THE SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER HAIRED WITCH, fuses a scientific mind and a mutation of sorts. But at the fringes of this is Japanese folk horror. Stories of the body and soul, demonic possession and sexual desire. A young girl named Sayuri, has been living in a Catholic orphanage, when her birth family find her. Estranged from the family, the return after years is met with a sense of foreboding. Trouble lurks within the walls of the home. Her father is a scientist who breeds snakes and is sent to Africa. Her mother is an amnesiac after a car accident six months earlier and then she discovers her sullen sister is confined to the attic on days that her father is there and at nights, she sleeps with her sister. Sayuri’s nights are fractured. Her dreams are of a snake child, that is spying on her through holes in the wall. Is she dreaming or is there something to this?

Noriaki Yuasa, directed some of the Gamera series and then rolled off from there to make a film adaptation of the works of horror manga pioneer Kazuo Umezu. This led to 1968’s THE SNAKE GIRL AND THE SILVER HAIR WITCH. It is a voyage of cinema, playing with elements of surrealism and the supernatural. Folklore and fantasy. You can sense the playful nature of the director (suggested by David Kalat in his commentary), as well as the times radical nature of corrosion of conformity.  However it delves into the mind of modernity, with a sense (as explained by scholar Zack Davisson) that science and folklore are at war with each other and neither is really defining the future or its possibilities. The over arching feeling is that the evils of the past and the evils of the present are some how, mutually exclusive.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
• Original uncompressed mono audio
• Optional English subtitles
• Brand new commentary by film historian David Kalat
• This Charming Woman, a newly filmed interview with manga and folklore scholar Zack Davisson
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring new and original artwork by Mike Lee-Graham

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Raffael Coronelli