1980s Asian Horror Part Eleven

DREADNAUGHT

(1981)
Dir - Yuen Woo-ping
Overall: WOOF

Intentional Hong Kong "comedies" are inherently painful viewing experiences and martial arts choreographer/director Yuen Woo-ping's Dreadnaught, (Yong zhe wu ju), is one of the more wretched offenders of such dated, hare-brained nonsense falling on deaf ears decades after its release.  Mislabeled as a quasi-horror film, there are no supernatural components of any kind, unless you count the usual physics-defying bouts of agility that every character seems to possess.  Though Yuen had previous success with Jackie Chan on similar goofy genre hybrids, this one is ruined by horrendous characters, a comparative lack of wild fight sequences, and some of the worst attempts at humor involving a bumbling police force, (including the least funny man who ever lived, cross-eyed character actor Tau Wan Yue).  At least a showdown in an empty theater is inventively staged and atmospherically sinister, plus the finale bought between Yuen Shun-yee's kabuki made-up bad guy and Yuen Biao's cowardly dipshit "hero", (who inexplicably becomes a kung-fu dynamo with mere minutes in the running time left to spare), is enjoyably absurd if anyone watching can make it that far.

 

GAKIDAMA

(1985)

Dir - Masayoshi Sukita

Overall: GOOD

A fifty-four minute, oddball feature and the only solo directorial venture from cinematographer Masayoshi Sukita, Gakidama, (Gakidama - The Demon Within), is slim on story yet brimful of surprisingly subtle atmosphere and some wonderfully grotesque puppet work/shots of people eating.  A twisted, Japanese answer to the 1980s Gremlin craze of knock-offs, this one is void of any and all kid-friendly cutesiness and for a film about a tiny rubber ghoul that gets puked up from humans only to want to crawl back inside of them, it has an eerie, low-key atmosphere that favors dimly-lit scenery, hardly any incidental music, and a deliberate pace.  Playing out more like a somber supernatural tale than puppet monster mayhem, it is a strikingly unique work that delivers intense set pieces and stomach-churning spectacle.  The creature of the title, (which goes from a will o’ the wisp spirit, to a larva-esque insect, to slimy Ghoulies reject), is hilariously unconvincing, yet Sukita's camerawork and sense of staging is endlessly inventive, which culminates in an extended homage to Dan Curtis' seminal Trilogy of Terror Zuni doll cat and mouse chase.

TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM

(1986)

Dir - Kaizô Hayashi

Overall: MEH

The highly experimental debut To Sleep So as to Dream, (Yumemiru yôni nemuritai), from filmmaker Kaizô Hayashi is evocative in its images, yet the stationary pacing and boldly incomprehensible narrative make it an unnecessarily challenging viewing experience.  Describing what may or may not be going on here is a fool's errand, but condensing it down to a film noir trapped in a silent movie fever dream may be as close as one can get to pinning it down.  Though it contains an array of sound effects, lush music, and voices are heard on a tape recording and through the words of a benshi narrator, the only other dialog is shown in intertitles as a hard-boiled-egg-loving private investigator, (get it?), and his assistant follow a gyroscope for clues in finding an elderly actor's kidnapped daughter.  The black and white cinematography was done by Yûichi Nagata and Shoji Taki and is the star of the show, capturing the expressionistic aesthetic of silent cinema with an endless stream of ethereal images.  It is certainly unique from a stylistic standpoint and defies genre classification, but it is also unavoidably pretentious and frustrating by spinning its wheels with zero momentum at too many intervals.

1980s Asian Horror Part Ten

A MONSTROUS CORPSE

(1981)

Dir - Beom-gu Kang

Overall: MEH

 

A rare, South Korean zombie film from the early 80s, (doubly rare since horror movies were hardly one of said country's primarily cinematic exports the way that they were in Japan, Indonesian, and Hong Kong), A Monstrous Corpse, (Goeshi), is an unofficial remake of Let Sleeping Corpse's Lie.  While it is missing the latter film's hilarious dialog, over the top violence, and anti-hippy angle, the plot line is virtually identical and still revolves around experiential pest control technology unwittingly animated the dead, with the cops still targeting the main protagonists until the reality of the situation is right in front of their dumb faces.  The cinematography by Yeong-kil Yang is surprisingly effective for something clearly made with no dollars and some of the undead here have a unique, silver-skinned look that makes them as creepy as intended.  Unfortunately though, the pacing is horrendously sloth-like from beginning to end.  This is clearly due to the minuscule production values which not only affords absolutely zero gore of any kind, (making this probably the only zombie film with no bloodshed since George Romero came on the scene), but can only muster up increasingly boring talky scenes between characters.  That is when they are not staring in unhurried terror at dead people slowly trying to choke them.

