Here's another entry to the genre that I've labelled the "Dark and nasty Hong Kong horror movies of the 80s". They're not all actually from the 1980s but they all have that vipe, that tone of dark HK horror movies. Hell, they're not all even from Hong Kong! I definitely think THE DEVIL and WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD belong in that category and they're actually from Taiwan.
The film in this post, LEWD LIZARD, is a very rare nasty Hong Kong horror movie from 1979, and let me warn you right away; if you couldn't stomach KILLER SNAKES because of the cruelty to animals then... there's a good chance you're not gonna like this one one bit either! I watched LEWD LIZARD a long time ago via a VHS dupe I got from a tape-trader and I didn't wanna re-watch that old crummy tape cos it looks like it's a fourth or fifth generation dupe. So when I began preparing for this new blog I looked around for a better copy and found... practically nothing!! LEWD LIZARD has proven to be thee most difficult HK horror film to track down. There's NOTHING out there. No old video tapes, no old video-cd's, no laserdiscs, not anything! Anywhere! All I found was two bootleggers who were selling bootlegs of it and from their description it seems it's a copy off the same old crappy VHS that they've got (same description of tape roll at the beginning of the film).
Anyway, I ordered a copy and, uh, I'm afraid this DVD-R bootleg looks about the same as my old video dupe did! But at least it has (crummy!) cover art. LMAO. Anyhooo, I'll post a handful of screen grabs here and then write up a review when I've re-watched it properly again. Screw the bad picture quality, I wanna watch this! xD xD xD
NOTE: Needless to say, if ANY of you out there has an original VHS and could/would do me a DVD-R copy I'd be VERY happy!!!
Honestly there's a degree of strong nostalgia in watching rare cult films on old nth generation tape copies or DVD-R boots made from such. It almost enhances some of these movies, sort of like what Tarantino was trying to capture for GRINDHOUSE.
ReplyDeleteLOL. Yeah, I got to agree with you on that one. I hadn't watched a nth generation tape for quite a number of years so it definitely brought me backs to the old days. I felt right at home! I would say my copy of LEWD LIZARD is juuust on the border of being bad quality but not so bad it's no longer watchable or fun. But I wish I could find an original or at least someone who owned one and could provide me with a dupe off it. Or if I could find someone who owns a different print. This one had un-readable subs for about 75% of the time and it was dubbed in Mandarin too. Fortunately it's (I'm sure) an uncut print.
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