1970s Asian Horror Part Eight

DEMONS

(1971)

Dir - Toshio Matsumoto

Overall: GOOD

Ultra-moody and bleak, Toshio Matsumoto's second theatrically released full-length Demons, (Shura), is a psychological samurai film that utilizes an artful, stripped down presentation to explore a world of amoral nihilism.  Masterfully shot in expressionistic black and white by cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki, Matsumoto's intimate direction lets the melodramatic tragedy play out in an ethereal manner and many of the shots are staged in a way befitting to kabuki theater.  There is virtually no musical score and the tormented bouts of madness are edited interchangeably within the narrative so that the viewer experiences the traumatic, hallucinogenic strain of events just as its central, doomed, exiled, and betrayed ronin Katsuo Nakamura does.  Since most of the film maintains a carefully paced aura of dread, the shocking violence cuts through when it does emerge and the ending is particularly unforgiving, slamming home a revelation where nobody wins in a world with greed, obsession, and deceit running rampant.  Far from a feel-good movie and miles away from providing popcorn-munching excitement, it is a powerful, starkly stylistic work for the later period of the Japanese New Wave.

A HAUNTED TURKISH BATHHOUSE

(1975)

Dir - Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Overall: GOOD

Tonally bonkers, miserable for large sections, and merely teasing the viewer with demonic cat lady mayhem until the last fifteen minutes, all of this makes A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse, (Bakeneko Toruko furo, Kaibyô toruko buro, Mysterious Cat in a Turkish Bath, Phantom Cat Turkish Bath), a unique, erotic Pinku eiga/horror hybrid.  Set in 1958 when Tokyo's Red Light District is under bureaucratic attack, a sex worker establishment switches gears in name only to that of a bathhouse, which is about the only plot point with any semblance of reality attached to it.  From there, three different women end up getting battered, abused, manipulated, raped, or all of the above by arguably the worst human being in any piece of fiction, played effectively by villainous character actor Hideo Murota.  Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi maintains a fantastical visual aesthetic that predates Dario Argento's Suspiria by two years, bathing much of the movie in unnatural, eerie lighting that creates a vivid nightmare vibe that only enhances such deplorable, otherworldly plot points.  Largely unpleasant and bordering on torture porn throughout its running time, the brutal sexual violence aimed at the women is oddly juxtaposed by wacky sex scenes set to comical music where dorks make goofy faces as naked and soaped-up bodies rub their nether-regions.  When Murota and his sadistic cohort Tomoko Mayama finally get their comeuppance, the film goes off the rails in a delightful manner, but there is enough sleazy, oddball style before that to keep one engaged.

HELL

(1979)

Dir - Tatsumi Kumashiro

Overall: MEH

Though it bares zero plot similarities to Nobuo Nakagawa's 1960 masterpiece of the same name, filmmaker Tatsumi Kumashiro's version of Hell, (Jigoku, The Inferno), is a kindred spirit that still takes the cinematic opportunity to portray the underworld in all of its bizarre, nightmarish glory.  Besides two moments that merely tease such a thing early on, unfortunately the film only indulges in the abyss during the final twenty-odd minutes which are odd indeed.  Gigantic devils with unkempt manes of hair, a tree that weighs your geisha to determine how heavy your sins are, fire pits, people turned into flesh-eating bugs, a human meat grinder, and mountain region sets with artificially swirling green skies make up the surreal visuals once Mieko Harada's doomed protagonist finally arrives there.  The movie could easily afford to trim about a half-hour of the meandering, miserable melodrama that comes before that though, involving icky incestual love affairs and family grudges that linger on for decades.  Every character that we meet can either never get a break and is relentlessly judged or is just a miserable, vindictive person.  Why everybody cannot keep their genitals away from their half-siblings is never made compelling and it becomes a frustrating waiting game with no one to root for in the process.  Such a dour approach was likely intended, but it is more despondent than thought-provoking.

