DEVIL FETUS: Cross-Pollinating Eastern Folklore And Western Shocks
The early 1980’s was a unique time for the horror genrein Hong Kong. Hollywood’s horror boom ofthat era trickled over to the Far East, inspiring the local filmmakers to take the style, techniques and shocksof those films and mix them with their homeland's own distinctivefolklore. This culturalcross-pollination often produced colorful – and demented – results.
DevilFetus is a prototypical example of this East-meets-Westhorror fusion. The plot is, well… a bitfreeform but here’s a quick attempt at a summary: a young woman finds herselfhypnotized by a jade vase and brings it home to her well-to-do family. It is quickly revealed that the vase ispossessed by a disembodied human spirit who is full of mischief towards humans,both murderous and sexual(!). When thevase kills the woman and her husband off (after leaving the titular devil fetusin the woman), a priest manages to keep the spirit at bay via a spell.
The remains of the victims are bottled up with specificorders for them not to be disturbed for several years. Cut to a few years later when the remains areaccidentally disturbed by the family’s visiting god-daughter. This prompts an array of ghost-driventreachery that leads to a pileup of corpses, lots of spell-casting and agoo-spewing final battle between human survivors and the evil spirit.
One shouldn’t go into Devil Fetus expecting a chilling story or serious scares. The stitched-together plot has tons of lapsesin logic (why are the remains left unguarded?), the characters all act in waysthat defy logic and the effects are too cheaply done to raise a chill from theaudience. If viewed in terms of“serious” filmmaking, it’s downright ramshackle in its approach.
But “serious” and DevilFetus have nothing to do with each other so it's pointless to fret aboutsuch conventional criteria. This flickis the cinematic equivalent of a ride through a carnival spook-show, where theplot is just a contrivance that strings together crazed setpieces andcharacters are mere grist for its mill of mayhem. The filmmakers don’t worry about suchsubtleties and instead focus on delivering as much carnage as they can wringfrom their low budget.
If viewed on this level, Devil Fetus offers a cavalcade of trashy highlights. It’s fun to play “spot the references” withthis film: it’s easy to note overt borrowings from films like Poltergeist, The Evil Dead and John Carpenter’s version of The Thing and it is fun to see how these borrowings arereinterpreted on a budget by the filmmakers. It’s also easy to assume that the filmmakers were paying attention toItalian films because there is some candy-colored lighting that harkens back toSuspiria, plus a gut-munching effectthat would do Gianetto De Rossi proud.
Best of all, the filmmakers figure out clever ways tomix Chinese folklore and homegrown stylistic elements into the stew as thestory progresses. Priests and spellscome into play during the second half, including a show-stopping exorcism thatincludes plenty of flying parchment, wire work and one really show-stoppingfire effect. Better yet, the finalereally goes for the gusto, offsetting the expected grue and transformationswith swordplay and some full-contact fighting in the classic HK style.
Director Lau Hung Chuen gives the proceedings as much atmosphere as the budget will allow (he doubled as the film’s cinematographer) and keeps the mayhem rolling at a breathless pace. The combination of his style and the film’s sense of the outrageous keeps Devil Fetus going all the way through to its over-the-top ending. The end result never quite hits the crazed heights of The Boxer’s Omen or Seeding Of A Ghost but Devil Fetus moves fast enough and seasons its purloined Hollywood shocks with enough sleazoid eccentricity to keep the trash fans smiling.