The Living Skeleton (1968) Hiroshi Matsuno

In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighter’s violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of kaidan (ghost stories), doppelganger thrillers, and mad-scientist movies, Hiroshi Matsuno’s The Living Skeleton is a wild and eerie work, with beautiful widescreen, black-and-white cinematography.

There are striking similarities between Hiroshi Matsuno's film and John Carpenter's famous horror hit "The Fog": a quiet coastal village surrounded by the fog, a local priest with a creepy secret and a ghostly ship with bleached skeletons on board, which haunts villagers on the land. There is also a bit of subtle necrophilia thrown in and a female ghost with long black hair. "The Living Skeleton" written by Kyuzo Kobayashi of "Goke Bodysnatcher from Hell" fame surely is a delirious experience.