1970s Asian Horror Part Seven

GHOST OF GUTS EATER

(1973)
Dir - Sanit Kosaroth
Overall: WOOF

A rare, early 1970s horror film from Thailand that managed to escape its native country, the hilariously titled Ghost of Guts Eater, (Krasue Sao), is more of a novelty than anything else.  One of the earliest movies to feature a krasue demon of Southeast Asian folklore which manifests itself as a vampiric, flying woman's head with its vital organs hanging from it, sadly this creature is only given a few brief scenes even though there are more than one such monster present.  It is a tortuously slow watch for a number of other reasons though. At a hundred and five minutes in length and with an episodic structure, characters with either no personality or an obnoxious one deal with the fact that one of them is possessed by the krausue spirit of her dead grandmother, but this hardly has an exciting pay off at any instance.  Sometimes they profess their love for each other, sometimes they bust into spontaneous fist fights, sometimes they die, and it is all spread out so long over inconsequential whining and babbling that one is likely to lose their place in the convoluted plot line before even the halfway point.   It is sad that an export with some historical significance would be so unwatchably dull, but here we are.

 

INUGAMI NO TATARI

(1977)

Dir - Shun'ya Itô

Overall: MEH

Director Shun'ya Itô's first film outside of the Female Prisoner series was Inugami No Tatari, (Curse of the Dog God); a contemporary, supernatural, curse/revenge story with environmental elements plus others right out of The Exorcist.  At an hour and forty-three minutes, the movie is brimful of genre motifs and ideas; something that is actually part of the problem.  There is simply too much packed into the proceedings which leaves the plot no other alternative then to regularly stagnate so that it has time to introduce another bloated chain of events that give it all an exhausting feel.  Some of the ideas even seem rushed or shoehorned in there like a woman possessed, a family getting terrorized by superstitious locals, a uranium company mining on their land, a husband struck with grief between the two opposing forces, and then more possession, screaming, fires, vengeful spirits attacking, and darkly magical forces unleashed.  Tone wise, it has the usual bouts of Japanese melodrama that comes off as unintentionally silly and creepy at the exact same time, such as an over the top exorcism ceremony conducted by shamans and a climax that sees another possessed lady jumping all over the place and causing havoc.  It becomes a lot to keep track of and despite some atmospheric moments and Itô's general commitment to keeping it more on the serious end of the spectrum instead of collapsing into mere quirky camp, it could probably just use a significant edit to truly deliver.

RETURN OF THE DEAD

(1979)

Dir - Han Hsiang Li

Overall: MEH

Following up The Ghost Story from the same year, director Han Hsiang Li's Return of the Dead, (Xiao hun yu), is more of a tradition anthology horror film, set up in an insane asylum where three random inmates tell the tale of how then ended up there.  The first segment is a by-numbers adaptation of the age old "Monkey's Paw" story, (which was also utilized in Amnicus' Tales from the Crypt seven years prior), the second concerns a naked ghost who lures a former love interest back into her clutches for revenge purposes, and the last features a recently deceased, beautiful, and wealthy actor who befriends a friendly rickshaw worker, only to trick him into winning counterfeit silver coins.  The film runs over ninety-minutes and unfortunately feels far longer, with each segment well-deserving of a trim to tighten up the cumbersome pacing.  A big part of the issue is that the entire presentation lacks any violence or hilariously strange set pieces, but it also fails to generate much spooky atmosphere with only some minor chills delivered within the last minute of each story.  By comparison, the nudity is more prevalent than any over-the-top or even subtle horror movie window dressing, but this is still a far less horny affair than others that were produced by the Shaw Brothers in the following decade.

