BLACK MAGIC 2

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1976 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Ho Meng-Hua Cast Ti lung, lo lieh, liu Hui-Ju, lily li

If you were tooling up to fight the undead, you’d probably reach for a shotgun or baseball bat. But in this gloriously bonkers Hong Kong horror, a pair of pliers is more likely to come in handy.

Despite the title (and some returning cast), this Shaw Brothers production has nothing to do with the previous year’s Black Magic. It pits a doctor, his wife, and two friends against Kang Cong, a bum fluff-tached, Siamese-stroking sorcerer who controls his zombie minions via giant nails hammered into their skulls. But this isn’t the most bat’s-arse bit of his MO. That’s the elixir of life which keeps him young: breast milk, which he suckles from a pregnant victim after making her drink a potion containing her own pubic hair.

With its gross-out tactics and gratuitous titillation, this is exploitation cinema so indecorous it almost makes Italian zombie films look tasteful. If you can stomach that (and the horrifying fashions), it’s a hoot – particularly a sequence featuring a punch-up atop a moving cable car, featuring some hilariously ropey back-projection. Groovy score, too: hip-hop fans may recognise breakbeats later sampled by both the Beastie Boys and the Wu Tang Clan.

Extras Choice of Mandarin/ English versions; a commentary rather light on facts and heavy on describing what’s on-screen; booklet. Ian Berriman