I spend a lot of time watching movies (as much as I do reading comic books) and I this one I actually let sit for awhile before I tackled it. I blame a really bad review I read for making me bump this one back on my queue and I wish I hadn't; The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch is awesome!
The female lead is capable and brave, her tormentors are terrifying and despite the liberal use of plastic tarantulas, it still manages to be chilling.
Spoilers follow!
The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch
Noted for his work on the Gamera series, director Noriaki Yusaka's remake of a manga by acclaimed horror mangaka Kazuo Umezz is a psychological thriller with fantastic elements -- the driving force of the movie is the plucky, fearless middle schooler Sayuri and her tortured psyche.
In other writers reviews of this film, I see them urging parents not to show this to children. I don't agree, this was the kind of film I would have loved as a 10 year old girl! The villains (Her creepy older sister, the villainous masked witch and her enabling mother) are all scary in different ways -- and all would have been relatable to me as a pre-teen.
I really can't get over what a fantastic little girl character Sayuri is. She gets properly scared, but when faced with real danger she refuses to back down. All of the abuse handed down by the films villains doesn't break her resolve to discover the truth and make sure everyone else knows whats going on. When confronted by a horde of tarantulas, she problem solves. When the witch locks her up, she scales down the side of the house and finds help. When a gigantic snake tries to eat her after an evil witch throws daggers at her, she takes that snake out.
There are a lot of other reasons to watch this -- stellar performances from the cast, beautiful direction interlaced with (very) trippy dream sequences and the brutal, bloody climax -- but none eclipse the heroine.