1970s Asian Horror Part Six

THE BRIDE FROM HELL

(1972)

Dir - Hsu-Chiang Chou

Overall: MEH

Another silly horror production from the studios of the Brothers Shaw, The Bride from Hell, (Gui xin niang), is more deliberately comedic than most, though its quirky tone may still be in part accidental.  The premise is assuredly moronic as two men accidentally see two women naked and by the rules and logic of this universe, that means that they must marry them immediately.  From there, it has elements of a typical vengeful spirit story where the bride of the title poses as being still alive in order to deliver comeuppance towards the wealthy family that murdered her twenty years prior; a family whose son is her chosen groom.  Virtually the only thing that happens throughout the running time is Fan Yang being clueless as to his new wife's supernatural nature while everyone else in the village keeps telling him otherwise, plus his servant is a dumb fat guy who is afraid of everything.  Some of the visuals use vibrant colors for eerie effect ala Mario Bava, but save for a scene where a giant shows up out of absolutely nowhere, the film is low on the outrageousness that is usually found in the Shaw Brother's other genre offerings and is remarkably dull because of this.

WOLF GUY

(1975)

Dir - Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Overall: MEH

Though it is a marked improvement over the comparatively goofier and awkard Horror of the Wolf, the sequel Wolf Guy, (Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko, Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope), is still disappointing in some respects.  Once again adapting Kazumasa Hirai and Hisashi Sakaguchi's manga of the same name, the personnel both behind of and in front of the screen is entirely different and it narratively may as well be unrelated to its cinematic predecessor.  A slicker and more hip production overall, its crime genre attributes are more successful and enticing than the horror ones which are more or less an afterthought.  The concept of a raped, traumatized woman having the superpower to turn her rage into an incorporeal tiger is a bizarre one and provides the movie with its tripped-out, otherworldly slant.  Sadly the same cannot be said for the werewolf shenanigans which are aesthetically a let down since martial arts star Shin'ichi Chiba in the title role never actually transforms physically into a beast.  There is a liberal amount of bright red gore, loads of violence, naked women, fetching stylistic choices by director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, and a funky soundtrack to drive things along, but the plot loses steam during the finale.  It then resorts to a series of stand-offs, flips, and boatloads of bad guys shooting guns until everything wraps up on a mostly miserable end, all which slams home the central theme of humanity being, well, lousy.

 

KILLER BUTTERFLY

(1978)

Dir - Kim Ki-young

Overall: MEH

A bizarre indulgence in incoherence, Kim Ki-young's Killer Butterfly, (Salin nabireul jjonneun yeoja, A Woman Chasing a Killer Butterfly, Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death, A Woman After a Killer Butterfly), has several textbook, midnight movie qualities yet also a rambling, bloated narrative.  The first act sets up the more strange incidents where the lead protagonist encounters a random woman who poisons him and demands that he die with her.  Then another random weirdo who manically insists that his will to live will keep him from dying even as he is stabbed, buried, and burned to a skeleton shows up, followed by a set of two-thousand year-old bones that come back to life as a beautiful woman who has sex with him while simultaneously demanding that she eat his liver in order to maintain her flesh.  A promising, wackadoo start to be sure, but the bulk of the running time meanders after that where an archaeologist's daughter wails and complains about love, not wanting to die, and being resurrected as a butterfly for over an hour.  It is difficult to tell if the head-scratching melodrama is supposed to be amusing or just adhering to a cultural, art-house tone that is lost on viewers who are not both South Korean and living in the late 1970's.  In any event, it can certainly afford to trim about forty-five minutes to keep viewers invested, but it is unique enough to stand as a curiosity.

