The Imp - 1981

The Imp is an unusual little Hong Kong horror flick. I'm by no means an expert on HK cinema but as far as I've noticed, in Hong Kong they're all about silly scares. Take Mr. Vampire for instance. Possibly the most successful HK genre film of all time, no? It has at very least spawned the largest franchise. It mixes horror and comedy in a way that creates a Scooby-doo-esque kid-friendly supernatural atmosphere. It's been my experience that the craze of Jiangshi films set the standard for what horror movies would be in Hong Kong for decades. Bearing this in mind, The Imp is a stark contrast to all the fun and frills you would find in a chop socky Hopping Vampire flick.

Keung is a hapless young man. Struggling to find work while his pregnant wife is constantly harshing his mellow. After a series of failed interviews, he finally lands a job as an overnight security guard in a shopping center. It would seem that misfortune is following him because shortly after he takes the job, one of his colleges chokes on their lunch (puppy stew, ugh) and dies. At the funeral Kueng meets a priest who senses a dark energy surrounding him. While his other co-workers continue to turn up dead in a variety of mysterious circumstances, the priest discovers that Keung was born at a very unlucky time. At the time which the yin is strongest and the yang is weakest making him susceptible to evil spirits. In short, there's some spooky shit out to get Keung. At first attempting to take over him physically, then deciding it would be easier to be reincarnated into his unborn child. Mayhem and creepines ensues.

While taking a more serious approach to horror film making than it's predecessors, The Imp makes a gallant effort but somehow falls a bit short. Although interesting, atmospheric and certainly worth the watch, it never seems to fully realize it's potential. It suffers a bit from it's own pacing, which would be ok if there was some kind of extravagant pay off. What we're left with is an eerie, beautifully shot film that leaves you wishing they'd taken it a little further. So close to perfection yet the fact that it didn't quite make it leaves you feeling high and dry. It's no wonder that the Imp has gained a cult following over the years. It certainly is different. More Western influenced that any other HK horror flick I've seen, using simple but effective John Carpenter-esque ambiance. While it never produces the epic monster battle I've become accustomed to receiving , it delivers a fair amount of ghoulishness that you would find in a really scary Halloween haunted house. This lends more to the horror/comedy style I was talking about earlier, which explains why I was left wanting more.

I would recommend it to those who are already connoisseurs of Hong Kong horror (though you're probably are already familiar with it). Perhaps I've just been spoiled by the Shaw Brothers and Sammo Hung. The Imp falls somewhere in between a solid good horror movie and an amazing horror movie. That line is so thin that it would be completely up to the individual which direction it would sway.

The Oily Maniac - 1976

Some movies have you reeled in the first time you hear the title. I really didn't care what Oily Maniac was, I needed in my life. Discovering it was a Shaw Brothers production was just a huge added bonus.

A crippled guy named Shen is given a magical spell by an old family friend who's about to be executed for accidentally killing a criminal. The criminal belonged to a gang of miscreants who are trying to steal the family's "coconut oil garden". The spell, which is more of a vengeance curse, requires Shen to dig a hole on the grounds of the oil farm and say some magical-spell-stuff while immersed in oil. What emerges is a big ol' slimy turd looking Swamp Thing-type monster who destroys any wrong doers, and there's no shortage of them running around the Coconut oil garden!

When Shen is not out gallivanting in a rubber diarrhea suit dousing himself in gasoline, he works as a legal assistant in a sleazy lawyers office. We get to see some really interesting cases. First, with a lady who falsely accuses her neighbor of rape. In a flashback sequence we see both sides of their story. When the Oily Maniac finally gets to her, it's through the spout of her lovely pink bathtub, which is in her lovely pink bathroom. I'm not sure if that's something even worth mentioning, but seeing the black oil come out of that Jayne Mansfield-esque bathtub was visually awesome.

 It was around this point in the film that I realized that Oily Maniac was noticeably more salacious than any other Shaw Brothers films I've seen. Lots of sexual situations, rape and more breasts than I've seen in any Hong Kong film made around this time aside from some Concubine themed blue movies.

Speaking of breasts...

One of the cases is against a doctor who did a botched boob job. The Oily Maniac takes care of her while she's literally sewing the virginity back on to a prostitute so her pimp can charge more. YES. This is happening.