 

WITCH FROM NEPAL

(1986)

Dir - Ching Siu-tung

Overall: MEH

 

The second film from Hong Kong director Ching Siu-tung, (which was made only a year before he embarked on the first in the A Chinese Ghost Story series), is a slick though terribly sluggish bore up until the final showdown.  Witch from Nepal, (Qi yuan), has leading many Chow Yun-Fat as an architect who for some reason is chosen by the title mystic to defeat a demon, whereby he has visions of her, has an affair with her, is granted supernatural powers, and propels himself via steam to stab the bad guy with a magical knife in mid-air.  It reads as a more ridiculous affair than it comes across on screen since there is minimal to no humor present, though the aforementioned finale does have some hoot-worthy moments.  Yun-Fat is not the most sympathetic of protagonists and not just because he cheats on his girlfriend; he is also terribly underwritten and largely boring.  The same goes for the bulk of the film which never seems to have enough fun with its material in the way that say a wacky Shaw Brothers production would.  It is well photographed by cinematographer Tom Lau even if the somber atmosphere is ill-placed, but as a horror/romance/fantasy hybrid, it is far from memorable.

DOGURA MAGURA

(1988)

Dir - Toshio Matsumoto

Overall: MEH

The final cinematic work from experimental filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto, Dogura Magura, (Dogra Magra), is challenging if not futile to comprehend, but offers up some compelling visuals.  Centered around a young man who wakes up in an isolated room in an insane asylum with no memory of how he got there, he spends the entirety of the movie trying to unlock such a mystery with two different doctors pulling him in conflicting directions.  One of these doctors seems "normal" enough while the other is squarely on the eccentric side, laughing aggressively after everything that Yôji Matsuda's confused protagonist says.  The plot line is impossible to follow in a conventional sense, yet as a means of exploring the frustrated madness that comes with amnesia, its construction is deliberately unorthodox.  Matsuda's insanity could be hereditary in nature, led him to bizarre acts of violence, or some by-product of both and there is no official answers to such questions which lead to a raving finale that suggest the perpetual loop that such traumatic events can induce.  Cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki deserves particular praise here, constructing a number of shots and pulling off ambitious single takes that weave in flashbacks to what is currently happening.  It goes too hard in the running time to be an agreeable watch, but it is still impressive in its grasp.

1980s Asian Horror Part Nine - (Shan Hua Edition)

XIE YING WU

(1981)

Overall: MEH

Hopelessly befuddling, Xie Ying Wu, (Bloody Parrot), is another wacky genre hybrid from the Shaw Brothers.  A wuxia film with more than its fair share of highly choreographed, martial arts break-outs where every character of every age and sex exhibits impossible athleticism and kung fu skills, there is also macabre weirdness and nudity to fit this into the sleazy horror camp.  The movie often feels as if it is edited down from a much longer epic as protagonist shifts wield an inconclusive plot line where it becomes increasingly impossible to follow the plethora of characters that we are introduced to, let alone keeping track of what any of their motivations are.  It is frustrating in this respect, but the sheer amount of inventive details keep it from being a total bore, even if it still regularly stagnates.  Something about being a granted a wish by a demon bird, then that only being an illusion, then the demon bird being an actual person, then that person being someone who was thought to be dead, then his wife also showing up who was supposed to be dead, stones that possess people or make them vampires maybe, some stuff with another guy and his clan, a witch, a black magic wizard, women who are deadly with pins and a frisbee made out of a human face, maggots, naked boobs, etc. 

