Blu-ray Release: The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch

By
Laurence
– November 19, 2021Find Others: Blu-ray, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , ,

Blu-ray Release Date: Nov. 23, 2021
Price: Blu-ray $19.99
Studio: Arrow/MVD

What do you get when Noriaki Yuasa, director of Daiei Studios’ much-beloved Gamera series, makes a monochrome film adaptation of the works of horror manga pioneer Kazuo Umezu (The Drifting Classroom)? The answer is 1968’s The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch, a fantastically phantasmagorical slice of twisted tokusatsu terror ostensibly made for children that will irreparably traumatize any child that sees it!

A young girl named Sayuri is reunited with her estranged family after years in an orphanage – but trouble lurks within the walls of the large family home. Her mother is an amnesiac after a car accident six months earlier, her sullen sister is confined to the attic and a young housemaid dies inexplicably of a heart attack just before Sayuri arrives… is it all connected to her father’s work studying venomous snakes? And is the fanged, serpentine figure that haunts Sayuri’s dreams the same one spying on her through holes in the wall?

Making its worldwide Blu-ray debut and its home video premiere outside Japan, this rarely-screened, nightmarishly disorienting creepshow not only displays a seldom-seen side of kaiju auteur Yuasa, but its skillful blending of Umezu’s comics (published in English-language markets as Reptilia) arguably anticipates many of the trends seen in J-horror decades later.

Arrow’s awesome new special edition contains the following:

  • High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
  • Original uncompressed mono audio
  • Optional English subtitles
  • Brand new commentary by film historian David Kalat
  • This Charming Woman, a newly filmed interview with manga and folklore scholar Zack Davisson
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Image gallery
  • Reversible sleeve featuring new and original artwork by Mike Lee-Graham
  • FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Raffael Coronelli

Buy or Rent The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.