a.k.a. Wu Gong Zhou / Centipede Curse
company: Nikko International
year: 1984
runtime: 93′
country: Hong Kong
director: Keith Li
cast: Hussein Abu Hassan, Chu-kwong Chan,
F.C. Chan, Lai Fun Chan, Suet Ming Chan
writer: Amy Chan Suet-Ming
cinematographers: Lee Yip
and Ma Gam-Cheung
not on home video in the USA

This film is, in a word, infamous.  To understand why one need only take a gander at the extensive list of plot keywords available for it over at the IMDB, where things like “vomit”, “cattle mutilation”, “gang rape”, and “genocide” are some of the more mundane of the lot.  The reviews there are a confounding mess, and tend to focus on how disturbed the viewers were by seeing the film rather than on the film itself – and those that buck the trend often sound like they’re describing entirely different movies.  Making things more difficult for those looking to make heads or tails of the production [like me, for example] is its almost complete absence from the annals of film criticism, online or otherwise.

My hunt for information on this title was frustrating at best, leaving me with more questions than I had answers – like just how it became so infamous to begin with, when it’s so obscure and lacking in critical coverage.  Of course, the only way for me to really answer any of the questions raised [and figure out just what the hell the fuss at IMDB is about] was by watching the film.  With a little patience and the help of my favorite cult film torrent site, I set out to do just that.

CENTIPEDE HORROR concerns the trials and tribulations of the Pak family, whose daughter Kay goes missing in South East Asia [how specific!] while on vacation with her friends.  Her brother Wai Lun goes to investigate, only to find his sister dying in a hospital bed, her body covered in festering sores.  The attending physicians have no explanation for her mystery illness, and even local mystics are powerless to help.  Kay dies [with centipedes crawling out of her wounds] and is cremated, and Wai Lun returns home – unaware that a local shaman, having realized he belongs to the Pak family, has been watching his every move.

While at home in Hong Kong spooky things begin to happen – Wai Lun hears ambiguous stories of his Grandfather’s work in South East Asia, and is troubled by nightmares.  He even finds a lone [and noisy] giant centipede running around in his basement.  He returns to the place where his sister died after her urn mysteriously explodes so that he can have it repaired and bring her ashes to Hong Kong.  While there he meets up with friend Yeuk Chee and begins a journey to learn about the black magic he now suspects may have been responsible for his sister’s untimely and gruesome demise.

What Wai Lun discovers is more horrible than he  could have imagined.  His cheating grandfather, trying to cover up a  pair of murders resulting from his adulterous ways, was responsible for a fire that destroyed an entire village and killed most of its inhabitants.  As revenge, grandfather Pak was cursed to die a horrible death by one of the survivors.  What’s worse, all the following generations of his family were cursed as well, including Wai Lun’s sister, who died from a powerful ‘centipede spell’.  Soon Wai Lun’s friend Yeuk Chee is under the influence of the ‘centipede spell’ as well, and the race is on to cure her of it and break the bonds of the Pak family curse.

In terms of its narrative, CENTIPEDE HORROR is a relatively traditional black magic yarn concerning all sorts of stuff that will appear bizarre to Western audiences.  There is a priest who raises the ghosts of children from their graves [by stealing their corpses and grilling their chins!] and adopts them so that they might help him in his exorcism ceremonies. There is also no end of scenes detailing the battle between good priests and the forces of black magic, which invariably involve lots of mood lighting, bell ringing, and fire.  Then there are the bugs, of which there are many, and the few ridiculous scenes in which they attack the human cast.

The big difference between this and the Shaw Brothers black magic films that inspired it are a handful of scenes showing young women vomiting up various creepy crawlies – like scorpions and the titular centipedes.  While the attack sequences involving said creepy crawlies are pretty mundane [involving large numbers of them crawling over screaming but unharmed actors], the much-hyped bug puking is a decidedly nasty gross-out gag.  Particularly unsettling is the final scene, which has Yeuk Chee hacking up gobs of wriggling centipedes in between dollops of pasty nastiness.  Still, the bug vomiting scenes, unsettling as they may be, are few and far between.

So what are we to make of CENTIPEDE HORROR’s infamous reputation?  The vomit is present and accounted for, but where is the gang rape, genocide, and cattle mutilation [amongst many, many other things] that I was promised?  In another movie perhaps or, as I more strongly suspect, only in the fanciful imaginations of those who contributed to the IMDB listing.  While a few moments are cringe worthy, HORROR is hardly the uncompromising masterpiece of gross-out excess it’s been heralded as.  Those who need corroboration need only ask the kind people at the Insect Fear Film Festival, who screened the film at their latest gathering [wish I could have been there, guys!].

While not the exercise in extreme grotesquery that I was expecting and perhaps even hoping for, CENTIPEDE HORROR is still a satisfyingly strange little movie.  Director Keith Li offers none of the style one might associate with similarly themed Shaw Brothers efforts, but his handling of the spookier elements is quite well done all the same.  The aforementioned ghost-aided exorcism [which ends with a puddle of scorpions and blood on the floor] has a certain air of realism and is the standout of the film by far.  Much to my surprise, Li even manages to shock at times – the centipede-in-the-basement sequence caught me quite off guard!  He also mixes in a few moments of welcome humor, like our introduction of the ghost-adopting priest, but keeps HORROR a rather serious affair for the most part.

CENTIPEDE HORROR has no official DVD release in the US or anywhere else that I’m aware of, which is a real shame.  Given its notoriety and and extensive online hype, I suspect there could be considerable profits to reap from its release – not that I expect one anytime soon.  For those who want it now, the film is available from torrent sites far and wide and is a staple on the lists of many a gray market cult cinema retailer.

While far from the nightmarish vision many would have you believe it is, CENTIPEDE HORROR is a relatively interesting, occasionally successful, and unarguably weird take on the black magic theme popular in the Hong Kong cinema of the time.  It’s a pity Keith Li didn’t direct more than the few films he did, as I quite enjoyed myself with this one.  While not recommended for the squeamish or bug-fearing, fans of the genre are encouraged to indulge.