 

KUNG FU ZOMBIE

(1981)

Overall: WOOF

 

A failure as both a horror and martial arts movie, Kung Fu Zombie, (Wu long tian shi zhao ji gui), is a wretchedly obnoxious viewing experience.  The first of two back-to-back staring vehicles for Billy Chong that involve otherworldly elements, it has all of the rapid-fire, physics-defying, flipping through the air, unnaturally loud sound effects fighting scenes that Samurai Sunday films gleefully abuse.  What becomes far more painfully unendurable though is the moronic tone that throws one thoroughly unfunny gag after the other, with characters wildly gallivanting about with pathetic attempts at Three Stooges hijinks.  Virtually every person on screen is interchangeable in their loud, stupid mannerisms and the movie even has the classy taste to have an inconsequential side character cook and eat a dog to wonky cartoon music.  Also, a screaming vampire shows up because he might as well.  Consider yourself extra unfortunate if you come across the English-dubbed version which on top of being unavoidably sillier, is also edited to a pulp.  Yet for audience members who never get bored with such endless buffoonery that all members of the Wu-Tang Clan champion, this will hit the appropriate requirements, only with some extra supernatural elements thrown in for "good" measure. 

PORTRAIT IN CRYSTAL

(1983)

Overall: GOOD

With a convoluted plot, only thirty-five second breaks between kung fu sequences, and more atmospheric eye candy than genre fans could hope for, Portrait in Crystal, (Shui jing ren, Crystal Man, Sujeong-in), stands out as one of the most engaging of the Shaw Brothers horror/wuxia/fantasy hybrids.  Of course opening with some narration as was a common practice for the studio's mystical offerings, the lore concerning crystal statutes that become human if blood is spilled on them ultimately establishes a bizarre story with treacherous clans, murder, and vengeance.  It all culminates in a lengthy third act where we enter a magical fortress of sorts where women warriors hold the key to healing one's wounds while simultaneously keeping "morons" in cages, maintaining torture devices, and unleashing Indiana Jones-worthy booby-traps depending on what part of their labyrinth-like dwelling that certain unwilling, sword-wielding warriors venture into.  The middle section drags with childish comic relief surrounding the dopey exploits of a character named "Fatty", but the entire production goes all out with superb set design and colorful lighting that would make Mario Bava stand up and applaud.  Nudity, gore, vomit, and rapid-fire fight scenes all round out the ridiculous experience, forgiving the razor-thin story that barely has enough glue to keep the wacky set pieces together.

1980s Asian Horror Part Eight

XIE MO

(1981)

Dir - Jen-Chieh Chang

Overall: WOOF

Director Jen-Chieh Chang's first foray into horror is the barely tolerable Xie mo, (The Devil), which is one of several gross-out Hong Kong genre films from the era.  Sadly, this one thickly lays on the plodding melodrama and unlikable characters, with people yelling "Bastard!" more times than in a Paul Naschy movie and of course an obnoxiously crying woman who is married to the main scumbag and still loves him after he beats her, kills her father, runs the family business into the ground, and gloats about it.  Speaking of obnoxious, there is a kid named Ding Dong here who fulfills the horror movie trajectory of a youngster that you just want to throw off of a bridge.  On the "plus" side, the ten percent of the running time that is not dedicated to everyone's uninteresting squabbles features a whole lot of disgusting insect and snake vomiting, which seems to be the go-to outcome of black magic practitioners putting hexes on people.  So for those who can stomach the stomach-churning aspects, stupid little kids, hysterical wailing, repetitive dialog, and snore-inducing pacing, this might be worth a casual glance.

KUNG FU FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
(1982)
Dir - Chiu Lee
Overall: MEH

 

Though there are wacky details galore in martial arts leading man Billy Chong's follow-up to the gratingly stupid Kung Fu Zombie, the resulting Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave, (Yin ji), still cannot withstand the monotonous pitfalls of other such movies.  It is no exaggeration to proclaim that there are at most eleven seconds between each fight scene here, as if the film itself is suffering from some soft of OCD affliction and simply must have choreographed battles constantly following each other to keep the bad thoughts at bay.  Said battle sequences are as elaborately ridiculous as fans would hope for and they are designed by stunt coordinator Chin-Lai Sung, who also appears as a black magician.  There are a barrage of characters present and all of them seem to be on equal footing as far as unnatural flipping and punching abilities go, so naturally there is no suspense or stakes in anything that is happening.  Not that this is a faux pas for the production since who in their right might could possibly care what the story is?  Something about Chong's dead zombie father tasking him with getting revenge on a guy who has to have two hearts from an orgasming couple set on fire so that the blood can be spat on his bare chest to make him invincible.  Also, Dracula shows up and a bunch of women warriors throw menstrual pads at the villain.

