We live in a glorious (if expensive!) age where a ton of obscurities and marvelous foreign fare is coming to Blu Ray via a plethora of boutique media companies. For instance, Radiance, a Brit company, has put out couple of (region free) Blu Ray sets in their–hopefully continuing–Daiei Gothic line. The second volume contained a film that looked especially marvelous, 1960’s The Demon of Mount Oe. Set in Ye Olde Samurai Times, the film features a rightfully aggrieved demon seeking vengeance against an asshole of a shogun. Sadly, the shogun’s much more honorable samurai are obliged to stop this if they can. Unfortunately for them, the demon also has three generals who turned into fascinating puppet movies; a bull, a spider and…uh, I can’t remember. Hey, things blur after a while during these weekends.
Sadly, the disc was mucked up and wouldn’t play a good hunk of the film, so we didn’t even get to see the spider in action. But what we saw was cherce. Production values were great and again, those monsters. Sighs of satisfaction were heard from all of us as our souls were healed. Great stuff. I’ll either get the disc working or get a replacement disc and we can give it another try in the spring ’26 T-Fest. (Or it might be the first U-Fest, since it may be held in Utah where Sandy and fam actually live now.)