The rubber suit isn't the most flattering during fight scenes (especially since the opening was flapping around in the back) but there are some fun effects. Seeing him liquefy into a puddle and transform back into a human was pretty interesting. By interesting I mean, cheap and passably effective. Oily Maniac lived up to and even surpassed my expectations. While it would make a great companion piece to the more supernatural works of the Shaw Brothers such as Black Magic or the Boxer's Omen, it works well on it's own as a completely insane hyperbolized homage to American Monster movies. There's a Hulk-like quality to the Oily Maniac. He gets angry because of one thing or another, a few squirts of motor oil later and he's ready to bash someone. I feel that it most certainly must have influenced the Toxic Avenger, or at least it did in my dreams. Regardless of influences and counterparts the Oily Maniac is an absolute essential genre film and I can only hope that it eventually gets the digital treatment that it truly deserves.

Day 2 complete! I'm not sure if I'm going to continue counting down the days at the end of my reviews leading up to Halloween, but it sure does feel right! No idea what kind of horror mayhem is in store for me today but you can be sure to find out first thing tomorrow on Day 3 of Schlocktober!

the Witch with the Flying Head (1977)

Put this in perspective: you're having an evening stroll through your village and suddenly a floating head with it's intestines dangling beneath appears. A type of Eastern Vampire which prefers the blood of new born babies, but will settle for what it can get. Can you imagine a more bizarre sight? Discovering such a thing whether it be through folklore or pop culture is a joyous event. I've seen many a'creature feature in my day but three years ago when finally saw the Indonesian classic Mystics in Bali, my life would change forever. Not only is it an epic horror gem in it's own right, but it it also introduced me to this rare and beautiful creature. I did some research and found out that it's origin is of Malaysian folklore, in it's original language the creature is called "Penanggalan" which means "to detach". There are other variations as the legend spread to other countries, in Indonesia it's called "Leak" after the black magic that is required to invoke the beast. I discovered that there are dozens of East Asian horror movies featuring the Penanggalan, many of which are still being made today, most of which are impossible to find here in the States unless you have some good trade connections or know where to order them over seas. In my hunt I came across one of the only other semi-findable Penanggalan films, the 1977 Chinese movie, The Witch with the Flying Head (Fei taugh mo neuih).

That's right. The Witch with the Flying Head. It doesn't get much more straight forward than that! It's this kind of straight-froward-ness that I respect from an otherwise incomprehensible movie. I might also add before delving into this that reviewing a foreign movie with no subtitles isn't easy, so bear with me.

A Wicked Warlock of sorts stumbles upon a group of women and I presume wants to possess or maybe just wants to fuck with.. He makes a snake appear and it promptly crawls into the vagina of the prettiest girl. Writhing in pain, her sisters (I assume) try to help her but nothing can stop the intense pain. Mr. Warlock approaches with the solution! If she takes the potion he has for her it will stop the pain and she will be healed. They seem a bit apprehensive, and rightfully so. The potion was the final element in completing his spell.

She's momentarily relieved but will spend most of the next few days vomiting up snakes.

See? Snakes squirming about her gutty works.

Yucko!














After this little episode she is finally a fully developed Penanggalan. At night her head detaches from her body and she hunts for human blood with a really goofy looking set of under-bite fangs. Expect lots of killing in this one! You get to see her wrath over and over for a good half of the movie. The plot started to lose me a bit in the middle when she meets a man who seems to be ok with her "disability" and marries him. Some time passes without any problems. She gets pregnant and has a baby, this brings back her lust for blood. Remember, Penanggalans especially love new born baby blood! One of her sisters sacrifices herself to save the baby. Cut to awkward funeral scene. Curse or no curse, I think at this point I start to resent her and want to be FAR FAR AWAY! The end gets really jumbled as the evil Warlock comes back with his band of serpent cronies and lots of emotional stuff that doesn't translate well with the whole "no-subtitle" thing. In the end we are left with a KICK ASS battle between our lady Penanggalan and the Warlock serpent guy.

Serpent Warlock strangling Penanggalan.


This film may not be for everyone's taste. Few people have the patience to see what a subtitle-less film has to offer. I honestly think this one has a lot to offer. I was kept pretty thoroughly entertained throughout most of the movie. It doesn't quite measure up to Mystics in Bali but I didn't expect it to. It's a nice, solid little Chinese monster weirdy and if you are interested in seeing it feel free to check out my trade list  and contact me. ESPECIALLY if you know where I can get other Penanggalan movies, as of now this and Mystics are all I have. So my big quandary is; why are Penanggalan movies so hard to come by in America? More so, why aren't they being made here?! It's a tradition I think should carry on to Countries outside of Asia. How many carbon copy zombie movies do I have to see before I get ONE homegrown Penanggalan?! For now, they'll just have to live in my dreams with unicorns and gryphons.

Until next time, stay cool and for your own sake, keep the snakes out of your vagina!

End of the Month Mini-Reviews

I've been sick this past week with a yucky summer cold. I usually like to write blogs late at night so my high doses of Robitussin has kept me from being conscious during my peak writing hours. Not to mention the general crappiness I've felt. So I'm tardy on a few reviews I've been wanting to do. Rather than devote whole blogs on some of the great movies I've watched recently, I think I'm just going to summarize the highlights of the June.