SEEDING OF A GHOST

(1983)

Dir - Chuan Yang

Overall: MEH

 

One of the latter entries from the Brothers Shaw and ergo done on a minuscule budget as the company was undergoing financial hardships in its later years, Seeding of a Ghost, (Zhong gui), unfortunately suffers from a molasses-leaking first half before indulging in full-on, gross-out body horror in the second.  The infidelity plot kicks right in as two married people engage in a passionate fling behind their spouse's backs, only for the woman to find herself at the mercy of two thugs who rape and accidentally send her flying off of a balcony to her violent death.  Because black magic almost always has to find its way into Hong Kong horror films from the period, the grieving widower enlists the diabolical services of a shirtless and sweaty practitioner of the dark arts and everything that happens from that point on is a hilarious bombardment of outrageous, off-color gore.  A guy pukes up worms, another guy eats brains out of a coconut, a guy has sex with an animated/animatronic corpse, and a woman gets pregnant with a revenge spawn right out of John Carpenter's The Thing which has a human head inside of its mouth.  If not for the sluggish start, (which overuses an unconvincingly cheap police station, boring sex scenes, and various characters all knowing kung fu), the movie would have been a home-run in supernatural ridiculousness.

1980s Asian Horror Part Seven

HAUNTED TALES

(1980)

Dir - Yuen Chor/Ho Meng Hua/Tun-Fei Mou

Overall: GOOD

 

A composite anthology film made up of two previously abandoned projects from the Shaw Brothers, Haunted Tales, (Die xian), is a mostly enjoyable if still random hodgepodge.  As a collection of two unrelated, nearly full-length stories which had been shelved for various reasons, it makes for an unavoidably odd viewing experience.  Thankfully though, each tail delivers on their own terms.  The opening and longer segment was originally to be titled "Hellish Soul" under the direction of Yuen Chor before Ho Meng Hua contributed re-shoots several years later, at which point it was known as simply "The Ghost".  It has an unusual tone where the atmospheric visuals are never given time to conventionally settle in.  This is due to the snappy editing which trims out much of the fat and just bombards the audience with one supernatural set piece after the other.  The following "The Prize Fighter" from director Tun-Fei Mou has a different, cautionary agenda and is far less spooky by comparison, though it does deliver a memorable and macabre ending.  Each installment dilly-dallies to varying extents, but this just proves that it was ultimately a good idea to cobble them into one collection with the footage they had.

 

THE WITCH AND THE FLYING HEAD

(1982)

Dir - Jen-Chieh Chang

Overall: MEH

 

A Taiwan/Hong Kong co-production variant of the ole floating head krasue demon story, The Witch and the Flying Head, (Fei tou mo nu), is the second such supernatural gross-out movie from director Jen-Chieh Chang.  Here, a beautiful woman, (of enough prestige to have lady servants willing to both die for and perpetually cry over her), gets duped into taking poison from a black magician who wants to marry her against her will, said poison causing her to turn into the fanged, disembodied head with its entrails hanging off of it.  Fun, nasty stuff that is regularly punctuated by worms, snakes, and caterpillars riving around on the ground, on various piles of entrails, or, (in one instance), being puked up and launched onto someone's face.  The plot points and performances are of the melodramatic variety with witches, sorcerers, and holy men doing battle while Hsiu-Chen Chen and Lau Seung-Him are just trying to live a happy life with their new daughter.  Having such a minimal budget, the special effects are of course crude, but Chang utilizes enough deceptive camera angles to pull off the ridiculous concept without embarrassing split screen shots ala Mystics in Bali.

CYCLOPS

(1987)

Dir - Jôji Iida

Overall: MEH

The low-budget, special effects showcase debut from writer/director Jôji Iida is hilariously low on story, but it will assuredly appease gore fans as well as those who appreciate a barely full-length movie that comes in at under an hour long.  Cyclops, (Kikuropusu), starts off with some text about Siamese twins and birth defects, plus some vague allusions to a mad scientist before we are introduced to even more scientists and a towering, smirking guy in a trench coat and sunglasses who needs to kidnap someone or conduct more experiments in order to deliver a baby or whatever.  Since the running time is so short and Iida's script barely seems concerned with ironing out any of the kinks, it is best to just sit back and wait for the triumphantly gory finale which turns into an over-the-top, body horror nightmare.  Bodies explode open revealing physics-defying other body parts and animated organs, only to morph into still more bodies that are all covered with blood and eventually reduce themselves to a pile of guts and lord knows what else, all of which crawls around with two barely human heads attached.  There are also wicked close-ups of vaginal, bloody, single eye-sockets as the movie's title would dictate.  Nothing to take seriously, but it is at least a partially successful DIY bit of gross-out movie-making.

