Centipede Horror (1982)

Strong and Moving!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Keith Li is still not a familiar name to many except gore hounds specializing in SE Asian horror, but those in the know will agree that he reached his pinnacle with this disturbing, uncompromising gem of cinema; his only extant subsequent films seem pale and incomplete when compared to the bleak vision of Centipede Sorcerer.Other commenters here have already noted many of the unforgettable features of this film: Darma Yang's startling cinematography, the strong religious and existential subtext, and of course the sheer barking madness of what actually occurs during the film. To this I'll only add that Li displays an absolute mastery of tone here; apart from a slow section in the first part of the movie, it stays extremely, horribly consistent throughout, with a mood that builds like the slow realization of some terrible idea from a suspicion to full-blown awareness.As another poster noted, seeing this will be a real shocker for fans of Din Long Lee. It's truly a one-of-a-kind performance, but I can't help but think that the very fact that she was involved in a production like Centipede Sorcerer had something to do with her career never really taking off with more mainstream audiences. It's a testament to Li's weird genius that he ends his film with a tip of the cap to Truffaut's 400 Blows. Days after I've seen it, the haunting final score still lingers in my memory. This is certainly not a movie I can recommend to everyone, but it left an indelible mark on me for sure.

After reading every other review on IMDb I really thought this was the film I've been searching for all my life. I love horror films and collect all the previously banned films, including the most notorious ones such as Cannibal Holocaust, Guinea Pig, etc. So you can imagine my excitement when I seen it on ebay and managed to win the auction.I even printed off the reviews while I was waiting for the DVD to be delivered and read them to my friends and colleagues at work, they too were intrigued to hear lines like, "I seen this film 3 weeks ago now and still there is a sense of discomfort" or "I seen this film at a film festival but missed the last half of the film and the following two short movies as I had to keep my head in-between my legs to avoid fainting", oh and my favourite "few filmsleave you feeling destroyed afterwards", that one really sold it to me.To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The basic story is, once upon a time a man lived in a village with his wife and baby. He was also having an affair and one night his wife walked in while he was doing the dirty deed with his lover. In the struggle that then ensued he accidentally killed his wife and his lover, panicked and then proceeded to burn down the village to cover up what he'd done. Only he left his baby to burn too. As he was escaping the village a wizard type guy saw him and realisng what he'd done,placed a curse (a centipede curse) on him and his family. Skip forward to present day and his granddaughter his fallen fowl to the curse with her brother now on the trail to find out what happened to her and to discover what the 'shameful' thing was that his grandfather carried out at the village all those years ago.The rest of the film is about random wizard/priest guys and has one cool scene where a priest appears to perform some sort of ritual where he makes a naked pregnant girl barf/abort scorpions, that was pretty horrific and impressed me. Then there is the final scene, which again going back to the other reviews I read, was supposed to be so horrific that it "will never leave you". Another major let down. Just a girl puking some centipedes, yeah it's kinda gross but I've seen far worse.In conclusion, if I had never read these reviews and just stumbled across it I probably would have quite enjoyed it, but after all the hype I don't think I've ever been so disappointed with a film. So for anyone out there who has seen all the big 'nasties' such as Holocaust, The Guinea Pigs, Mordum August Underground, etc. and read these reviews, don't be fooled like I was into thinking you found a film that will disturb you, because it won't.Marks out of 10 as film I'd never heard anything about = 6 Marks out of 10 as film I expected so much from after reading the reviews = 2

Kai-lum has recently returned from Canada to Hong Kong, finding his sister struck by a horrible unknown disease after she visits "Southeast Asia". Kai-lum investigates and finds it has something to do with a seedy looking character in need of either a haircut and shave or a better make-up artist. Kai-lum drags along his gal, Chee, in search of the truth and finds that his deceased grandpa was involved in some nasty doings. A spirit man now seeks revenge on all in grandpa's family, including Kai-lum. The old conjurer has a special bad spell which inflicts death by huge, Southeast Asian centipedes. Can Kai-lum defeat the evil sorcerer with the help of his chanting Buddhist monk pals, or will he need even more powerful help from Shao-lin kung fu mystics (also in need of better wigs and fake beards) to defeat the evil magic man?? I ain't gonna tell you. Chock full of Southeast Asian weirdness and gross out fights with bugs. Only if you enjoy off-beat Hong Kong flicks.

This obscure Hong Kong-horror has everything one could expect from it: Cult rituals from an evil priest or something like that, an evil curse which makes the female protagonist throw up crawling centipedes (and not fake ones, of course), some martial arts and lots of more or less intentional humor.The video version I saw had no English subtitles, so I couldn't follow the dialogue; nevertheless the story seemed easy to follow, the pictures spoke for themselves. In one scene, an actress throws up scorpions (but I don't think she really threw them up; that would be too dangerous for her, wouldn't it), and, as already mentioned, the climax includes the cursed woman to let centipedes crawl out of her mouth before she throws them up, and she throws up many of them. At least this scene is EXTREMELY disgusting; I myself began to choke a little bit watching it.Typical Hong Kong-horror, not for the easily disgusted.