The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Wit — The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch(Blu Ray

From the late 1960s, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is a creepy and bizarre Japanese fantasy film that was meant for kids, but is way too deranged, weird, and at times downright distributing for ankle-biters. It’s a film full of creative and tripped-out in-camera effects, moments of real unease and creepiness, and a general feeling of things getting odder and odder the deeper you get into the film. Here from Arrow Video- both in the UK and stateside- is a new blu ray release of this oddity, bringing together a new scan of the film, commentary track, and few other extras.

The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch( aka Hebi musume to hakuhatsuma) appeared in the year 1968- it was directed by Noriaki Yuasa, been adapted from two shojo manga stories by Kazuo Umezu who stands as one of the most respected names in Japanese comic book horror. The film is scoped in moody-to-eerier black and white, with Yuasa nicely capturing the feeling of campy pulp ‘n’ creepy comic book-ness, though the deeper we get in more surreal/ strange vibe starts to grow and spread, which I'm sure was an influence on young David Lynch.
 
The film focuses on the rather boyish-looking little girl Sayuri Nanjo (Yachie Matsui)- who has been some years at a nun run children’s home. One day she is picked up and taken home by a seemingly kind and caring Herpetologist- it’s a little unclear if Sayuri is his real daughter, or adopted, but this is no big plot point. As fairly soon the scientist is away on a trip for several weeks to track down snakes- leaving Sayuri in the care of his clearly recovering from a mental unwell-ness wife. The family’s house is large,  and full of hidden weirdness, there’s alter room where food seems to mysterious disappear, a basement lab where electronic effect sounding snakes slither, and a general feeling of general unease. 
 
One night when Sayuri is trying to sleep, she is scared awake by a strangely hunched female figure. We find out this is Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi), who is apparently Sayuri older sister - she lives in a hidden room at the top of the house, only coming out when the man of the house is away. The pair start to sleep together in the same room, and boy is Tamami creepy unease personified- she has a strange fixed vacant and waxy face. She doesn't talk much, and when she does it’s always something unnerving or odd. 
 
Poor Sayuri starts having nightmares- with her sister seemingly been some kind of half-snake/ half girl thing, there are also swords that turn into snakes and back again, trippy textured layering, seas of eyes, and all manner of monochrome and lo-key creepy oddness. As we get into the film up pops the second character of the film's title- the silver-haired witch, and she is equally unnerving- with grabbing hands, set wrinkled face, and a mass of thick grey hair. I won’t detail too much more of the plot/ unfold of the whole thing more, but it certainly is a weird old ride of a film which over its one-hour twenty-minute runtime, moves from childlike adventure( for some reason I keep getting Rupert the bear vibes- with of course without the talking animals). Onto a nightmarish blend of supernatural stalking, surreal horror, and tense fantasy film. The whole thing has such a great air of childhood imagining, gone very askew and deeply unsettling. 
 

Moving onto the Blu Ray, and we get a wonderfully clear and crisp print with the black and white print feature great definition and depth. On the extra side first, off get a new commentary track from film historian David Kalat- and this really is a fact and observation crammed track. He goes from talking about the film's point of view which is largely from that of Sayuri- so one can’t be totally sure what we are seeing is real. He moves on to discussing the career of director Noriaki Yuasa- who was most known for his connection with the Gammera series which found a giant, fire-breathing turtle monster destroying cites. He goes on to talk about the work of manga comic legend Kazuo Umezu, as well as discussing what the film takes from the two comic stories it is roughly based on. He moves on to discuss the three different Japanese horror sub-genres the film sits in, going on to talk about relevant films in each. He talks about the cast, and apparently, the films young lead was just ten years old, and seemingly did little else. He comments on the in-camera/ on-screen effects and much more. I believe this is the first commentary track I’ve listened to from Mr Kalat, and I must say I was most impressed-as he puts in so much research into his track, yet still makes sure he’s entertaining at the same time- so I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for his tracks in the future. The other new extra on the disc is This Charming Woman- this is a twenty-seven-minute featurette with manga and folklore scholar Zack Davisso- and this again is most interesting. He goes from talking about Japanese folklore/ monster legends, that apparently developed from those that came over from China and Indian. He moves on to talk about how the telling of these tales developed and changed over history- focusing on snake related monsters. He moves on to the film to hand, discussing how it fits in with these legends and giving a good general overview of the film. There’s a theatrical trailer and an image gallery.

 

In finishing The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is a great creepy and pulpy trip of a film, which gets slowly but surely wackier and more off the wall as it goes on. Arrow have done their usual great job on both the new crisp and clear print, and the great/ most interesting extras.