Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has been in an orphanage for years. One day a man arrives. The director of the orphanage, Sister Yamakawa (Kuniko Miyake) calls Sayuri to her office and tells her that the man is Goro Nanjo (Yoshiro Kitahara), her father and has been looking for her. Sayuri is excited that she has a family. Goro takes Sayuri home and introduces her to her mother, Yuko (Yuko Hamada) and the family maid, Shige Kito (Sachiko Meguro). Sayuri’s mother is a sickly woman who is having memory problems due to a recent accident. Sayuri is friends with a young man, Tatsuya Hayashi (Sei Hiraizumi), who had been raised in the orphanage and now works there. He agrees to help Sayuri transition from the orphanage to a regular school.
Sayuri is just beginning to settle in to her new life when her father tells her that he must leave for Africa when a rare type of snake becomes available to study. Nanjo is a herpetologist who keeps a menagerie of snakes in his laboratory for study.
While he is gone Sayuri learns that she has an older sister, Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi,) who lives in a room in the attic. The only time Tamami is allowed out of the attic is when Goro is away. Hoping to have a sister she can bond with, Sayuri welcomes Tamami but the girl begins to abuse Sayuri and wants her gone.
It doesn’t take long before Sayuri’s world turns upside down with strange dreams and the feeling that her sister isn’t really human but is actually a snake out to harm her. When a silver-haired witch appears and tries to kill her, Sayuri is in fear that she is in a nightmare that from which she will never wake up.
“The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch” was released in 1968 and was directed by Noriaki Yuasa. It is a Japanese fantasy horror film.
The movie is very theatrical with unusual visuals and dream sequences. It’s sort of a Japanese gothic monster movie. I suspect that the movie is geared more towards children than adults, even though some of the imagery could be a little scary for younger people. The plot is rather scattered and makes little sense. There are also a fair number of plot holes throughout the film. The movie acts more like the entire film is either a dream or the hallucinations of a young susceptible girl.
The acting was better than I expected, especially for Japanese fantasy. The special effects were also nicely eerie. What seemed strange were the horror aspects that were a little more violent than I expected for a children’s type fantasy film. Most of which was perpetrated on innocent frogs and snakes. It ended up being a bit of a spacey little drug fueled surrealistic daydream.
Director Yuasa was also the director of most of the Gamera films from the Showa era.
The movie is done in the Tokusatsu style. Tokusatsu is a Japanese term for a live-action film or show that relies heavily on practical effects. In this case the dream sequences and the snake illusions and make-up.