1970s Asian Horror Part Five

THE ENCHANTING GHOST

(1970)

Dir - Hsu-Chiang Chou

Overall: MEH

Director Hsu-Chiang Chou's first venture into horror The Enchanting Ghost, (Gui wu li ren), takes its narrative from one of the entries in Qing dynasty author Pu Songling's collection of ghost stories Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.  One of numerous films in the genre to be produced by The Shawn Brothers that decade, the most noticeable angle taken was in casting Li-Hua Yang as a male "master"; a scholar who gets evicted from his/her family home by a shady uncle, only to stay the night in an alleged haunted house where he/she meets a beautiful female love interest.  The gender reversal of the central character is never addressed, so it inadvertently plays out as a lesbian romance between two women that are just trying to live happily in a dilapidated abode without gossipy townsfolk interfering and insisting that Yang's bride is of supernatural origin.  While the movie looks lovely and has an amusing theremin score that creates the correct spooky mood, the soundtrack also makes that unfortunately common and annoying mistake of having blaring brass noises every couple of seconds for jump scare purposes.  The plot line is also monotonous and despite a lighthearted, macabre atmosphere that suggest otherwise, the supernatural set pieces do not emerge until the third act and lead to a dour, unsatisfactory ending.

BLOOD REINCARNATION

(1974)
Dir - Shan-Hsi Ting
Overall: MEH

An anthology horror outing from one of Hong Kong's lesser known production companies, Blood Reincarnation, (Yinyang jie), seems like a slapdash effort with three unrelated stories of inconsistent length thrown together without a linking narrative.  While this was nothing new to the formula, it is jarring that the first segment is just over ten minutes, the second twenty, and the third a whopping hour long.  They also vary in tone with the opening story coming off like a barely comprehensible fever dream suffered by a woman in labor, the next a lighthearted vengeful spirit story with a murdered husband inflicting supernatural drowning gags on his wife and her lover, (and making the guy unable to stop peeing), all leading to the final, feature-length tale involving a wrongfully accused doctor who comes back from the dead via the movie's title ritual.  As a whole, it is a disjointed mess and begs the question as to why it was structured as such, but there are at least some amusing and surreal moments to be found in the first two tagged-on segments.  Sadly, the closing one that gets the prominent emphasis is tortuously sluggish and grows unbearably obnoxious by its conclusion which is nothing more than a repetitive series of melodramatic whaling as characters repeat the same dialog over and over again while inconsolably, (and loudly), crying.

THE RITES OF MAY

(1976)

Dir - Mike De Leon

Overall: GOOD

The full-length debut from Filipino filmmaker Mike De Leon, The Rites of May, (Itim), is a stark, atmospheric musing on guilt and tragedy.  Stylized as a sobering art film as opposed to a conventional horror one, De Leon makes conservative yet effective use out of incidental music, letting enormous amounts of time play out to an increasingly intense silence where no tension is released and only some select moments of a kind of waking nightmare-type creepiness transpires to slightly liven things up.  Mostly shot in an unassuming manner, the hazy cinematography from Ely Cruz and Rody Lacap is persistently lovely.  The running time could perhaps be trimmed to move things along more agreeably, but the dread-inducing atmosphere is so mild and almost subliminal that the entire hour and forty-five minutes never overstays its welcome.  Narratively, there is a lack of complexity that is refreshing even if it takes until the final set piece to truly understand the full weight of what has been laying so very heavy on most of the character's minds the whole time.  For the small number of people on screen and their isolated community, Christian religion of the more superstitious variety appears to lurk in the very air and this gives way to some startling, surreal sequences that are ominous without being showy in their intensity.

1970s Asian Horror Part Four

SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST

(1974)

Dir - Norifumi Suzuki

Overall: GOOD

One of if not the first prominent nunsploitation work to emerge from Japan was School of the Holy Beast, (Seijū gakuen, Convent of the Sacred Beast, The Transgressor), which is typical in its shock value yet bordering on art film in much of its aesthetic.  Co-writer/director Norifumi Suzuki would immediately follow this with his first of several in the action/comedy Torakku Yarō franchise; comparatively more lightweight then his adherence to pinky violence here.  On paper, many of the set pieces and plot points are assuredly ridiculous with rape, incest, lesbianism, and torture all played for boundary-pushing effectiveness.  Yet the sly, satirical aspects of extreme religious hypocrisy are at the heart of the agenda.  Several Sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent are caught engaging in lustful, self-serving, blasphemous, and/or sadistic acts, punishing and ratting each other out while Yumi Takigawa's vengeful protagonist is determined to bring the whole house of cards down.  Remarkably stylized, Suzuki's use of music and Masao Shimizu's camera work in capturing evocative visuals takes center stage and it is this striking presentation that separates it from the heard of other conceptually similar additions to the sub-genre.

