Miki Bonomiya (Yuki Amami) is a middle-aged paper maker. She sells her wares to Seiji Doi (Eugene Harada) who in turn provides the small village where Miki works with a sizeable income. Into this village comes a teacher, Akira Nutahara (Atsuro Watabe) whose fascination with Miki is immediate. What Akira doesn't know is that women in the Bonomiya family are sworn protectors of the Inugami: Wild Dog Gods. If one of these Dog Gods escapes then the entire village could be placed in peril. If the Dog Gods are unleashed, however, then the consequences could be far worse.

The plot is far more involved and, yes, convoluted than this but Inugami's pleasures lie in the details. There are some wonderful moments of visual storytelling in the film and it is these sections that provide enough of a respite to ease the viewer through some of the narrative stumbling blocks. There are also two major twists in the film, only one of which I didn't see coming. However, these "reveals" are handled with such understatement that they never feel obtrusive or gimmicky. Speaking of gimmicks, the film is divided into five "chapters" and, while this is a conceit that I feel has been overused to the point of redundancy, their inclusion here is an example of one of the better uses of this framing device.

At its heart, Inugami is a contemplative and very serious examination of custom and superstition, and how these generational beliefs can afflict and undermine entire families throughout time. It is also a love story, a domestic soap opera and, in its own way, a dark fairy tale. Inugami also has a wonderfully strange sense of humour, particularly evident during a short, but wonderfully unexpected, "autopsy" scene.
For those who have become bored and jaded by the cross-cultural saturation of "slow bore" horror films, in both their native and American iterations, then Inugami could very well be the prescription you were looking for.