Centipede Horror (1982)

Genres - Action, Adventure  |   Sub-Genres - Fantasy Drama  |   Run Time - 93 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - R
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Synopsis by Robert Firsching

This creepy-crawly Hong Kong horror film from director Keith Li recalls the slimy excesses of such Shaw Brothers classics as Black Magic and its popular sequels. The story line deals with a student who is bitten by poisonous centipedes while visiting Southeast Asia. She gets sicker by the moment and finally dies, with centipedes graphically eating their way out of her body. Her brother Pak Kai-lum (Miu Kiu-wai) discovers that their grandfather once accidentally took part in murdering an entire village. Furious, the local witch doctor then placed a curse on the entire family which destined them to be killed by centipedes. Discovering that Kai-lum has a magic necklace which protects him from the animals, the sorcerer puts Kai-lum's girlfriend Yeuk-chee (Margaret Lee) under a hypnotic spell so that she will remove it. The usual black bile, magical chickens, and spellcasting ensue, but the film's raison d'ĂȘtre appears to be the requisite carnival geekery which calls for a performer to vomit scads of live, wriggling centipedes in a scene which becomes all the more astonishing for the complete lack of cinematic special effects involved. It's all real, and that moment alone is enough to justify either seeking out Centipede Horror or avoiding it like the plague, depending on the viewer's level of tolerance.

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