After we see a hairy-handed mystery figure commit murder by straight up throwing snakes at women, we get down to brass tacks with the main narrative of long-time Gamera series director Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 supernatural shocker, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch.
Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has lived most of her life in an orphanage, but that’s about to change as she is reclaimed by her estranged (emphasis on strange) family, and sent off to live with them which makes her pretty damn happy. That’ll change.
You see, the family has secrets… even among themselves… for instance, Sayuri has a sister named Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) that lives exclusively in the attic after her death was faked two years previous in a mental institution, where she was being treated for her snake obsession. Add to the mix Sayuri’s perpetually missing father, her mentally addled mother, and the governess that is supposed to be taking care of the children (yet she’s seldom present), and you have a recipe for one fucked-up fam!
You know what else Tamami is obsessed with? Fucking with Sayuri… and toads, so it isn’t long before she rips our heroine’s pet toad in half and chucks it right in her face. Siblings… what are ya gonna do?
Soon Sayuri is up to her pixie-cut in slithering snakes, menacing monsters, and being on the bottom of the family hierarchy… which is akin to being in hell!
Based kinda/sorta on a manga by author Kazuo Umezu, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is equal parts dark neo-fairytale and Scooby-Doo episode with a dash of Gothic storytelling tossed in for good measure. It’s a heady concoction for sure, and one that’s impossible to resist!
Director Yuasa crams this film with hypnotic, surreal dream sequences (replete with disembodied eyes, living dolls, swirling images, and disturbing puppetry), as well as the aforementioned Gothic and fairytale tropes (those family dynamics and our waifish heroine apply to both genres, but the remote house with it’s deep shadows is Goth 101), and gives it a charm and sweetness, even when it’s being nasty.
Speaking of “sweet”, Matsui’s Sayuri is so “never say die” no matter what absolute horror is going on in her life that you can’t help but root for her, she’s a smiling beacon in a world of psychos and mutants… it’s a strange dichotomy that let’s you know that this film was intended for children, but contains so many elements of terror that most children would be horrified by the experience…
As for special features on this release from Arrow Video, we kick things off with an audio commentary courtesy of Japanese genre cinema scholar David Kalat who takes us through the film’s production and it’s place in Japanese horror cinema history, as well as how it relates to the Yokai legends that inspired it, followed by a featurette where manga and folklore scholar Zack Davisson explores the film’s manga roots.
Also included are the film’s theatrical trailer, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve featuring new artwork by Mike Lee-Graham, and in the first pressing; an illustrated collectors’ booklet.
The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is a modernist folk-story brought to life with so much charisma and weirdness that it’s a demonic delight to behold from sinister start to frightful finish!