BLACK MAGIC 2

(1976)

Dir - Ho Meng Hua

Overall: MEH

 

While it nearly redeems itself with an ultra spooky zombie-fest finale, The Shaw Brothers Black Magic 2, (Gou hun jiang tou, Revenge of the Zombies), suffers from a combination of goofy and lackluster attributes in a similar fashion to the initial movie from the previous year.  Once again featuring the director/screenwriter team of Ho Meng Hua and Ni Kuang, (as well as many of the same actors now playing different roles), this stand-alone sequel recycles a similar plot of a bad guy charging people money for spells while taking shady tactics to get them under his power once the business transaction is done.  There is also another good wizard to counter him, though this fellow is reduced to a few scenes and quickly meets his end under Lo Lieh's more powerful, undead-raising magician.  Most of the enjoyment here is basking in the campy production values and loose plotting.  The makeup effects are frequently embarrassing and one hilarious rear projection scene would look just as thoroughly unconvincing back in the silent film era.  Also, the characters are morons from top to bottom with the script hardly making any logical behavior a priority as such things would inevitably get in the way of the steady combination of boring dialog exchanges and unholy set pieces.  There are some highlights to be found as well as unintended humor, but not a significant enough amount of either.

 

EMPIRE OF PASSION

(1978)

Dir - Nagisa Ōshima

Overall: GOOD

 

Continuing in the trajectory established with his infamous, quasi-pornographic art film In the Realm of the Senses, Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Ōshima followed it up with the comparatively less daring yet still explicit Empire of Passion, (Ai no Bōrei, In the Realm of Passion).  Once again collaborating with actor Tatsuya Fuji and the French production company Argos Films, this story's focus on tragic lovers incorporates the kaidan tradition of vengeful spirits, here taking the form of a well-meaning rickshaw driver who is murdered by his wife and her jealous lover before being thrown down a well.  As the title would suggest, the doomed protagonists are primarily driven by sexual passion for each other as Kazuko Yoshiyuki gives into Fuji's persistent flattery and initial assault.  Both parties exhibit obsessive, psychological dependence on each other throughout their prolonged affair and while their behavior is certainly not meant to garnish universal sympathy, their all-too-human faults still resonate in such an extreme setting.  Ōshima stages every supernatural encounter in a hushed manner, with eerie lighting and sparse music that makes them exceptionally moody and fitting for the overall naturalistic tone.  It works both as a simple, chilling ghost story and as a provocative exploration of traumatic lust, so it stands as a benchmark exploitation film that is more gripping than all-out sleazy.

1970s Asian Horror Part Three

HORROR OF THE WOLF

(1973)

Dir - Masashi Matsumoto

Overall: MEH

 

One of a select few films to be directed by Masashi Matsumoto was the adaptation of Kazumasa Hirai and Hisashi Sakaguchi's manga Wolf Guy, here titled Horror of the Wolf, (Urufu Gai, Crest of the Wolf).  As is typical of Japanese horror movies involving beastly transformations, the lycanthropian look here is much more akin to a cat, (or more accurately), a cat/wolf/fox hybrid that is unique for werewolf cinema in general.  As far as the story goes, it involves the world's most violent middle school to ever exist where the offspring of the yakuza run rampant, terrorizing any and all members of both class and staff.  That is until Tarô Shigaki shows up, playing an anti-social exchange student who just wants to be left alone and avenge his parent's death.  He also turns into the wolf of the title when the script tells him to.  The plot is monotonous and features an unfortunately standard amount of misogyny and rape for exploitation movies of the era, as well as a confused soundtrack including a whimsical folk song that creates the opposite of an ideal atmosphere for women getting terrorized, people getting killed, and everyone else perpetually getting the shit beaten out of them.

