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

For those of you who know me well, you know I love bizarre horror movies. And boy, is this one bizarre, to say the least. Based on the manga by Kazuo Umezu (famous for his horror stories, and the series The Drifting Classroom) It all begins when the young orphan Sayuri is reunited with her parents, whom she was separated from under mysterious circumstances. Everything is wonderful until her father is called away to Africa to research a rare poisonous snake. Upon his departure, Sayuri begins to see a mysterious figure stalk the house, and even a poisonous snake is dropped into her bed at night. Turns out she has an older sister, Tamami, and in a strange twist, Tamami is suffering from a curse that has turned her into a snake-human hybrid. If that were not weird enough, it is not long before Sayuri is at the mercy of her freakish sister and a mysterious, silver-haired witch, both intent on seeing her dead. To put it mildly, this one is a trip. Coming from a decade in Japanese cinema that produced some hallucinatory and frightening films, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch stands in the top-tier. It is a sort of modern day fairy tale, with the horrific and supernatural elements ramped up to an absurd degree. There are moments of surreal comic relief that turn to terror, like when Sayuri gleefully skips downstairs for breakfast accompanied by sweet music only to discover a snake in her food. Some moments are so brilliantly staged and tense, that I had to duck for cover under my blanket, and by the end, the lights had to go on. The snake monster is enough to haunt my nightmares for a while. Definitely check this one out.