Black Magic

After watching the earlier Shaw horrors with period setting, it was refreshing to watch one with a contemporary setting. It also adds more nudity, blood, worms, moves on a brisk pace and provides some surprises. My main gripe is that although it's fun to watch how selfish everyone is and ready to use black magic to get what they want, you don't really care about any of them. Also, the worst scenes are sadly towards the end when the magicians battle each other with the aid of subpar FX.

The film has a decent mix of horror, nudity, and (unintentional) comedy. But even for a Shaw Brothers picture, the pacing absolutely sucks. Its 93-minute run-time feels interminable. The film has a bizarre method of storytelling, considering its antagonist and false protagonist get by far the most screen-time and the three protagonists each disappear for long stretches. But the mix of disturbing, low-tech horror effects and Shaw Brothers-style composition still make this one worth seeing once.

Typical Hong Kong horror movie that uses the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach. These things are never scary but at least they are entertaining. Loses points for being some what incoherent.

The opening scene was kind of scary, then it quickly falls off a cliff. Completely unbelievable. Magic, fine. I can buy that. It's a movie, after all. But why would a beautiful, highly desirable millionairess chase after a dumpy, brain dead engineer? Why are there so many car chases in a horror movie? Why didn't anyone notice a chicken hanging from a noose outside a second floor, street-facing window? Why can't I stop watching this? Why did I pay 20 bucks for this? Poor FX too, btw.