BLACK MAGIC

(1975)

Dir - Ho Meng Hua

Overall: MEH

 

The Brothers Shaw venture into the occult with the aptly titled Black Magic, (Jiang tou), one of several films to be directed by Ho Meng Hua and authored by the even more prolific screenwriter Ni Kuang.  Though the personnel involved come from a sufficient assembly line work ethic and are plenty equipped to handle the low-budget silliness on display here, (silliness that is fully in line with the production company's stable of kung fu movies), this is a disappointing venture.  The main problem stems from the repetitive script which features three different characters casting spells on each other to make them either fiendishly in love or cursed to die within three days.  Ku Feng and Ku Wen-chung play dueling wizards with various arbitrary tricks up their sleeves to thwart each other's magical prowess and the inevitable fight between them in the finale has a hilarious cornball charm to it that makes fun use out of such meager production values.  Elsewhere though, it has a back-and-forth feel that never picks up any steam, with the only narrative surprises being how many cockamamie, mystical tricks can spring up to get someone temporarily in or out of a jam.  Some of these details are gross or just plain ridiculous, but equipped with all of the dated wah-wah guitar music and bright colors, it has aged about as well as any other Samurai Sunday goof-fest, except with love potions, terrible makeup, and bugs in place of flips, kicks, and abnormally loud punch noises.

THE GHOST STORY

(1979)

Dir - Han Hsiang Li

Overall: MEH

The first of two Shaw Brothers horror films from director Han Hsiang Li to come out in 1979, The Ghost Story, (Gui jiao chun), is one of the studio's more wildly inconsistent tonal offering amongst many.  A combination of lighthearted comedy, wild supernatural set pieces, profuse horniness, and a dash of gore hits several of the hallmarks found in wild, Hong Kong genre offerings.  An anthology movie of sorts, it adapts elements from Pu Songling’s 18th century, short story collection Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, namely "The Painted Skin" and "Making Animals".  What differentiates it from most omnibus horror films is that the two segments presented share certain actors and the second one takes up an hour of the running time, just with a few interruptions from an old man regaling children and adults in campfire stories.  A steady theme runs throughout of men not being able to keep in in their pants as the first sequence features prostitutes who turn guys into livestock after fucking them.  The second story focuses on a married man who has an affair with a ghost witch who is eventually defeated after turning into a gigantic, multiple-armed statue that can summon topless, female ninja warriors.  Such ridiculous attributes only rev-up in the final act and though they are hilariously inventive, the bulk of the movie is poorly paced and awkwardly sub-par.

1970s Chih-Hung Kuei

THE KILLER SNAKES

(1974)

Overall: MEH

With The Killer Snakes, (She sha shou, The Sex Snakes, Se Sat Sau), the Shaw Brothers come to the rescue for anyone who wanted to see a reptilian version of Willard with the lead human protagonist being a sexually traumatized pervert.  The movie can be applauded for the relentlessly dour series of events that transpire, as much as it can be heralded for maintaining such a miserable tone.  Kwok-Leung Kam plays a hopelessly disturbed loser who never gets a single break throughout the hour and thirty-nine minute running time.  He is fired from his jobs, robbed every time that he has any money on his person, beaten to a pulp by hoodlums, laughed at by prostitutes and pedestrians alike, and his only friends are various snakes that are otherwise used for getting their gallbladders removed as a delicacy in restaurants.  The sadism angle is prominent as well, with Kam having witnessed, (presumably), his mother getting mercilessly beaten into ecstasy as a young boy, so now he fanatically struggles with such sexually violent temptations himself.  Things play out brutally and the Hong Kong slums setting is naturally captured by director Chih-Hung Kuei in all of its grimy glory.  It is not for most tastes, but it has plenty of exploitation hallmarks for the already initiated.

