The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is a 1968 Japanese horror movie and it’s totally crazy. It was directed by Noriaki Yuasa.
Sayuri lives in an orphanage run by Catholic nuns. She’s not really an orphan. Her mother was involved in a serious car accident and lost her memory. Sayuri’s parents could not cope with raising their daughter so they put her in the care of the nuns.
Sayuri’s mother’s condition has now improved and she’s going home. She’s understandably very excited.
Sayuri’s dad is a scientist, specialising in the study of venomous reptiles. He’s off to Africa for a particularly important study and plays no part in the story about to unfold.
Her father’s laboratory is off-limits (it’s full of venomous snakes) but naturally Sayuri sneaks in to have a look.
Some slightly disturbing things start to happen. She thinks that someone has thrown a snake into her bed. And then there’s her sister Tamami. She had no idea she had a sister. Her older brother didn’t know either. But there is a sister. And the sister is rather strange.
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Sayuru comes to believe that Tamami is a snake girl, but no-one believes her.
Sayuri sees snakes everywhere. She sees a girl with scales like a snake. And there’s a witch as well.
It’s obvious that Sayuri is in danger. It’s possible that her mother is in danger too. This is a kind of revenge story but it takes a while to find out exactly what the revenge is for, and who might be the principal target.
Things get steadily stranger and more frightening. Tamami seems to hate Sayuri for some reason.
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And slowly Tamami’s backstory is revealed.
This is not really a horror movie in a conventional sense. It’s more of a dark fairy tale movie but there are other things going on.
The special effects and makeup effects are incredibly cheesy, but given the fairy tale feel of the story that’s perhaps more a feature than a bug. Realistic visceral horror effects would have wrecked the strange dreamlike atmosphere.
The movie was shot in black-and-white in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Filming it in black-and-white was perhaps a slightly curious decision (it may of course have been entirely due to budgetary restrictions). It does work in a way since it emphasises the artificiality of the movie.
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The acting is OK. Given the oddness of the movie it’s possible that it needed actors who weren’t all that great, again in order to emphasise the artificiality. In this case it’s actresses rather than actors who take centre stage – all the key characters are female. It’s a very female-centric movie with a focus on female emotions.
The plot doesn’t make much sense but that’s possibly deliberate – we’re seeing everything through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl and she has no idea what is going on. She isn’t even entirely sure if all the things she sees are real. Maybe the grownups who tell her she’s imagining things are right. And of course the audience can’t be sure whether she’s a reliable narrator – she’s not lying but she could be seriously misinterpreting what she sees.
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This film is available on DVD. The good news is that it’s in the correct aspect ratio and it’s 16:9 enhanced. The bad news is that it’s not a very good transfer. Contrast isn’t great and the darker the scene the worse the image quality, a real problem in a movie with so many scenes taking place at night. There’s now an Arrow Blu-Ray release and while I haven’t seen that edition I suspect that it’s the one to go for.
The DVD is in Japanese with English subtitles.
The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is one weird movie. It’s all very low-budget and it’s not exactly technically polished but it certainly succeeds in creating an atmosphere of childish nightmare. It’s not really scary but it’s creepy at times. It’s worth seeing for its appealing strangeness. Recommended.