New from Arrow, the Blu-Ray release of the amazingly titled Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is great news for both fans of classic Japanese horror and reviewers with a word count to hit. Jokes aside, the film boasts an impressive pedigree. It’s directed by Noriaki Yuasa, most famous for the original Gamera film series, and inspired by the works of legendary horror manga author Kazuo Umezu (of The Drifting Classroom fame amongst many others).
Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch tells the story of the almost preposterously moppety orphan Sayuri (Yachie Matsui), who is reunited with her biological parents. However, it isn’t quite the fairytale ending Sayuri was hoping for as she arrives at her home to find an amnesiac mother, a basement filled with venomous creatures for her father’s research and a dead maid from aforementioned venomous creatures. And if you don’t have time for a full review, just the fact that the film correctly uses venomous instead of poisonous gets it a hearty recommend from me. Things only escalate as Sayuri finds herself being watched at night through a hole in the roof by a figure who is eventually revealed to be her sister Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi). Sayuri tries to befriend Tamami but finds her not only cruel and abusive but, through a series of surreal dream sequences, also begins to believe that she may be part-snake. And then a witch with silver hair pops up later, otherwise that title wouldn’t make any sense.
The film is full of atmospheric flair and psychedelic visuals, including swirling backgrounds, shapeshifting characters and dolls that grow into humans and fly through snake infested vistas. Don’t worry, it all makes sense in context. Well ok, it doesn’t, but that’s what makes the film so great.
Genre-wise, Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch can be a little tricky to pin down. For a lot of the runtime, it plays its cards pretty close to its chest with regard to whether or not the supernatural elements are real or just in Sayuri’s mind. It also straddles the line somewhere between pure horror and dark fairy tale fantasy, then pivots more towards a “Scooby Doo for grownups” mystery thriller once the Witch herself starts appearing.
The one thing Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch definitely is though, is a heck of fun time. The film is full of atmospheric flair and psychedelic visuals, including swirling backgrounds, shapeshifting characters and dolls that grow into humans and fly through snake infested vistas. Don’t worry, it all makes sense in context. Well ok, it doesn’t, but that’s what makes the film so great. For the most part, the practical effects used to create these scenes are still rather impressive and any that do seem dated now (such as some very rubbery spiders) only help to add to the film’s surrealness.
These effects are particularly effective when it comes to the film’s more gory scenes. This is heightened by how sparingly the film uses violence so it always comes as a bit of a shock when a frog gets ripped in half or a character has their hands crushed. This relative lack of violence makes sense when you consider that Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is, in theory, a film appropriate for children, albeit one likely to leave them absolutely terrified. This, of course, makes it the absolute best kind of children’s film.
SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER-HAIRED WITCH IS OUT NOW ON ARROW VIDEO BLU-RAY
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THANKS FOR READING ANDREW’S REVIEW OF SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER-HAIRED WITCH.
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