1980s Chih-Hung Kuei Horror Part Two

XIE WAN ZAI XIE

(1982)

Overall: MEH

While not as grating as Che Dau Che which this serves as director Chi-Hung Kuei's immediate sequel to, Xie wan Zai xie, (Hex After Hex), still adheres to the same juvenile, absurdist shtick.  Taking place where the previous film left off yet thankfully leaving out said movie's obnoxious main character, this one has Lan-Hsi Liu as an adorable, arbitrarily prankster ghost who shacks up with a physically fit stuntman for no decipherable reason besides possible boredom.  She proceeds to playfully manipulate a shady real estate owner who is pushing her new boyfriend plus all of his fellow tenants out of their apartment complex, yet she does so by keeping her motives entirely to herself which only unnecessarily aggravates matters.  All for the sake of on-paper "comedy" though as it provides the movie with one nonsensical, immature set piece after the other where everyone performs in fast motion as prat falls, body odors, genitals, and various other low-hanging fruit gags are utilized.  These quickly grow annoying and the frantic pace still ends up feeling its length, but there are also moments that are so bizarre that they garnish genuine chuckles.  This includes Lan-Hsi turning into both a Yoda puppet and Darth Vader, plus a "Huh?" finale where a statue animates, reveals itself to be a slot machine, and then start puking up gold coins.

CURSE OF EVIL

(1982)

Overall: MEH

 

A typically wacky and messy supernatural horror concoction by the Shaw Brothers and director Chih-Hung Kuei who cranked out many such oddities in the latter half of his career, Curse of Evil, (Xie zhou, Che jau, Jinx), is the studio's twisted take on the old dark house film.  Here, the inhabitants of an overstuffed abode who almost exclusively refer to each other by their titles as opposed to their actual names all squabble, cry, gossip, get raped, and get murdered in aggravated fashion as a family secret about servants posing as relatives, (plus some stuff about piranha-like frogs and a reptilian like demon that lives in the bottom of a well), seems to be at the center of everything.  Not that On Szeto or Chin-Hua Tan's script spends much time logically explaining any of the events, even with a convoluted expository dump and flashback at the very end.  It is one of those confusingly plotted trainwrecks that throw so many indistinguishable characters at you while rapidly editing between scenes that the viewer is scarcely aware that there was a mystery to be unfolded in the first place.  Again, common for a Shaw Brothers production of the era whose primary agenda is to throw a bunch of nonsensical nudity and disgusting gore, slime, and vomit at the audience to keep them howling.

THE BOXER'S OMEN
(1983)
Overall: GOOD

If The Holy Mountain was Rocky IV and Housu at the same time, the result would be The Boxer's Omen, (Mó, Magic).  A film as wildly clashing as this is bound to raise some eyebrows as well as cause discomfort to many brains that are trying to make sense of the tonal shifts, but even though it feels like several different movies desperately duck-taped together, it is consistently bananas enough to endure.  A bonafide laundry list of "what in the goddamn fuck?" things like toy bats and spiders, vomit, puss bubbles, alien babies, munching skeletons, glowing tattoos, severed heads attacking with silly-string entrails, live eels getting barfed up, maggots crawling out of eye sockets, and a resurrection ritual involving a crocodile with too many other gross and batshit crazy details to explain or comprehend here all make an appearance before the film is even halfway done.  These moments do a solid job of carrying the comparatively slow third act through before the ending once again revs up the wackiness to alarming proportions.  As his penultimate film, director Chih-Hung Kuei was granted an adequate budget and pulls no punches in utilizing it to concoct one of the most feverishly strange genre movies to make it out of any country.

