The Queen of Black Magic (Indonesia, 1981: Liliek Sudjio)
aka: Black Magic 3; Black Magic Queen; Black Magic Terror
This one was listed in Thomas Weisser's Asian Cult Cinema as Black Magic 3, included in the same entry as the two Shaw Brothers horror classics directed by Ho Meng-Hua. That would put this is the same bucket as Troll 2, which had nothing to do with the original Troll. It does make for an interesting comparison piece with films like Bewitched and the like from that era.
So, the village Lothario, Kohar (Alan Nuary), is a bit of an asshole. Just a few weeks ago, he was deflowering a pretty young virgin named Murni (Suzzanna, of Samson and Delilah and The Earth Gets Hotter) and promising to marry her. Now, he is marrying Baedah (Siska Widowati, of Escape from Hell Hole) the daughter of the village chief. After all, that would make him a shoe-in for the job as soon as his father-in-law retires. Murni is obviously distraught at Kohar's behavior, but that's only the start of her problems. At the wedding, Baedah starts suffering from hallucinations, including one of Kohar transforming into a walking skeleton and strings of flowers transformed into pythons.
Different from Hong Kong films from that era, which showed us complex spells and enchantments being performed with live animals, fruits, bodily fluids, etc. this one eschews a lot of that. Whenever Murni or her teacher perform a spell, it is either through a voodoo doll or through gestures and incantations. Early on, we see the black magic magician using a voodoo doll to make Kohar impotent, although that is never revisted afterward. In any case, the results of these spells includes: bodies erupting into blood-spewing boils, a person being attacked by a swarm of bees, a man's neck rotting off to the point he pulls his own head off, and a man sinking into a rice paddy and getting his face eaten off by worms.
The most interesting aspect of the film is that resident "Religious Hero" is the Pious Muslim. To those who do not know, Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country and actually has the largest Muslim population in the world in terms of actual numbers: it is the 4th most populous nation in the entire world at 285 million people. So, Christians give us Catholic Priest Exorcists, Taoists give us their One-Eyebrow ghostbusters, and Buddhists have their enlightened monks. In this film, the ultimate weapon against black magic is "just being a good Muslim community": people should go to the surau and pray, Qur'an verses can protect against spells, and just being a good person is shield enough. It makes for a good contrast with how other religions in these sorts of movies fight the suprenatural: no extra manuals and rituals, or fighting magic with white magic, or monks bleeding golden blood with ghost-repelling properties. Just right living and knowing the basic scriptures. The minimalist take on fighting evil is notable, even if it makes for less visually-compelling cinema.
The Witch with Flying Head (Taiwan, 1982: Chang Jen-Chieh)
Taiwan's answer to Indonesia's Mystics in Bali is a movie that is equal parts bonkers and melodramatic. Director Chang Jen-Chieh was reasonably well versed in kung fu cinema, having done projects like Eighteen Jade Arhats and Iron Neck Li, but with this particular story, it feels a bit too episodic. And when crazy things aren't happening, the movie is a bit of a slog.
The film opens with a Snake Demon sorcerer, Jia Chu-An (Ma Sha, of Fighting Life and The Nude Body Case in Tokyo), materializing at a nobleman's house and vomiting up a small snake that crawls into the latter's daughter's...orifice (I'm not sure which). This causes the girl, Zhen-Yu (Chen Siu-Chen, of Shaolin Invincible Guys) to go into a lot of pain. The sorcerer shows up with some medicine, which the girl's servants administer to her. Of course, this was all a ruse. The woman is transformed into a monster (or witch) who periodically sheds its head and viscera in order to find victims and suck their blood. This is the Chinese equivalent of pennangalan, or krasue in Southeast Asia. Jia Chu-An tells her and her dad (Hu Hsiang-Ping, Big Boss of Shanghai) that he will give her the antidote if she will marry him.
Instead of going ahead with the wedding, the dad brings in a pair of Buddhist monks (The Invinicble Super-Chan's Ko Yu-Min and Green Dragon Inn's Yueh Feng) to try to exorcise Zhen-Yu. Unfortunately for them, the magic (or poison) bewitching her is too strong and she ends up transforming again and killing the monks. So, Zhen-Yu's two servants, Chun-Hua (Jin Ling-Zhi, of The Fairy and the Devil) and Qiu-Yue (Chan Mei-Hua, of Dragon on Shaolin Tower), take Zhen-Yu out into the countryside so that she can't hurt anybody. On her first transformation, she kills a would-be rapist and draws the attention of a Taoist monk (Shao Lo-Hui, of The Evil Karate and The Death Duel). Although he isn't able to expel the poison, he is able to help her so that she will only transform once a month instead of every evening. He also give her a magic box that she can be sucked into during transformation so that she doesn't hurt anyone.
