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Centipede Horror (1988)

Dir: Keith Le

Pak Wai Lun (Kiu Wai Miu who also appears in "Magic Cop") is looking after his younger sister in Hong Kong while their mother is away. His sister wants to go with a girl friend to South East Asia but Pak is unsure as their late grandfather stated that none of them are to travel there. He gives in, but insists she wear an amulet that is meant to protect against evil spirits. The girls travel to South East Asia and while jogging meets a roadside food seller, unbeknownst to them, the strange old man recognizes the amulet. Later, the sister who has removed the amulet is found by her friend in the forest unconscious and covered with large centipedes. This sight causes the friend to suffer a heart attack and die!

Pak is informed by his outraged mother that his sister is ill in a South East Asian hospital. He travels to see her with a female friend, Yeuk Chee (Din Long Lee) and discovers his sister is dying of a mysterious illness, and her body covered with open bites. She dies soon after and centipedes crawl from the wounds. Pak discovers that his grandfather was working in South East Asia as a young man and married a well-off women. The couple were given amulets during the wedding (the one that Pak gave his sister), that was attended by Pak's grandfather's best friend. But Pak's grandfather is caught by his new wife in bed with his best friends wife. During a struggle he kills both women and burns down the village to hide his crime. Fleeing, he bumps into his best friend (who turns out to be the old food seller) who's wife and baby are killed in the burning village.

Investigating the now barren site where the village stood, Pak and Chee meet the food seller who tells them that vengeance would come to all those related to whoever burnt the village down. As they leave, the old man recognizes Pak's amulet, and soon Pak and Chee are in danger as the old man exacts revenge with his evil 'killer centipede' spells!....

 

Fighting from under this complex plot (and I have simplified it a lot) comes a completely bizarre little film that contains all the far out and exotic ingredients that give Hong Kong film's their unique place in the cinema of the fantastic.

Despite the title, the movie is more a straight supernatural tale than a creeping beastie film. But the few actual centipede scenes are wonderfully skin crawling, as big poisonous centipedes (none of those tiny fellows you find in your garden) scuttle over bitten bodies and flood over floors and walls. And in one gross-out sequence are spewed out of an unfortunate woman's mouth! These scenes are delightfully trashy, but the real joys of this film are the magic ritual and spell casting sequences.

In his quest, Pak comes across various priests and magicians (this film is stuffed with them) and witnesses some crazy sights. One magician gets children's corpses and grills their chins (yes, I did say that) and soaks dolls in the collected fat. These dolls are then put in tiny coffins and prayed over, for 49 days, until they sit up and then the magician can adopt the children's ghosts!

He uses them to help in his spells against curses, and we are treated to one such ritual where an ill young woman is stripped by the ghosts (unlike Japanese films, HK films never shy'ed away from full frontal nudity) who then enters her body to attack the evil as the magician chants, kills a chicken (off screen, which is rare in HK films) and bangs some big bones together! The now cured woman proceeds to vomit up black gunk and expel scorpions from between her legs in a rush of blood! There are also loads of great magical battle sequences as various priests take on the evil spell casting old man. And those favourites of HK fantasy cinema, the yellow paper, fireballs and much waving of hands, are all present and correct, resulting in much wild fun as the combatants hurl spells at each other.

The movie is typical of 80's HK horror film's in its use of music as well. Bland 'easy listening' tunes are mixed with music 'borrowed' from various American movies (this practice was very common once, even Woo's "The Killer" used music from Schwarzenegger's "Red Heat"), including bits from "The Burning" and the remake of "The Cat People".

The movie itself has very flat direction, pacing and uninspired cinematography, plus some really bad fashions. But it's those bizarre magical practices and grotesque horror sequences that, especially to western viewers, make the film so enjoyable.

An entertaining example of far out Hong Kong horror