Gui da gui (1980)

... aka: 鬼打鬼

... aka: Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind

... aka: Encounter of the Spooky Kind

... aka: Encounters of the Spooky Kind

... aka: Gwai da gwai (Ghost Against Ghost)

... aka: L'exorciste chinois (The Chinese Exorcist)

... aka: Spooky Encounters

Directed by:

Samo (Sammo) Hung

Seeing how I've seen at least two dozen later films that were heavily inspired by this one, I probably should have watched this a lot sooner than now but, hey, better late than never! Though not the very first of its type, Encounter is still one of the key titles in the development of both the jiangshi (hopping vampire) and slapstick ghost-comedy subgenres that would dominate fantastic cinema in Hong Kong in the second half of the 80s. These films typically placed more emphasis on the crazy than the narrative and gleefully mixed martial arts action, comedy, fantasy and horror elements into an entertaining, though often meandering and episodic, brew. The objective really was to pack so much into the film, and keep things moving at such a quick pace, that audiences didn't have time to get bored. Or question what they'd just seen. Prototypical brainless entertainment, if you will. And while there's not a damn thing wrong with that, the better examples of this type of film always contained at least a reasonably engaging and (if we're lucky!) coherent plot as well as some heart to go along with the gonzo.

Depending on which version you watch, Sammo stars as either "Bold," "Big Guts," "Fatty" OR "Courageous" Cheung (we'll settle for just "Cheung" from here on out), a none-too-bright cart driver of chubby proportions. He's poor, lazy, surrounds himself with all of the biggest losers in the village and is stuck in a terrible marriage with a lying, backstabbing social climber (Suet-Mei Leung). He begins to suspect something is up with his wife when she suddenly starts wearing expensive new clothes they can't afford on his measly salary. He later looks through a peephole and catches her right in the act, though she's somehow able to talk her way out of it. Little does he know, but she's been sleeping with Master Tam (Ha Huang), a wealthy old man he often chauffeurs who also has aspirations to become mayor.

Wanting the wife all to his own, and figuring Cheung will find out about the affair eventually anyway, Tam plots to eliminate him from the equation. His advisor Lau (Tai-Bo) comes up with the idea to enlist the aid of Hoi Chin (Peter Chan Lung), an unscrupulous black magician who's willing to do anything granted the price is right. Skilled in "Maoshan sorcery," Hoi Chin is tasked with setting up an altar at Tam's place where he can cast his spells in anonymity. His toadie, Old Dog Fah (Ma Wu), is then sent out to make a wager with Cheung. If he can spend the night locked inside a reputedly haunted ancestral crypt, he'll reward him with silver. Cheung takes him up on the offer.

Luckily for Cheung, Hoi Chin's understudy Tsui (Fat Chung) takes offense to his master's plans since their brand of sorcery is supposed to only be used for good. There are four taboos in the sect's doctrine: Insatiable greed, unprincipled killing, nefarious collusion with cronies and blasphemy against their three luminaries, and his former master is about to break all four of them in exchange for some gold. Instead of playing along, Tsui decides to secretly help Cheung out and guides the naïve bumpkin through various traps laid out for him. He's barely able to survive a night inside the crypt after Hoi Chin resurrects and controls a jiangshi, but then the wager is increased five times and Cheung accidentally accepts. Tsui orders him to gather black dog's blood, four dog's paws and fifty chicken eggs to do battle the next night. Against all odds, Cheung survives the night yet again.

The bad guys then step up their game by trying to implicate Cheung in his wife's murder. He comes home to find blood everywhere, but there's no body. Nonetheless, inept constable Ching-Ying Lam throws him in jail, though he's able to escape after beating up four guards. While trying to elude authorities, he encounters myriad other dangers like a rat-and-maggot-infested resurrected corpse and various magic spell attacks launched by the evil magician. In one of these, one of his hands becomes possessed and takes on a mind of its own, which then breaks dishes in a café, throws stuff around, starts attacks guests, punches its owner in the face, makes him flip, etc. in a scene that was later copied by Sam Raimi for Evil Dead 2. No chainsaw, though.

There's also a nightmare scene featuring skeletons, flying urns and ghosts biting off flesh, voodoo doll usage, a real chicken getting decapitated, a skull-faced warrior and two minions summoned from beyond, a clawed, half-purple female ghost that sucks a guy into a mirror and a ritual where Sammo gets red talismans painted all over his nude body to become Tsui's disciple. All of the fight scenes and stunts are excellently choreographed and performed by the cast and there's some nice pyro work thrown in here, too. Though the big finale gets a little too silly (with characters given high-pitched, sped-up voices and one getting possessed by a monkey spirit and acting accordingly), the last 30 seconds are hilarious and absolutely priceless.

