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WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD
Hong Kong horror madness from the seventies! A witch with a
detachable head that flies around, complete with a spine and pulsating internal
organs hanging from it, biting people? An evil wizard who secretes magic snakes
from his eyes? If you're laboring under the delusion that you've seen it all,
this film's for you!
The
Package
The only available print of WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD is
in Cantonese without subtitles, so I'll confess that many of the story's
subtleties were lost on me. The film is a Hong Kong horror movie, meaning it's
fast, cheap and features many references foreign to western viewers. Snake
barfing is a given, as are Buddhist incantations and obscure (to non-Asian
audiences) magic rites, not to mention a number of gratuitous martial arts
fights. Evil flying heads are themselves
minor staples of the Asian film
industry, having been featured prominently in this film and the Indonesian
flicks QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC (1979) and
MYSTICS IN BALI (1981).
One more thing, a bit of trivia for you VIDEO WATCHDOG
readers: the IMDB lists this as a 1977 production, yet the soundtrack blatantly
steals music from other movies (another common HK movie practice) bearing
later copyright dates, most noticeably THE BLACK HOLE (1979), CONAN THE
BARBARIAN (1982) and STAR TREK 2 (1982).
The Story
A young woman is praying
at the sight of a Buddhist temple when a vile serpent emerges from atop the
building and turns into an evil sorcerer, who secretes a tiny snake from out of
an eye which promptly slithers into one of the woman's orifices (I won't say
which). It must be a powerful snake; it gives its host the power to sprout long
fangs and detach her head, which in turn flies around with its internal organs
attached. Under the cover of night, the woman, controlled by the evil snake (we
get periodic close-ups of the critter slithering through her internal organs),
sends her flying head around to bite folks' necks; the head can also breathe
fire and shoot lasers from its eyes.
Eventually, though, the woman grows wise to the
slimeball responsible for her condition, and takes him on in a downright
psychedelic duel that climaxes with the sorcerer turning back into the snake he
was to begin with, which itself flies through the air. It's no match for the
flying head, though
The Direction
Someone named Lian Sing
Woo directed WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD. There's really no point going into
particulars, as it's standard Hong Kong fare in most respects: cheap, sleazy and
FAST. The camera never stops moving and there are lots of zooms. The special
effects, however, are fairly impressive considering this film's obvious
limitations. The period detail is also passable (it seems like nearly every
Hong Flick made in the seventies had to have a feudal setting).
Vital
Statistics
WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD
Director: Lian Sing Woo