Shudder Saturday: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

 To make up for the last 2 Sunday Posts (or lack thereof), here's a random double-feature.

For the first part, a random Japanese Film involving a little girl, some snakes and a Witch!

In the Cold Open, this lady is killed by a snake. 
Who is she?
Does this matter?

Moving on...

A young girl named Sayuri is adopted by a loving Family, which turns out to be her real one.  Is there a better word for this instance?

Things are great...until her new/old/current Dad is called away to Africa to examine some sort of snake.  Bye for the whole Film, Dad.

Who's that strange person watching her?

Why is Sayuri having weird dreams and seeing things like snakes falling into her bed?

It turns out it is a girl living upstairs named Tamami, who has some weird marks on her face and is very unhappy to have Sayuri around.

Mom also says that she can only stay downstairs while Dad is away, which is a Red Flag!

Sayuri deals with her new Sister being mean to her and the others in the House- Mom and the Maid- and her weird dreams.

Is she seeing things or what?

Things don't get better, with her only solace coming from visits to her 'Brother' (an older boy at the Foster Home- which is like 5 minutes away on foot).

More weird dreams and she starts to suspect that Tamami is the Titular Snake Girl.

Also there's a Witch, as the Title suggests.

What's real and what's fake?  Well, no SPOILERS here.

A fun Film, even if it doesn't quite deliver on all of its promises.  What the Film really gets right is Atmosphere.  The idea is that everything- save for that opening- is the little girl's perspective.  Is she a Reliable or Unreliable Narrator?  Is she imagining things?

Speaking of Narration, her constant Narration early on is fine...but it can become a crutch to have Characters just explain how they feel.  It's right on the line here, possibly over by a bit.

The actual Story is nice, building up slowly and getting to a nice Climax.  You're going to love or hate how they wrap things up.  It's not *quite* what I was hoping for, but I'm not going to say that it was done badly.  They just made a choice- logical or otherwise- that I probably wouldn't have.

Regardless, The Snake Girl is a nice little Film from Japan that shows you the depth of what Shudder offers.  It's not just Slasher Films, Found Footage Films and Joe Bob Briggs.  Ugly or not, it has plenty of options...

A fairly-dated, but fun Film nonetheless.  For giving us a unique perspective on the Story, it gets lots of points from me.