The film is actually kind of a tour de force for Sammo, who wore many hats in the production. Aside from giving an energetic lead performance and directing, he also co-wrote (with Ying Wong), was an (uncredited) executive producer, did stunts and was one of the martial arts / action directors. This was the freshman effort from his newly-formed Bo Ho Films Company Ltd. and became a modest success in theaters. It was followed by The Dead and the Deadly (1982), which Hung starred in, co-wrote, co-produced and also did fight choreography on (directorial duties were passed off to Ma Wu). It ended up becoming an even bigger hit and helped to solidify this whole formula.

Hung's company would hit their apex with MR. VAMPIRE (1985), which was the highest grossing film of all of these, netted thirteen Hong Kong Film Award nominations and was followed by four successful sequels, a few spin-offs and many copycats. Other genre releases from this team, which all dependably grossed anywhere from 7 to 13 million HKD, were HOCUS POCUS (1984), Those Merry Souls (1985), MY COUSIN THE GHOST (1987), Scared Stiff (1987) and BURNING SENSATION (1989). By the end of the decade, audiences were starting to tire of this style of film and the companies last two horror-comedy hybrids; Mortuary Blues and Till Death Shall We Start (both 1990), saw a steep decrease in profits.

Though Hung certainly deserves the bulk of the praise, Fat Chung, a great mix of wily, wise, funny, professional and effortlessly cool, is also worth singling out for his standout performance as Cheung's protector. Other actors who appear in small roles are the cross-eyed Siu-Ming To (who has a giant, hairy fake mole glued to his face to complete his look), future directors Ricky Lau (the Mr. Vampire series) and Billy Chan (New Mr. Vampire), veteran actress Ying-Ying Hui as a gossipy village woman and extremely prolific (over 500 credits) veteran actor Pak-Kwong Ho as a peeping tom. Nearly everyone would be back in later films for the company.

This was released on VHS in France (as L'exorciste chinois / "The Chinese Exorcist" and dubbed into French), Hong Kong, Japan (dubbed into Japanese and on the Pony Video label), the U.S. and the UK, followed by DVD and Blu-ray releases in all of these countries. The American distributor was Tai Seng and there's another well-circulated release from Fortune Star. The Australian and UK releases offer an English dubbed audio track, though, as usual, I strongly recommend watching the subtitled Cantonese-language version instead.

A belated sequel, Encounters of the Spooky Kind II (1990), came ten years later. Also produced by and starring Hung (though for Bojon Films Company Ltd.; another of his film companies [there were at least three!]), it ended up grossing over twice as much at the box office.

★★★

Violated! (1974)

... aka: Hollywood Ripper, The

... aka: Rapist, The

Directed by:

Albert Zugsmith

Say whatever you want about him, but not many exploitation directors could boast the credentials Zugsmith had. After becoming independently wealthy working "straight" jobs in marketing, publishing and sales, Zugsmith (by then in middle age) set out to fulfill his dream of becoming a filmmaker in the early 1950s. He co-founded his own production company, landed a contract with RKO and directed three low budget films for them. The surprise box office success of his Invasion U.S.A. (1952) led to major studio interest and contracts for MGM, Allied Artists and Universal. During his time working for the latter, he had his hand in quite a few now-classic films. He produced the well-regarded Douglas Sirk melodramas Written on the Wind (1956), which was a big hit, and The Tarnished Angels (1957), as well as the classic The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), which would go on to become one of the highest grossing genre films of the entire decade. Most notably, however, he was instrumental in bringing Orson Welles' film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958) to the screen. Though it was initially a disappointment at the box office, Touch is now considered a masterpiece and frequently pops up on all-time best lists. It was also deemed culturally and artistically significant enough to be selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in just their fifth year.

The "respectable" portion of Zugsmith's career virtually disappeared during his MGM years, namely because of his continued work with platinum blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren, one of a gazillion Marilyn Monroe wannabes who were never able to compete with the real thing. Going from Welles and Sirk to flops like The Private Lives of Adam and Eve and Sex Kittens Go to College in just a few short years was quite the fall from grace. By the end of the 60s, Zugsmith was making straight-up soft-core porn (Sappho Darling; Two Roses & a Golden Rod) and heading down to Mexico to make the barely-released psychedelic horror flick The Chinese Room (1968) and the failed western-comedy The Phantom Gunslinger (1970). After trying to capitalize on the Manson Family murders with the sleazy The Cult (1971, aka The Manson Massacre), he finally bowed out for good with this nasty little rape-revenge film starring a bunch of hardcore porn performers.

Britt-Mari Nilsson, the Swedish-born wife of producer Roger Gentry, opens the film as the latest unfortunate victim of a victim-mutilating rapist who's recently been terrorizing Tinseltown and dons a different rubber Halloween mask for each attack. After stalking her around Hollywood Boulevard for a bit, the psycho turns up at her home later that night and attacks her after a swim. She's pulled into a gazebo, has her bikini ripped off, is raped (the assaulter doesn't bother to remove his pants) and then gets her face sliced up with a switchblade. Hilariously, a later radio broadcast will describe the thirty-something Nilsson as a "12 year old girl" (!) and also claims that the psycho's hallmark is carving a swastika on his victims' bodies.

