horror podcast was Tokuzô Tanaka’s The Demon of Mount Oe (Japanese: Ōeyama Shuten Dōji, 1960), in part because I was under the impression that it was a jidaigeki drama, not a horror film. My assumptions were about half-correct, because Tanaka isn’t exactly a horror film; rather, it’s a combination epic of fantasy lore, kaidan chills, and chambara action, including a battle of significant scale and a deeply melodramatic finalé. At its best, it is a clever application of modern filmmaking techniques to traditional kabuki performance and storytelling.

Tanaka trained under Akira Kurosawa and was a contracted player at Daiei Film where he comfortably matched the look and tone of established franchises, including the Sleepy Eyes of Death, Zatoichi, and Shinobi series. Those films are good, but his talents were better measured by standalone features, like the dark samurai drama Betrayal (Japanese: Daisatsujin orochi, 1966) and a collection of color fantasy/horror films, three of which – The Demon of Mount Oe, The Snow Woman (Japanese: Kaidan yukijorô, 1968), and The Haunted Castle (Japanese: Hiroku kaibyô-den, 1969) – can be seen as part of the Daiei Gothic collections.

Tanaka’s films share visual themes and he had an incredible affinity for dramatic widescreen framing and fog/smoke effects, but what makes Demon of Mount Oe standout is its lush color photography. He and cinematographer Hiroshi Imai’s approach to color is similar to Nakagawa’s (especially Jigoku), but, at its most vivid, closer to Roger Corman’s Poe Cycle series, the first of which, House of Usher, was released a couple of months after Tanaka’s film. The use of gels to signify demonic presences also reflects the Wurdulak section of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (Italian: I tre volti della paura, 1963) – another essential horror film of the ‘60s that was released after Demon of Mount Oe.

The episodic screenplay was adapted from a story by Matsutarō Kawaguchi, a novelist whose other work includes a collaboration with Yoshikata Yoda to write the script for the aforementioned, foundational kaidan classic, Ugetsu, and the novel A Geisha (I can’t find an exact publication date), which was adapted into a 1953 film by director Kenji Mizoguchi. Kawaguchi’s story was, in turn, based on the folklore of Mount Oe, the oni Shuten-dōji, and samurai Minamoto no Yorimitsu – a real historical figure whose exploits inspired legendary tales of demon hunting. 

Traces of Demon of Mount Oe’s legacy can be seen throughout Daiei’s other horror films, but it appears to have had a special influence on the studio’s kaiju and yokai movies, in particular, the Daimajin (1966) and Yokai Monsters (1968, ‘69) trilogies. Additionally, the scene in which guest star Raizô Ichikawa battles an oni that can shoot spidersilk from his palms is shot and edited with fabulous energy that reminds me of later horror standards, like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead (1982) and the Hong Kong fantasy/action movements of the ‘80s, albeit less violent and silly (I’d contend that certain sequences here end up qualifying as playful, rather than silly).

Bibliography:10 Great Early Japanese Colour Films by Jasper Sharp (BFI website, 2025)

Video

The Demon of Mount Oe made its stateside DVD debut pretty recently from Sinister Cinema (possibly a MOD disc?), but had previously only been importable from Japan. I also found a rip of an HD streaming version (seems to be Russian in origin), though the image quality is well below this new, exclusive Radiance Films restoration. The footage was scanned in 4K at Imagica laboratories in Japan, Radiance themselves did their own clean-up, and DaVinci Resolve performed color grading.

The 2.35:1, 1080p image definitely looks its age with substantial, yet manageable film grain, a slight lightening of black levels, and occasionally smudgy fine details. The look is a bit rough at times and the opening titles are scratched up, but print damage artifacts are generally pretty rare. I’d call it an authentic HD transfer that captures the spirit of watching a somewhat worn print in a theater, which I vastly prefer to a DNR’d or oversharpened disc. The lighter grading allows the colors to really pop, generating a stronger visual contrast between the mortal and spirit worlds.

Audio

The Demon of Mount Oe is presented in its original Japanese mono and uncompressed 1.0 LPCM. The mix is quite clean and clear, even compared to some of Radiance’s other recent Daiei releases, which tend to exhibit a bit of distortion on the high end. Dialogue is rarely muffled or buzzy and Ichirô Saitô’s dramatic, string-heavy score sounds great.

Extras

• Taichi Kasuga on The Demon of Mount Oe (18:54, HD) – The author and Japanese period film expert discusses the state of Japanese cinema and major studio competition in 1960, the industry’s increasing interest in big budget historical blockbusters, the wider careers of the all-star cast & crew (emphasizing Tanaka), and the differences between kaidan and yokai stories (noting that Demon of Mount Oe doesn’t really fit either genre), 

• Blade of the Demon-Slayer (4:04, HD) – A visual essay by Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts; Scarecrow Press, 2011) author Tom Mes, who explores the history and legend behind the demon-slaying sword featured in the film.

• Theatrical trailer

The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.