Verdict
Summary
If you’re a fan of J-Horror films, you can very clearly see how this movie might have set a template for hardcore horror in the modern era, and it uses nightmarish, shocking imagery and hallucinatory scenes to convey a sense of hopelessness and complete and utter terror, particularly since it has a very young protagonist who is constantly at the forefront of extreme danger.
Plot:
A little girl is reunited with her family, but finds that horrible things await her at home.
Review:
After spending almost her entire life at an orphanage, young Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) is picked up by her father and told that she will now live with her family after all these years. Her father, a scientist who specializes in highly venomous creatures, welcomes Sayuri home, and informs her that her mother isn’t the same as she used to be. And true enough: Her mother is strange, aloof, and seemingly under a spell, and even mistakes Sayuri for someone else. But Sayuri is a sweet little girl, and she’s overjoyed to be home. Within a few days, Sayuri’s father is called away to Africa to collect a very rare snake, which leaves Sayuri alone under her mother’s care, as well as a housekeeper, and within a night she begins to realize that things aren’t right with her mother who keeps very odd hours. Turns out that there’s another lodger in the attic – Sayuri’s older sister, which she never knew she had – and when she agrees to bunk with her and be her friend, the other girl reveals herself to be an evil sibling who hates Sayuri … and also might secretly be a snake! But that’s not all! There’s an evil witch lurking in the house, and Sayuri’s mother might very well be the witch – or its doppelgänger – who wants nothing more than to kill Sayuri and be done with her forever!
An extremely dark fable (based on a comic book) geared to scare the living daylights out of children, The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch is still very potent and might haunt adults just as well. If you’re a fan of J-Horror films, you can very clearly see how this movie might have set a template for hardcore horror in the modern era, and it uses nightmarish, shocking imagery and hallucinatory scenes to convey a sense of hopelessness and complete and utter terror, particularly since it has a very young protagonist who is constantly at the forefront of extreme danger. A climax where the little girl is dangling at the edge of a building as her mother crushes her fingers with a pipe might shock some viewers, and I found the film to be very engaging, frightening, and creepy to the max. From director Nariaki Yuasa.
Arrow Film recently released The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch onto Blu-ray, and this is the first time the movie has ever been seen on home video outside of Japan. The film looks great in its original black and white, and it includes a new audio commentary by a film historian, plus a supplemental interview with a manga and folklore scholar.