We then meet Terry Murphy, who's played by prolific sex film star Rene Bond. Because of her hectic dating life, Terry brushes off potential suitor Quentin Judson ("Billy Buzby" / Jay Scott), then returns to her apartment where she strips out of her red vinyl mini-skirt and go-go boots and hops into the shower. The masked psycho (now wearing a devil mask), cuts through her shower curtain, pulls her to the ground, rapes her, knocks her out and then carves up her chest. The following day, asshole detective Sgt. Purvis (!) (uncredited Wes Bishop) shows up and chastises her about not reporting the crime sooner. He suggests she's making it all up and informs her that no one will take her claims seriously because she makes money selling ads in a sex paper and is an attractive young woman that juries would find hard to sympathize with. (Sadly, some of these observations are quite true to life.).

It's revealed that just fifteen minutes after she was attacked, Quentin was pulled over by cops half a block from Terry's house for speeding and had a knife in his possession. Terry refuses to believe it could have been him. Even though he's a 'Nam vet, he's a "gentle soul" who loves small animals, reads poetry out loud and "practically lives on strawberry yogurt and sunflower seeds" (?) Angry that she's now "damaged goods on the marriage market," Terry vows to apprehend the killer herself if the stupid cops can't do it. And apparently they can't since an Asian secretary is attacked about two minutes later, bringing the victim total to over 30.

When she isn't merrily bouncing around hippie coffee house trying to sell books, Midge Lewis is a college student who has been busy "studying psychopaths in my psych class." But that does nothing to prepare her for her encounter with the real-life psycho, who chloroforms her, pulls her into a van, shackles her by the wrists and ankles and does his usual carve job on her thigh. Midge is played by the attractive but apparently one-and-done Susanne Suzan. Whoever Ms. Suzan is, she was also the associate producer, takes top billing, refuses to do any nudity (unlike her co-stars), seems European in origin (maybe she was real-life friends with Britt-Mari) and delivers all of her dialogue in a monotone with a very thick accent.

After a parade of other victims, including porn star Sandra Dempsey (SEX AND THE SINGLE VAMPIRE) getting punched in the face and her top ripped open, and a black woman who offends the rapist by getting turned on by his attack, leading to her being beaten unconscious (!), this finally starts to settle into something resembling a plot. Terry, with assist from Quentin (who's out to prove his innocence to her) and an apprehensive Midge (who frowns upon torture since her father was a Jewish concentration camp survivor), decides she's going to lure the chief suspects to her home and then try to use "psychological torment" to force a confession out of one of them. The two chief suspects are sleazy, skirt-chasing television repairman John Murphy (Jerry Delony) and child-like, mother-obsessed linoleum installer Stan Driscoll (Ric Lutze).

With lots of nudity (though perhaps less than one would expect given the plot and cast), scenes that alternate between dull (most of the cop / interrogation scenes), amusing and disturbing, enthusiastic yet highly variable performances and a crazed finale that includes kidnapping, necrophilia, torture with pliers, a knife, a blowtorch and a homemade electric chair (!), this is a very entertaining piece of grindhouse trash.

Fans of Bond will definitely want to check this out. I've seen her in other things before but not anything where she had the lead role and was actually asked to act. In addition to providing the expected full frontal nudity here, she actually chips in a surprisingly fun performance, especially the more unhinged her character gets. You don't exactly have to be Meryl Streep to carry a movie like this, you just need to be into what you're doing, and Bond clearly is. Only four other actors are credited, but much of the supporting cast comes from the Lee Frost cinematic universe. There are small parts for Gentry, Marland Proctor (also the production manager), Phil Hoover and Vincent Barbi. Most of the actresses playing victims remain unknown.

Though this is currently listed as a 1975 release on IMDb, the copyright date is 1973 and the film was playing as early as October 1974 in Chicago. It was almost always on some kind of double bill and newspaper ads show it was paired with a wide variety of other films, including the Italian crime drama Execution Squad (1972), the Exorcist copy BEYOND THE DOOR (1974) and the Russ Meyer-directed sexploitation film Common Law Cabin (1967). It was later reissued to theaters under the new title The Hollywood Ripper.

Long thought lost, this finally turned up on the ten film Vinegar Syndrome box set "Lost Picture Show," which, for once, really did include a bunch of absolute rarities. The other titles of interest to horror fans in the set include Red Midnight (1966), Beware the Black Widow (1968), Las Vegas Strangler (1968; originally called No Tears for the Damned) and The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake (1973; aka Voodoo Heartbeat).

★★1/2