Watcher in the Attic/Comments

• Hard to think of a better director to adapt Edogawa Rampo’s novels into high brow exploitation than Noboru Tanaka. The outcome doesn’t reach the level of excellence of the director’s best works, but it is still obvious right from the beginning – where we see Junko Miyashita having sex with a clown while the landlord (Renji Ishibashi) is spying on them from the attic – that this is no routine production in Nikkatsu’s Meisaku Roman series. The first half suffers from some occasional drifting but the film becomes more solid during the second half. The impressive final 20 minutes turns the piece into pure arthouse. -HungFist