1980s Chih-Hung Kuei Horror Part One

CHE DAU CHE

(1980)

Overall: WOOF

As many terrible horror comedies can attest to which certainly includes this one, it is often tricky to meld the two genres successfully.  The Shaw Brothers' Che dau che, (Hex vs. Witchcraft), has the even more questionable misfortune of being an insensitive product of its time which makes continual and comedic light of rape, public nudity, genital mutilation, addiction, and overall deplorable behavior.  The film's protagonist is an unrepentant loser who is pathetically hooked on gambling to the point where he tries to get his wife raped by a gangster that he owes money to, only for her to end up logically leaving him alone and at the mercy of a ghost who then also marries him and possesses just about every other character that comes on screen from that point on.  This naturally gives way to wacky scene after wacky scene of both attractive and unattractive women as well as men all getting to act daintily and sultry while under her spell, usually while trying to rape some more.  It if all sounds like a hilarious hoot then you are the target audience for the type of off-color taste that the movie was going for.  The rest of us on the other hand besides being put off by the very ickiness of the content, will surely be put off by the monotonous, wretchedly unamusing presentation.

 

HEX

(1980)

Overall: MEH

A tonally confused combination of supernatural infidelity drama, slapstick, and bizarre eroticism for a single ridiculous scene, Hex, (Xie), finds co-writer/director Chih-Hung Kuei scratching his usual oddball itch.  A smorgasbord of mystical horror films were dropped in both Hong Kong and Indonesia in the early 80s, nearly all of which involved ghostly activity and/or black magic ceremonies.  This particular film is no different in this respect, but what makes it unique is not exactly what makes it "good".  The first act is played deadly serious, but is also downright difficult to watch as Jung Wang repeatedly, (make that very repeatedly), beats the shit out of his wife and servants to such an extend that the audience will quickly get annoyed that his victims do not kill with him sooner.  This is followed by a Les Diaboliques-styled switcheroo which oddly introduces all of the ghostly elements and absurd comic relief where characters spasm wildly, swing weapons around, and piss their pants at anything that is supposed to be spooky and atmospheric.  Also, the perplexingly unfunny, cross-eyed comic relief character actor Tau Wan Yue bafoons his way through all of his lines, though he is less cringy as he was in the same year's Che Dau Che, also directed by Kuei.  Then Ni Tien, (who up until this point has been victimized with her clothes on), gets completely naked in the finale and gyrates her body to an interpretive dance ritual while being exorcised and having blood spat upon her tits.   So again, whatever that is about.

 

CORPSE MANIA

(1981)

Overall: MEH

Hong Kong filmmaker Chih-Hung Kuei's Corpse Mania, (Shi yao), serves as a rare slasher/giallo entry in the Shaw Brothers cannon.  Granted it does not strictly adhere to such established motifs, (the killer's victims are not predictably broadcasted and he does not wear black gloves, per two examples), but the plot line still revolves around a weird pervert who murders mostly women in gruesome fashions.  Well, or so one would think as the last four minutes drop a rug-pull on us that is comparatively less absurd than many from the more outrageous giallos out there.  In fact the tone and structure here is more specifically in line with German Krimis movies with its wet, fog-ridden, Jack the Ripper-worthy location and emphasis on the police procedural aspects of such violent murder stories.  On that note, the movie is atmospheric visually and Kuei knows when to cut the music out to emphasis suspense, even if such a tactic was already becoming a cliche for films of the slasher variety.  For better or worse and depending on the viewer, this lacks the head-scratching wackiness of most Shaw Brothers products, but the kill scenes are plenty brutal with a guy getting his neck sliced while being held underwater and a woman's face bizarrely turning into mushy, multi-colored slime after being thrown off of a balcony.

BEWITCHED

(1981)

Overall: GOOD

 

Part gross-out exploitation, part atmospheric mysticism, part unintentional comedy, part black magic instruction manual, Bewitched, (Gu), is a fitting precursor to director Chih-Hung Kuei's off-the-rails The Boxer's Omen.  The film works best when it dedicates itself to detailed and often times disgusting depictions of elaborate incantations, flashing the names of what spells are being cast on screen with narration describing their specific construction and effect.  Such sequences are drawn out either to silence or chanting, both of which provide the appropriate, eerie atmosphere.  This along with some evocative color schemes and garish gore make for an aesthetic that is fetching and/or nauseating.  Plot-wise, there is not much to On Szeto's script, so the movie loses momentum when it stops to let characters deliver dialog, plus there are several establishing shots and brief detours that are unnecessary to anything going on.  Thankfully though, it only drops the ball in this respect at sparse intervals, ultimately making way for more maggot eating, fetus blood drinking, child murdering, and puss exploding.  Not for the faint of heart yet silly enough to not take seriously, it is an effective mess with enough memorable, insane, and macabre moments to forgive its crude shortcomings.