All of the above accounts for the first third of the film. The second act introduces a wandering scholar, Tang Ming-Kuan (Liu Shang-Chien, of Dragon Gate and Heroes of the Eastern Skies), who is marked for death by a pair of female snake spirits. These girls like to seduce men and then bite and devour them to absorb their Yang Energy (or something). Tang Ming-Kuan escapes from them and finds shelter with Zhen-Yu and her servants. Although the two fall in love, her dreadful secret, the two snake spirits, and Jia Chu-An promise to make their life difficult for them.
Like I said, the film has frequent moments of insanity broken up by the characters being too melodramatic for their own good. This is compounded once the little girl, Xiu-Zhen, shows up in the story and cries "Mummy!" so much that I just want someone to kill her. But if you can get past that, there is a fair amount of weirdness to recommend the film. Obviously, the idea of a flying head with her internal organs hanging from it is not one that anyone will come across in Western horror movies. We also get a grown woman vomiting live snakes, Buddhist monks getting their heads smashed or disemboweled, magical battles, aphrodisiacs turning men into snake-screwing sex machines, bomb-shooting Bagua mirrors, witches that spit lasers and flames, and even a smidgen of wire-fu.
The flip side is that some of the nuttiness comes with some animal snuff footage, like the snake with its head partially cut off (it makes sense in the context of the movie). That made me feel bad for the little guy. If you're willing through a lot of scenes involving crying women and some unjustly-killed reptiles, you'll get some screwy imagery and gore that you may not get in the States.
The Black Magic with Buddha (Hong Kong, 1983: Lo Lieh)
Despite being known mainly as an actor, especially one of traditional kung fu and wuxia films, Lo Lieh also dabbled in directing at times. His most beloved directorial effort is Clan of the White Lotus, although some people argue that it is more Lau Lar-Leung's film, given the quantity of action and his presence as the action director, than Lo's. This horror film, made at a time that films like Bewitched were popular, appears to be all of Lo's effort, as he produced this for his own short-lived production company. This film is a variation on the "Monkey's Hand" story that could be retitled "The Mummy's Brain" (albeit with no relation to Kharis and Tanna Leaves).
The film kicks off on the Indonesian side of the island of New Guinea (geography note: the other half the island is the country of Papua New Guinea), with a Chinese guy named Ben (Chen Kuan-Tai, of Iron Monkey and A Life of Ninja) following a guide to a cave where they find a coffin. Inside is a mummy, which the guide--also a shaman or magician of sorts--extracts the brain. He places the brain in the box and tells Ben that he can use the brain to make some wishes, but to destroy it with holy water as soon as he has what he needs.
Ben flies back to Bangkok--apparently he's a Diaspora Chinese living there--where we learn his plight: he is dating a girl, Annie (Candice Yu, of Death Duel and Buddha's Palm), who dad is a successful business. Ben is anything but, so dad (Boo Wibunnan, of One Way Ticket to Bangkok) and her brother, Kit (Pumi Patanayut), are opposed to their future marriage plans, especially Kit. Ben also lives with his bitchy sister (Choh Seung-Wan, of Revenge of the Corpse and Return of the Sentimental Swordsman), who always berates him for having spent his half of their sizable inheritance (presumably on get-rich-quick schemes gone bad).
So he starts making wishes on the brain, first for his luck to reverse. Then he gets in a fight with his sister over her refusal to lend him some money. After he tells her to go to hell, the sister is attacked by invisible forces and falls to her death from a balcony. His future father-in-law mysteriously changes his mind about allowing the marriage. After after Ben marries Annie, her brother Kit is killed by dozens of brain-like parasites after insulting Ben. It takes a while for Ben to realize that he the Brain acts up whenever it isn't being "worshipped" enough and when he's ready to pursue life without its help, Annie accidentally breaks the recipient of holy water meant to destroy it. Only Annie's growing religious fervor--she buys a statue of a four-headed Buddha when the haunting starts racheting up--and another black magic sorcerer (Lo Lieh) can defeat the Brain...
