Kitsch-movie fans know of the incorrigibly childish Japanese giant-monster ("kaiju") franchise Gamera the flying turtle, a Godzilla competitor from the Daiei studios. That same movie company—and principal Gamera director/perpetrator, Noriyaki Yuasa—also made this black-and-white horror tale, aimed at younger viewers, yet still replete with potential nightmare imagery and troubling psychological undertones.
Because it derives (rather loosely) from a popular "manga" comic-book serial by Kazuo Umezu (published in English as Reptilia), Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch is probably better known in the English-speaking world to fans of Japanese anime/cartoons than to general followers of The Ring and The Grudge and all their iterations.
Sayuri Nanjo (Yachie Matsui), an almost aggravatingly pure-hearted 10-year-old, enters a Catholic orphanage after her mother's brain-damaging car wreck and a scientist father treks through distant jungles. With dad again absent, Sayuri returns home to the shocking news that secretly dwelling in their rubber-spider-filled attic is a sister she never knew existed.
Proudly revealed by the mad mommy, the spooky, spiteful Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) has a masklike face and a peculiar fascination with Mr. Nanjo's roomful of reptiles (and corrosive acid). Indeed, evidence starts to accumulate that the strange new girl is, somehow, a malevolent serpent in human form. Nobody seems willing to listen to Sayuri as Tamami usurps her place in the household. A grotesque, witch-like figure adds to the little heroine's torments, many of which happen in dream sequences with basic double-exposure tricks, puppet F/X, and prismatic camera filters. Still, occasional gruesome violence (committed against humans and fake animals) lends a morbid tone to the latter-day dark-fairytale antics.
As a paranoid fantasy-thriller told from a child's helpless POV, the feature is worth comparison with the 1954 cult classic Invaders From Mars. In his commentary track, author David Kalat praises the picture as a one-of-a-kind warped masterwork, even as the plot, with its 'rational' explanation at the end, frequently violates logic and is a weird patchwork of little-kid stuff and fairly jolting sadism. Kalat also drops the revelation that child actress Matsui grew up to be a Nippon bowling champ. The other extra is a short video presentation by Zack Davisson covering the evolution of Japanese fantasy-monster comics and their screen-storytelling offshoots and the "yokai" folk-boogeyman traditions from which this wacky, wobbly material springs. A strong optional purchase for international film collections. Film studies professors specializing in Japanese cinema should seek out this world cinema title.