Gabe Powers

Few filmmakers set the temperature for Shaw Bros. horror better than Kuei Chih-Hung, beginning with the pre-Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) creature featureThe Killer Snakes (1974) and the pre-Black Magic (1975) vampiresque thriller Ghost Eyes (1974). He hit his stride back-to-back-to-back in the ‘80s with Hex (1980), Hex vs. Witchcraft (1980), Corpse Mania (1981), Bewitched (1981), Hex After Hex (1982), Curse of Evil (1982), and The Boxer’s Omen (1983). In previous reviews and...

Between groundbreaking gross-outs Black Magic (1974) and Black Magic Part 2 (1976), director Ho Meng-Huathe made a different brand of horror film called The Oily Maniac (1976). Like the Black Magic movies, it was shot outside of Hong Kong on the Malay Peninsula, based on local folklore (that of the Oily Man or Orang Minyak), and was brimming with exploitative sex and violence, but gone were the elaborate rituals, love potions, and wizard...

At the top of its most internationally successful decade, the 1970s, Shaw Bros. Studios began diversifying their genre output, including a comparatively small, but vital series of horror films. The turning point was arguably 1974, which saw the release of two definitively Hong Kong-flavored films, Kuei Chih-Hung’s The Killer Snakes and Ghost Eyes, and a combination of Shaw kung fu and Hammer Gothic, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, co-directed by Chang Cheh and Roy Ward Baker (technically...