Gou hun jiang tou

You might be surprised by the "Black Magic" films, as they have no martial arts in them yet they were made by the famous Shaw Brothers' Studio. Instead they are gross films about the occult. However, despite the gross scenes, most of it is really pretty tame. What IS gross are the scenes where the octogenarian black magician is shown drinking human breast milk to stay youthful! Yuck! And, speaking of that, this and the previous film in the series both have a lot of nudity--so it's probably not a good film to watch with your mother.

As for the first film (1975), it was a thoroughly stupid and low-budget film. While this one is also stupid and low-budget, it manages to work much better--with a more believable bad guy, better special effects and some really, really spooky scenes. It's still not an especially good film, but considering how bad the first one was, it could only improve!! Not worth seeking out unless you could use a laugh or have a bizarre fetish about breast milk.

Lo Lieh is perfect as the wickedly sleazy black magician, with his undead slaves, activated by a single long nail to the skull. This film (also known as BLACK MAGIC 2) has great wooden acting (excluding the aforementioned), elaborate gross-outs (see other comment), and plenty of genuine chills. It's also got a great soundtrack; a song in an early nightclub scene was sampled by the Beastie Boys for "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" on PAUL'S BOUTIQUE! Don't know if all the other Shaw brothers 70s productions are this good, but now I have to see them all!

Incredible Chinese horror sickie about an evil warlock who casts nasty spells and creates an army of living dead by driving magic nails into dead people's skulls. If the nails are removed, the zombies rot into viscous messes. All kinds of ultra-vileness, such as worms slithering from wounds, eyeball-eating, a man pushing a spike through his face, the caesarean birth of a lump of putrescent tissue, pulsating sores, and more pretty good barf-inducing scenes. Weird and great, along the lines of The Devil. Stars Ti Lung and Lo Lieh, so you know there's a little martial arts action, such as a fight on a skylift. Rarely seen, so take any chance to see it you can - kill if you have to!

It is some time since I had watched a Hong Kong film from the Shaw Brothers and this turned out to be quite a surprise. Number one was the fantastic clarity of the picture (thank you Blu-ray) but No.2 was that instead of being set in the British colony, these are Singapore locations. Mainly we see the botanical gardens but also a glimpse of Orchard Road and the cable cars going over to the island. No sight at all of Chinatown! Story is crap, acting pretty much the same but there is so much vigour here and the urge to put everything in that we get quite a concoction. I liked the nine inch nails, hammered in and wrenched out of people's skulls, the main protagonist's need to drink human milk (one of many opportunities for nudity) and the gory seeping body fissures brought on by the infamous 'black magic'. Not for everyone but rather a novelty.

"Bewitched Tame Head" is one of the most memorable scare films of the far east and of my native Hong Kong. It is a lot of fun, but don't be eating a full meal yet!

A doctor is investigating some strange and disturbing happening in his hospital, such as people being covered in gaping scabs all over body, parasites, worms and snakes under people's flesh and girls having abortions, only to find out that they have "aborted" undead monster fetuses. If that is not enough, there is a pretty damn wicked mage who grabs out the corpses of dead females, pound spikes into their skull and make them become the living dead, only if you remove the spike, the undead shall melt away and living girls being used as guinea pigs by the wicked mage. (DON'T WORRY, I WON'T SPOIL EVERYTHING!)

If you are sick of Hollywood's slasher flicks or want more variety in Horror/Supernatural cinema, check out the "Tamed Head series".