Hex (1980) by Kuei Chih-hung

Director: Kuei Chih-hung

Year: 1980

Country: Hong Kong

Alternate Titles: Xie

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

After developing a crippling disease, a woman from a noble family tries to follow a series of instructions meant to help cure her ailment, only to be foiled at every turn by a series of strange events that suggest something far darker is at play when supernatural figures appear to torment them.

Review:

Overall, this was a genuinely likable if somewhat confusing genre effort. Most of the positives and issues for this one come from the wild and chaotic storyline present, where so much of what goes on here feels like randomly inserted scenes just to make up the next setpiece. That works at times since the main story is about a family trying to help their matriarch stave off the ill health she’s falling into and trying to piece together the spiritual tasks that are supposed to take place so that she can get better. With this setting up the kind of distrustful and deceitful nature at the center of the family during this section, knowing who they are and what they are plotting against each other in a form of makeshift soap opera dynamic involving clandestine meetings, secret alliances looking for wealth, and other means that are used to move this along. Not all of these subplots are interesting or exciting, and it holds the pacing up considerably when far too much of the first half is devoid of supernatural shenanigans to let this all play out.

Once it comes to dealing with the remaining part of the film and the supernatural shenanigans that occur there, it not only goes through a slew of effective sequences but also includes a solid mystery to unravel. The mystery itself is quite enjoyable, with the series of hauntings and ghostly confrontations being played up as if it’s by the matriarch who had just died, making those who work around the house believe that the whole thing is caused by the ghost trying to instill terror in them and the idea of figuring out what’s going on and who the real thing is really haunting the family, serves to drive this along quite nicely. The haunting scenes here, from the visions of the ghostly figure appearing to the movers who are trying to get new furniture in the house, the later scenes involving the figure spotted during the nighttime stroll around the villa, and even finding the dead body inside the coffin where they buried it, offer some chilling sequences that are incredibly effective and making this feel all the more enjoyable heading into the finale where it moves into the occult ritual that manages to use the localized genre content to it’s most chilling factors, which give this all a lot to enjoy.

There are a few small factors to this one that bring it down. The biggest issue here is the first half being far too sluggish and not all that exciting as it waits for the wife to succumb to her ailment and get the plot moving. With the whole thing being about what mysterious symptoms she suffers from, all the different experts that come to the house trying to work out what’s going on, and the outcome of their advice forcing a bizarre enough means of trying to make her better to no avail, there’s a goofy slapstick style of presentation here that takes a while before anything more chilling happens. Some of the generally obvious comedy relief characters are more annoying than funny, furthering how much of a struggle it is to get to the more overtly genre fare in this section, and on the whole this all makes for a bland time to get going here. This, alongside a series of incidents in the finale that are immensely confusing and make no sense, all lower this one.

Overview: ****/5

An immensely effective and worthwhile genre effort, there’s enough to like here involving plenty of worthwhile factors for it that these overcome the few slight issues keeping this one down. Give it a shot if you’re curious about it, appreciate this style of Asian horror effort, or are fans of the creative crew, while most others out there might want to heed caution.