Monday, June 11, 2018

MAGIC CURSE (1975) ** ½


Man-Ying goes to the jungles of Borneo looking for his lost uncle.  Not five minutes into journey does he run into a gang of killer lepers.  He kills one of them and there's a cool Wolf Man-style transformation scene where the leper turns back to normal.  Man-Ying learns the evil witch doctor Abdula put a curse in the guy and sets off into the jungle.

In another awesome sequence, Abdula casts a spell on a native woman who’s getting frisky with her boyfriend in a nearby stream.  He turns her into a fanged killer and she bites her boyfriend’s penis off.  Then, the camera cuts to another native in the jungle eating a banana.  Brilliant. 

Along the way, Man-Ying falls in love with Filona, the goddess who protects the jungle.  When he goes back home to settle his uncle’s affairs, she places a curse on him and tells him not to mess around with another woman.  Naturally, he can’t keep his dick in his pants.  

If you thought the editing on the banana-biting scene was great, wait till you see the part where Man-Ying is getting it on with a chick he picked up at the club.  Just as he's about to climax, they cut to a shower head shooting water.  I love it.   This is just the set-up for the centerpiece of the movie.  It’s essentially the Psycho shower scene, but with snakes.  (Later, there’s a staircase death that’s also reminiscent of Psycho.)  

Things sort of take a nosedive in quality during the third act though.  It’s here where Man-Ying goes back to Borneo with a detective to prove that he is in fact, under the curse of Filona.  None of this is as compelling or as memorable as the craziness of the first hour, and the finale where Man-Ying and Filona square off against Abdula is lame too.  

It’s also odd that Man-Ying pretty much takes her back, no questions asked.  The fact that she killed two women out of petty jealousy is never brought up, nor does the detective arrest her for the crime.  (I guess the fact that Filona was in Borneo at the time gives her an airtight alibi.)  Still, would YOU want to marry her if she uses snakes to kill anyone you bat an eye at?  After all, relationships that are built on this kind of distrust are bound to go up in smoke eventually.  Besides, can you imagine what THAT divorce would be like?

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