This is one of those movies that I wanted to like more than I did. I mean, I love a good "killer brain" film and the Hong Kong version of Fiend without a Face (plus a pre-dating dose of Brain Damage) feels like just the sort of random nonsense to hit the right spots. Sadly, the film suffers from some pacing issues and a lack of imagination in the final showdown with the brain, who has transformed one of the characters into a Brain Person. I don't think the film had enough of a budget to have the non-stop parade of sickening effects and campy optical FX that made those late-period Shaw films so entertaining, even when shooting entirely out of Hong Kong (it would seem). But a lot of scenes were hampered by the crappy VHS rip file that I found on the Internet Archive. Perhaps it will be more entertaining if the I watch the HD release from Mondo Macabro coming out next year.
There are some amusing scenes, like the father-in-law decorating his room with pictures of the Virgin Mary and cloves of garlic after he and the help see the brain inside the refrigerator (this came out a year before Ghostbusters). He knows there is something, but not knowing what, he uses protection better meant for a vampire. And it has a nice 1970s "bummer" ending. And if you are grossed out by lingering shots of pulsating brains, this movie has those in spades. It just feels a bit too quaint after having watched The Boxer's Omen earlier that week.
Brutal Sorcery (Hong Kong, 1983: Chan Siu-Pang)
Horror film directed by veteran martial arts choreographer Chan Siu-Pang (The 18 Bronzemen; The Best of Shaolin Kung Fu; Shaolin Kung Fu Mystagogue) is little more than the first act of the Shaw Brothers film Bewitched dragged out to 88 minutes. Moreover, it is notably less graphically violent and exploitative than its inspiration, making one wonder why the undertaking was done in the first place.
One evening, Cheung Yau is doing his rounds when he comes across a woman walking alone at night. Cheung stops her and asks her if she needs a ride. When she turns to face him, Cheung is horrified and drives off: her pale skin and bloody face suggests that she was a ghost. He goes to see a fortune teller after the encounter and things don't look good for him. The fortune teller suggests that his having been born on the 9th hour of the 9th day of the 9th month, not to mention that he's about to turn 27 (i.e. 3 times 9), is a very inauspicious sign and he's destined to have a horrible life and probably die early, too.
Shortly after that, Cheung Yau is one more doing his rounds when he comes across a young couple walking around at night--which happens to be a holiday of sorts for disembodied spirits. He convinces them to let him drive them home, which turns out to be two different cemeteries. Cheung is soon possessed by the two ghosts, which alarms his wife, Anne. She and her parents take him to a medium, Lady Luk (Tong Yeuk-Ching, of Sorrows of the Forbidden City and The Kingdom and the Beauty--she passed on shortly after this movie). Lady Luk is able to get the ghosts to possess her and they explain that they had been lovers and even married, but the girl's parents did not approve of their relationship. They were killed by a black magic sorcerer and buried in separate cemeteries.
The ghost couple promises to leave Cheung Yau alone if he will dig up their bones, bring them back to her sister in Thailand. Cheung Yau does just that and delivers up the bones to the sister, Suzanne (Lily Chan, playing the same role she did in Bewitched). Suzanne doesn't realize Cheung Yau is married (and our "hero" is too stupid to tell her outright) and asks him to stick around for a few days. They end up sleeping with each other and she makes him promise to visit her in three months' time. Of course, Cheung Yau ends up not keeping his promise and if you've seen Bewitched, you can see where this is going...
The film can be broken into three parts. The first part covers Cheung Yau's initial possession by the doomed ghost couple, who are not evil--although they certainly act that way whenever they're possessing him--but just want a decent burial next to each other. The second act covers Cheung's trip to Thailand and his getting cursed. Finally, the last act has Anne and Dr. Kwok travel to Thailand in order to ask Suzanne to call off the curse. When she refuses to, they turn to another magician, King Ping (Ng Hong-Sang, whose name in the dubbing sounds like "Kingpin"). As you can expect, this will ultimately end in a battle of sorcery, complete with flames, little kid devils (who can transform into chickens), wooden swords, yellow paper amulets, maggots, magic capes, and telekinesis. Kinda crazy, but it needed more energy, which is surprising, given Chan Siu-Pang's involvement (he could always direct a lively fight scene).
Like I said, this movie never feels like it went all the way. Lily Chan does get naked when she's performing the first part of the curse, but the camera doesn't linger on her body like it did in Bewitched (slow-motion running and all). Watching a crappy VHS rip also doesn't help. We get to see the one guy stuffing live fish into his mouth and chowing down on raw liver. Another guy's stomach swells and then erupts in a mess of maggots. Nonetheless, it all feels too familiar, with the only thing that this film does better than Bewitched is not forgetting about Lily Chan's character after the initial curse.
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