The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)

In 1840 Japan, a samurai (Tsuiyuki Sasaki) returns home to find his wife (Mako Hattori) with another man (Toshiya Maruyama) and kills them both before killing himself. Jump 142 years later and an American family moves into the house which is haunted by the ghosts of  the samurai, his wife and her lover. Based on the novel by James Hardiman and directed by Kevin Connor (THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT). One would think it would be difficult to make a story about ghosts haunting the living tedious but this one accomplishes it. There is absolutely no sense of tension or dread or fear in the entire movie. The film culminates in the silliest of finales with an exorcism that's dull (the ghosts run away like spinsters being chased by mice) and then the ghosts enter the bodies of their American counterparts: the husband (Edward Albert), the wife (Susan George) and her lover (Doug McClure) and suddenly the two male protagonists are wielding samurai swords and doing judo while the wife eggs them on. It actually sounds more fun than it is. There's a lousy underscore by Ken Thorne which doesn't give the film the horror underpinings it needs.