 

GUI YAN

(1974)

Overall: GOOD

 

Over-long and not without its share of plot holes, Gui Yan, (Ghost Eyes), remains one of the more interesting supernatural horror films from the Shaw Brothers.  This was director Chih-Hung Kuei's second crack at the genre and he and cinematographer Chi Yu do some top notch work with eerie color schemes and camera angles to create a visually compelling atmosphere that is as much Mario Bava inspired as it is fittingly rooted in the Shaw Brothers quick-edited template.  Whether it is merely a subtitle malfunction or a tweak on the screenwriter's part, this particular interpretation of "vampires" is unique to say the least.  An ophthalmologist gets burned up in a fire only to return three years later as a rapist ghost who terrorizes Szu-Chia Chen by way of otherworldly unremovable contact lenses.  There is no blood sucking to be found, but Wei Szu's nasty antagonist does have an aversion to mirrors at least.  He is also undone in part by incense sticks, presumably triggering his human demise by way of burning alive.  Thankfully, much of the rape and unwholesome murders happen off screen which may disappoint gore hounds and exploitation fans, but it actually allows for the film to focus on its dread-fueled mood where Chen is relentlessly hounded with seemingly no end in sight.  That said, the characters make some asinine decisions and obvious maneuvers allude them at times, but it still gets by on its sinister presentation.

FEARFUL INTERLUDE

(1975)
Dir - Chih-Hung Kuei
Overall: MEH

One of a handful of anthology horror films made by the Shaw Brothers in the 1970s, Fearful Interlude, (Gu zhi se lang), was allegedly commissioned as such due to its final, (and by far worst), segment being abandoned as a full-length during production.  Two more stories were then filmed, thus combining the three into its final form.  With no framing narrative, it simply presents them one after the other, each story with enough macabre details to thematically link them.  The first, best, shortest, and most self-explanatory is "The Haunted House" which utilizes the ole scenario of a guy with a lot of money betting his friends to stay the night in a specter-ridden abode.  Wonderfully photographed, it is loaded with spooky atmosphere and gets in and out before becoming too redundant.  This is followed by "The Cold Skeleton" which is overlong but is also properly atmospheric and concerns a grieving son who is tormented by his recently deceased mother that repeatedly returns from the grave, (or so he and the audience may think).  Sadly, the longest and worst of the lot "A Wolf of Ancient Times" closes things out and why this one was dropped as its own feature is wholly understandable.  This is because it features a "comedic", horse-toothed protagonist who not only disgustingly adheres to bygone, Western stereotypes of Asian people, but is also as funny as a gymnasium full of baby seals getting tortured while children cry.

SPIRIT OF THE RAPED

(1976)

Overall: MEH

Though it has the standard Shaw Brothers kinetic energy at regular intervals, Spirit of the Raped, (Suo ming), is too low on plot to captivate as much as it should.  The last horror film from director Chih-Hung Kuei at least until the 1980s rolled around, the vengeful spirit story is laid out within the first act where the husband in a newlywed couple is murdered at knife-point by a bunch of thugs, only for the widow to get swindled and then drugged and raped later on by a fresh crop of unrepentant, awful people.  It would be an exclusively miserable viewing experience if not for the bizarre and outlandish set pieces that keep things on the ridiculous side.  These include a woman turning into a bloated, vomit-eating, possessed, boil-covered lunatic, a guy getting a "ghost ulcer" that aggressively grows out of his neck, and another guy gouging his eyes out on spikes.  The gore is disgustingly gleeful for fans of the nonsensical variety and as far as comeuppance spectacles go, the movie delivers the bad guy justice with a fervor.  Sadly though, Kuang Ni and On Szeto's script forgot to include anything besides gross-out nonsense, with the story's sole victim disappearing into the otherworld early on and the bulk of the narrative being nothing more than horrible people dying by also horrible, arbitrarily supernatural means.  If that all sounds delightful then by all means, please partake.