This film is presented by St. Louis’s long-running cult film series Strange Brew — winner of the 2025 A-List Award for Best Movie Night in St. Louis. Strange Brew programmer Jon Scorfina will provide an introduction.

KWAIDAN (怪談, literally, ”Ghost Stories”) is an epic, horror anthology film featuring four unrelated ghost stories directed by legendary Japanese filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi (小林 正樹). In 1964, director Kobayashi shot the film on vast indoor sound-stages allowing him to create hyper-stylized landscapes but resulted in one of the most expensive Japanese films produced for its era. The film’s massive budget resulted in an initial financial loss of over one hundred million yen, though as film historians began to acknowledge Kobayashi’s standing as one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers (he also directed Harakiri (切腹) and Samurai Rebellion (上意討ち 拝領妻始末)), Kwaidan (怪談) was also rediscovered and reevaluated as one of the most visually-stunning horror films ever committed to celluloid.

Adapted from classic Japanese folktales, each ghost story in KWAIDAN (怪談) accepts that there is a supernatural realm that is largely unaffected by human suffering. The four stories are all thematically connected through vengeful spirits seeking moral retribution. The stories include:

• The Black Hair (黒髪): A poor samurai leaves his true love and marries into wealth. When his disastrous marriage ends, he returns to his lost love only to discover a mysterious change.
• The Woman of the Snow (雪女): A stranded woodcutter meets an icy spirit that spares his life on the condition he will keep her lifesaving bargain a secret. Unfortunately, he does not keep his promise.
• Hoichi the Earless(耳無し芳一の話): Blind musician Hoichi performs songs for a haunted imperial court that aim to drain his life. Monks set out to protect Hoichi by inking a holy mantra over his entire body.
• In a Cup of Tea (茶碗の中): A man keeps seeing a mysterious face reflected in his cup of tea and makes the mistake of drinking from the cup.

KWAIDAN will be presented by Strange Brew in its original three-hour cut with a brief 10-minute intermission.