Wu gong zhou

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've been hunting this one for years, I mean, the real stuff. It's easy to obtain as a download but I wanted the VHS. It never had a proper release and is only available on Japanese VHS. Even then it's hard to find and when you do you will have to pay over 100$ or more. Was it worth that hard earned cash, because some love it but most of the geeks hate it. Luckily I didn't hate it. It wasn't that gory as I expected but still it do delivers. First of all what I was surprised of was that it had some full frontal nudity without the blurred pubic hair so typical for Japanese flicks. It is offending in their believe to show the genitals. But here they were all in tact. The centipede's do attack and there were no effects used, it was the real stuff. Real animals were used and by saying that there is even some animal cruelty by skinning a chicken alive, once done she's decapitated so for animal lovers, leave this flick on the shelves. If you can't take flicks about wizards and voodoo stuff or doesn't really like Eastern flicks again don't watch it. Some scene's are indeed not for the squeamish, for example the vomiting scene's were a girls vomits centipedes who are alive. Nevertheless, strange flick, glad I found it finally after years of searching. And some effects are indeed passé but don't be annoyed by that. Low on gore or blood but high on weirdness.

After having sat through this film, I find the inordinate amount of reviews touting this film as the end all of "disturbing" films rather strange. I did think the reviews had something unrealistic to them, almost theatrical. My only explanation is that someone with a lot of time and/or friends decided to play an elaborate joke on the unsuspecting IMDb reader and filled the commentaries with unrealistic histrionic reviews on how "frightening" the movie is. Yet, again, the reviews are very sparsely distributed in the year 2006. I just don't know what to think. What I can tell you is this: This film is not frightening, it is not disturbing, it isn't even remotely disgusting save for some lame scenes with bugs being puked out. Big deal, really. The majority of the film is just a guy running around from one "wizard" to the next to try and find out what evil wrongdoing his grandfather had done, which is assumed was the cause for the spell that killed his sister.

Seriously, the majority of reviews here must be some kind of joke. There simply is no other explanation. This film is too obscure to have somehow gotten into the hands of the kind of people who would unsuspectingly expect a Disney movie and then get "disturbed" by this of all movies. For cryin' out loud. If you are still not convinced, see ray1979, EVOL666, and ComixComix comments as well for a more realistic picture.

That said, I give the film a four, simply because it is decent for what it is: slightly cheesy, typically melodramatic Hong Kong "horror" fare.

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.

Kay,a young woman,goes on vacation to South East Asia,which turns out to be a fatal mistake.She certainly wishes to be far far away when countless centipedes attack her.Kay lives through it,but not for long.In the hospital,her body is slowly decaying and she finally dies when the worms crawl out of her open wounds.Her brother Pak does research work and discovers that probably a 'centipede spell' was cast upon his sister.Could this all have to do with a mysterious fire his grandfather was involved in fifty years ago, that caused the death of three people?After finding out the truth,Pak and his girlfriend are in serious danger,when the centipedes attack once more..."Centipede Horror" is a gross HK horror film directed by Keith Li.The scene in which poor woman begins to vomit up centipedes is extremely disgusting.The special effects are pretty good and there is plenty of Asian weirdness.Check it out.7 out of 10.