I'm sure if you live near a Movie Gallery or Hollywood Video you know that (not so) sadly they're going out of business. I have mixed feelings about this. I was partially disappointed because in this area they are literally the last rental places around. Our Mom and Pop shops have almost completely disappeared so if I ever wanted to see something I didn't want to buy (or wait for an available slot on my Netflix que) I'd just pop into Movie Gallery on my way to the grocery store. On the other hand I often bitched about Movie Gallery. They were insanely over priced and had mostly terrible new movies that didn't interest me. Renting three movies costs somewhere around $20. I always felt ripped off and annoyed at the smug employees. Yet I still went about once a month. I guess I just felt sentimental about going to a store, browsing at all of my options and inevitably compromising my standards to rent something almost at cost. Netflix has been a life saver with it's endless options but the aesthetics of a shop full of movies can't be replaced by that jovial red envelope. But on the other hand, places like Movie Gallery couldn't evolve with the advancing technology so they were doomed to fail. Being an opportunist and also having a nasty addiction for buying movies, I've been taking advantage of their going out of business sale. I THOUGHT they had mostly shitty movies but with prices between $2-$6 you start to notice things you might not have before.

I finally saw the classic Jack Hill Blaxploitation movie, Foxy Brown. I only recently have made a special effort to get into the genre, this one really stands out as one of the best. It's so over the top and she's incredibly sexy! Everything about this movie is a perfect example of what it SHOULD be. I also saw Shaft for the first time. File both under "should have seen before now". I liked it a lot but not much could measure up to Foxy Brown and her infinite coolness. I also saw the Jamaican masterpiece The Harder They Come, which I guess also counts as blaxploitation though it plays out to me more like a foreign film. I always love seeing foreign cities in the 60's and 70's. Though I'm sure I've seen movies set in Jamaica, I'd never really seen a Jamaican movie as far as I know. The locations were interesting and the story was exciting and gritty. I always found out that it's almost single handedly responsible for bringing Ska, Rocksteady and Reggae to America. I thought the clips from Django and Jimmy Cliff's finale being an homage to those scenes was a really nice touch. I saw the 1977 version of the Sentinel which I quite enjoyed. It reminded me of Rosemary's Baby though I read that it was supposedly inspired by the Exorcist. I love anything with Burgess Meredith. I especially love the roles he played in the 70's. Old and absent minded, as apposed to his earlier roles where he's young and absent minded. Even more so than the Sentinel, I was enamoured by Don't Look Now. An emotional thriller written by Daphne Du Maurier. A brilliantly paced movie with a truly horrific ending. Beware though: LOTS of naked Donald Sutherland. I saw another underrated horror masterpiece called Of Unknown Origin directed by George P. Cosmatos. Peter Weller vs. a giant-fucking-rat! One of the coolest rat movies I've ever seen, and I'm pretty fond of the genre. Usually I find myself sympathizing with the rats since I used to own some rodent cuties. This rat however was anti-cute! Very slimey and creepy. One of the best creature feature of the month was the Howling 3: the Marsupials. Still trying to find any ozploitation available to me, I came across a cheap copy used at FYE and knew it must be mine. I'm not sure what was my favorite, the clip from "It Came from Uranus" or the creepy birth of the kangaroo were-baby.

I've never seen the second or any of the other Howling films, but I liked it much more than the first. In all it's cheesy glory!




So I finally saw Showgirls. I had seen it edited for TBS with half the movie cut out and animated bras overlayed on their bodies. I thought it was absurd and pretty entertaining. Like I said, $2 movies make you do strange things. I had the sudden urge to OWN Showgirls. As soon as the thought entered my head I couldn't NOT buy it. I thought it might not be as funny with an NC-17 rating. I was wrong. Oh how I was wrong. Seeing Jessie Spano flopping around like a dead fish mid-coitus was one of the greater moments of my life. It really is an epic disasterpiece of embarrassing proportions. It's Golden Raspberry award was well deserved!

The best movie I saw this month was Sammo Hung's Encounter of the Spooky Kind.
 

I love the way the Hong Kongers make black magic movies! This one combines horror, comedy and kung-fu flawlessly! King of Shaw Brothers-esque. Apparently he re-invented the vampire/kung-fu genre which had been done in the past but really gained popularity in the 80's. His comical fight choreography is unparalleled. I ended up watching this movie twice. It's just the kind of outrageous spookfest I love to see and NEED to see more of!

Ok, that's all for now! It's late and I still haven't fully recovered. Time for sleeps!