Shaw Brothers horror Hex, from director Chih-Hung Kuei, is a film of two halves: the first part is Les Diaboliques, Cantonese style, and the second half is crazy Asian ghost story with totally bonkers special effects, full frontal female nudity (more about that later), and a twist ending that I still haven't been able to fathom out.
In a plot that has has been done many times since Henri-Georges Clouzot's aforementioned classic French thriller, Ni Tien plays chronically ill Chan Sau Ying (Ni Tien), whose husband Yeung Chun Yu (Jung Wang) conspires with his mistress Leung Kei Wah (Szu-Chia Chen) to scare his wife to death. They do this by faking Chun Yu's death and having him return from his watery grave as a goop-oozing living corpse. This does the trick, Chan Sau Ying promptly carking it, but in a supernatural twist to the tale, the woman's ghost materialises to take revenge on the deceitful couple.
It all starts off very atmospheric, with Chih-Hung Kuei utilising his spooky mansion setting to great effect, with particularly good use of the neighbouring mist-shrouded pond, which adds to the overall creepiness. Subtle spookiness goes out of the window, however, once Chan Sau Ying is dead, and her spirit comes a-haunting. The wackiness kicks off with some crazy comedy courtesy of the workmen hired to dispose of Chan Sau Ying's furniture, with the obligatory cross-eyed character and a guy who pees himself when he realises he has spoken to a ghost. The spook then puts the frighteners on Leung Kei Wah, tries to kill Chun Yu with a meat cleaver, and scares off a monk brought in to exorcise the house (he sees the dead woman's severed head, and chops off the ghost's arm, only to have it crawl after him).
The even more bonkers final act features that full-on nudity I spoke of earlier: during a ritual to cast out the spirit, a woman appears buck naked (her skin covered with painted words) and performs a prolonged, acrobatic dance routine that, if it were better lit, would leave nothing to the imagination. After the gyrating, the old lady conducting the exorcism spits dog blood over the dancer's tits - not sure why, but it made me laugh. Then Leung Kei Wah (now bald for some reason) gets naked as well, and has words scrawled all over her body, before getting her ears pulled off by Chan Sau Ying (I'm not making this up - honest).
The film closes with that twist I mentioned: something to do with a letter, and possibly the corpse of a peddlar who Chun Yu murdered in his madness. I've looked all over for an explanation that makes sense, but I'm still none the wiser.
7.5/10, rounded down to 7, although there's a chance I might round it up if I ever figure out the ending.
