A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 13, 2023

Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's "A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse" (1975) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Mondo Macabro. The supplemental features on the release include new programs with author and critic Patrick Macias; new audio commentary by critic Sam Seighan; and vintage trailer for the film. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Between the 1960s and 1970s, the largest Japanese studios produced some genuinely wild films no other country with a developed, properly functioning film industry would have ever considered. For example, between the 1970s and 1980s Italy produced some of the most controversial genre films, but they were channeled through smaller independent distributors, not the largest studios like Cinecitta and Istituto Luce. Also, wealthy producers like Franco Cristaldi, for instance, went in the opposite direction and invested heavily in very serious films to build a prestigious catalog. In France, the big studios and distributors delivered very diverse films, but the local definition of a mainstream film was not blurred until the 1990s. In Germany, the post-war film market was quite weak and for decades remained heavily influenced by developments in Italy and France. The Scandinavian countries had a few prominent masters whose work essentially shaped the identity of their film industries, so smaller genre films never had the chance to interfere. In Spain, during the 1980s some trends mimicked the explosion of creativity in Italy, but they were reactionary and remained quite chaotic. Simply put, as General Franco’s regime came to an end in the 1970s, local filmmakers and distributors rushed to make up for years of heavy censorship and inactivity.

In post-war Japan, the largest Japanese studios always paid close attention to the type of films Hollywood produced, but once local films revealed their potential to be very profitable, studios bosses began thinking outside the box. It is when the classic samurai films began competing with the violent gangster films and the traditional dramas with exploitation and pink films. While the largest Japanese studios did not expand their output at the same time, all of them contributed to the restructuring of the local film market. It was not a smooth process, but it was a controlled process at the highest level and this is the fundamental difference that made the local film market unique.

Directed in 1975 by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse is an excellent example of the kind of wild experimental films the largest Japanese studios allowed to be associated with. It mixes horror, erotica, crime, and drama into what is essentially a sexploitation thriller pretending to be a contemporary ghost story. In other words, it is an exotic cinematic cocktail that attempts to impress with different flavors.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to tell that A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse was shot with a fairly small budget and without any lofty ambitions in mind. Indeed, the story it tells is very formulaic and Yamaguchi does only the absolute minimum with it to produce genre action of the kind these types of films were expected to deliver. So, there are some exotic fireworks but most of them and the characterizations are completely random.

The main protagonist is a young woman who arrives in the big city to live with her sister and her supposedly soon-to-be-husband. But she discovers that her sister has been secretly working as a prostitute in a former-brothel-turned-Turkish bathhouse to help her boyfriend pay off his massive gambling debts. While her sister works, the boyfriend, who is just a repulsive cheating gangster, rapes her, and later begins a romantic relationship with the naïve owner of the bathhouse. After the gangster reveals his true colors, the film heads in multiple directions at the same time and it is when it begins to fall apart. Admittedly, it is also when it tries its hardest to impress, but without any meaningful support from Yamaguchi.

Folks that have limited experience with the wild genre films the largest Japanese studios produced could find A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse mildly amusing because it is a different film, but it is not gloriously different. It quickly and cheaply mixes random flavors and hopes that it has something good to impress. The end product is average at best.

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Mondo Macabro.

The release is sourced from a recent 2K master that was struck from the original camera negative. Unsurprisingly, your immediate impression will be that the film has a very healthy appearance. Unfortunately, there are quite a few issues with the technical presentation. For example, even though I have never owned this film on a home video format in the past, I could immediately tell that it transitioned to Blu-ray with a color grade that is not ideal. Why? It is pretty easy to tell that it was given a colder contemporary appearance that is very similar to the one that Fox gave The Girl Can't Help It. So, reds, whites, and even the few greens that pop up are clearly off. With the awkward grade, however, the native dynamic range of the visuals was destabilized as well. This is a very, very common side effect and here it is very easy to recognize. For example, in various darker sequences, the blacks become digital grays and flatten or fully collapse existing detail(s). This is why screencaptures #2, 4, 7, and 16 create the impression that there are traces of filtering adjustments. However, the 2K files have not been filtered and are of exceptionally high quality. The flattening that you see is introduced by the improper gamma levels that emerged from the imperfect color grade. Also, a lot of these areas produce macroblocking, so if you have a large screen, you will see them. You can see examples in screencaptures #7, 15, and 16. Image stability is excellent. I noticed a few tiny white nicks, but there are no distracting large cuts, debris, warped or torn frames to report. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature. They appear inside the image frame. To turn them off, you will have to use your remote control because there is no option to do so via the main menu.

I thought that the lossless track was outstanding. Clarity, sharpness, and depth were excellent. However, there are plenty of noticeable dynamic fluctuations, and while I do not have a reference source to confirm, I am quite certain that they are inherited. Why? It is easy to tell that the film was not shot with a humongous budget. The English translation is excellent.

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - presented here is a remastered original Japanese trailer for A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse. In Japanese, with English subtitles. (3 min).

• White Cat in Showa Soapland - in this exclusive new program, author and critic Patrick Macias discusses the production and style of A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse. In English, not subtitled. (7 min).

• Silent Waves - in this exclusive new program, Patrick Macias quickly addresses the Toei studio's interest in horror and its reappearance in other genre films. There are some interesting comments about Wolf Guy. In English, not subtitled. (4 min).

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critic Sam Seighan (Diabolique Magazine).

A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The formula is not right. There are too many different genre flavors floating around in A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse, which is not a bad thing, but they are not mixed right, so the thrills that emerge from it feel quite random. I had never seen this film before and expected it to be pretty good, but I cannot write that I enjoyed it. Mondo Macabro's Blu-ray release is sourced from a recent 2K master, but the technical presentation could have been better.