Hebi musume to hakuhatsuma

Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch (1968) is a movie that I recently watched on Shudder. The storyline follows an orphaned daughter who is reunited with her family to discover her maid strangely dies shortly after arriving home, her sister chained in the attic, her mother gravely ill and her dad a mad scientist running experiments on snakes. Can the child survive in this environment or will what happened to the maid happen to the entire family?

This movie is directed by Noriaki Yuasa (Gamera: The Giant Monster) and stars Yûko Hamada (Lone Wolf and Cub TV Series), Sei Hiraizumi (Shin Godzilla), Kuniko Miyake (Tokyo Story) and Tadashi Date (Black Trump Card).

There's a lot to like about this movie. The makeup and masks are awesome as are the costumes. The plastic snakes used were funny. The acting, especially by the children, is awesome. I was really impressed by the main character. There's some skin face peels that are well executed and made me uncomfortable. The witch appearance at the end is tremendous as is the rope scene. The Nun scene at the end was a lot of fun too.

Overall, this was an impressive addition to the horror genre that may be more fun than good but is definitely worth a watch. I would score this a 7/10 and recommend seeing it once.