Centipede Horror

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 film begins in Hong Kong with a young woman named "Kay" (Lai Fun Chan) asking her brother "Kai-Lum Pak" (Kiu Wai Miu) for permission to go to Southeast Asia with one of her friends. Although their mother has strictly forbidden such a trip Kai-Lum agrees since she will only be gone for a week. In exchange for not telling their mother Kay agrees to wear a magic amulet which is supposed to ward off evil spirits. Once there Kay and her friend stop for some refreshments at a local street vendor (played by Hussein Abu Hassan) who immediately recognizes the amulet. That night it is revealed that the street vendor is also an evil sorcerer of great power who places an evil curse upon Kay which takes effect the minute she removes the amulet. Not long afterward, Kay is hospitalized after being attacked by a multitude of centipedes. Learning of her plight Kai-Lum immediately takes the next airplane to Southeast Asia and arrives just prior to her death. Eventually he learns of the evil curse that had been placed upon her because of something that their grandfather had done many years earlier and that he is now the next victim. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started out routinely enough but after about 40 minutes or so got really bizarre with a couple of wizards doing their best to fight the evil sorcerer and save Kai-Lum and his girlfriend "Yeuk-Chee" (Margaret A. Lee). On that note, it reminded me of a similar film called "Black Magic" which came out about seven years earlier and also featured mystic sorcerers fighting a battle to the death as well. In any event, I suppose this low-budget, Chinese horror film wasn't too bad and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Average.

I just don't know why I constantly subject my self to this crap...I haven't seen one of these types of films yet that I even remotely enjoyed, but being that I have the urge to try to absorb anything horror related - I guess I gotta take the good with the bad...

CENTIPEDE HORROR is another 80's HK film that deals with sorcery and vendettas and puking things up - in this case centipedes. A girl goes on vacation to South East Asia. While there, a sorcerer notices her wearing a necklace that belonged to an old comrade of the sorcerer, whose misdeeds caused the decimation of their village. The sorcerer casts a spell which causes centipedes to attack the girl while she's out in the woods trying to take a leak. When she dies, her brother travels to the scene of the incident to look for answers to his sisters death...

I don't know why other reviewers talk about these films as though they are so gory and disturbing. Yes...there are a few scenes of people puking up live centipedes in CENTIPEDE HORROR which can be kind of gross, but other than that (oh yeah...and one decent scorpion puking scene...), there is virtually no violence, gore, or other disturbing material in this film - and this also goes for all the other films in this same genre, such as SEEDING OF A GHOST, DEVIL FETUS, THE DEVIL, etc...They are all typically dull and derivative of each other - all involve some sort of sorcery, some sort of revenge against a previous wrong doing - and all have this revenge being exacted in the form of people puking up some sort of live creature. All very similar - all very dull. I give CENTIPEDE HORROR a 5/10 - only because the story is a little more coherent and is better filmed than some of the other entries - although I believe SEEDING OF A GHOST to be the best of this bad genre of films...leave these alone unless you're like me and HAVE to see everything horror-related, regardless of quality or entertainment value...5/10

There are at least 3 different films being reviewed here! Some guy is reviewing 'Begotten', a majority of people are reviewing The Most Disturbing Film In The Universe (which I thought I was downloading after scanning a couple of the reviews), and a sanity-restoring few are reviewing the flick I just saw. A nice 80s Hong Kong black magic romp, with some gross out live centipede barfing at the end nicely rounding things off. It may not have been the disturbing nightmare I was anticipating, but this altogether different prospect was highly enjoyable, I thought, if pretty standard fare. Also of note, there is a great bit of moody 80s synthesizer work in here, which sounds awfully familiar to something from El-p's 'Fantastic Damage' album! OK, after some more digging, I think some people are reviewing Takashi Miike's segment of Masters Of Horror, called 'Imprint'. Others are reviewing 'Cutting Moments'. However, there is still one that is eluding me, which appears to be a HK 80s horror: wizards, decapitation, transformation etc. What the hell is this film?

I write this comment almost 12 days after watching this movie and still there is a sense of discomfort about this movie, when I think of the way it ended. Very frankly "Centipede Horror" freaked me out. Seen a lot of Din Long Lee (Hong Kong Police Madame 3) vehicles, but this one, Dang!!!! really put me off. First of all the movie is paced so slowly that it kinds of puts off track and then last 30 minutes just blows you off, with a last few scenes taking the cake. This in no way can be described as a family picture, rather, it is a movie for psychos whose time might be better spent getting their noggins looked at. With decent acting from all of them. I give this one nevertheless a 0/10 just for sheer bad vibes...

Steer clear.