The Rape After (HK 1984)

Rating: **
Review Date: 1/15/17
Cast: Melvin Wong, Chun Wai Man, Chang Hing Yue

A beautifully filmed low budget horror movie about a womanizing fashion photographer named Mo Hsien Sheng (Melvin Wong) who steals a demonic statue and unwittingly releases the cursed spirit that's bound to it. The revived spirit rapes a young model named Shu Ya (pretty Chun Wai Man), who later gives birth to a demon baby. The cursed spirit continues to wreak vengeance on everyone in Mo's life, although Mo somehow manages to get the upper hand and defeat the monster in the end.

The film is delightfully creepy, although the pacing is slow and the story is relentlessly nasty. Everything is disturbingly twisted, and the film features deformed children, a nasty abortion clinic, a demonic fetus that rips off a doctor's head, a woman who cuts off her own fingers with a butcher knife, an animated corpse hiding in a latrine, an insane woman who hides her husband's rotting corpse in the kitchen cupboard, and a man who vomits frogs. The film blatantly and hilariously steals music from "Blade Runner" (1982), "The Wrath Of Khan" (1982), and "Flash Gordon" (1980). While it excels at creating a tense and spooky atmosphere, the story is weak and disjointed, and it's difficult to sympathize with any of the characters. However, it's pleasantly devoid of any humor, which was highly unusual for Hong Kong cinema at the time.