YOKAI MONSTERS: SPOOK WARFARE
(ADV Films, 1969)

By Brian Thomas

The second of the three Yokai Monsters movies made by Daiei in the late 1960s may not be the best, but it sure is a lot of fun. In the first film, the outrageous and bizarre “100 Monsters” of Japanese folk tales were clearly on the side of the good guys, helping them fight off a petty tyrant, but they were also scary. Here, while they’re still very weird, they’re played mostly for laughs, and are more heroic. In retrospect, they remind one of the heroes of the US television series H.R. Pufnstuf.  

When tomb raiders unleash a Babylonian vampire demon from captivity, for some reason it flies straight to Japan, quickly victimizing and impersonating a village magistrate. The disguise doesn’t fool the kappa (water monster) that lives in the garden pool. He confronts the foreign invader and gets a beating, sending him into the forest seeking aid from his fellow monster spirits. The spook army is still not powerful enough to defeat the vampire, and their plan to capture him in a jug backfires. However, some friendly humans offer some help. If not for the more frightening demons this one might even be considered kiddie fare, and it’s a bit surprising no one in the USA imported it for a dubbed and edited matinee item.