Bewitched

Kuei Chih-hung's 1981 Hong Kong film is among the harshest horror works from the Shaw Brothers studio. A police officer investigating a man who killed his daughter discovers a curse laid in Thailand behind the case and becomes its target himself. The film belongs to a wave that used Southeast Asian beliefs about sorcery as horror material and is among that wave's best-known examples. Kuei films the ritual sequences with a documentary seriousness, which increases the dread. The imagery is graphic and stomach-turning; the insect and body sequences in particular are harsh. The story is simple and the characters thin. Who it's for: viewers who like Hong Kong horror and genre films of the eighties. Who it's not for: anyone avoiding graphic violence and imagery involving animals, or unable to bear content of violence against a child.