Census Bloodbath: O Brothel, Where Art Thou? (Capsule Review)

Year: 1981

Director: Chih-Hung Kuei

Cast: Ni Tien, Jung Wang, Tsui-Ling Yu

Run Time: 1 hour 21 minutes

Plot: The girls at Madam Lan's (Ni Tien) brothel are being murdered by a necrophiliac who is stalking the streets of Hong Kong.

Analysis: A quick note: Like many of the most obscure foreign films I've covered, this Hong Kong slasher was unsubtitled and thus I missed any and all context of the script, so my rating should be taken with a grain of salt. Usually foreign slashers are straightforward enough that this is barely a problem, but there are definitely some obvious twists and turns in the plot that completely escaped me here.

The first half of the movie is more concerned with forcing you to consider how gross it might be to be erotically attracted to a corpse covered in writhing maggots rather than actually being a slasher movie. It's certainly less icky and misogynistic than the same film would be in the hands of, say, Maniac director William Lustig. But it's still not not those things. Once the slasher formula fully kicks in, it's a mostly agreeable one. The killer's face is covered by a scarf, which isn't particularly exciting, nor are the tempera paint kills he doles out. However, what is exciting is the giant-ass knife he wields, which is so huge that it's exactly scraping the line where it might reasonably be called a sword.

All in all, it's a pretty wan affair with too much time devoted to police activity (there are three separate stings in quick succession in the third act, murdering the pace even better than the killer could have), though I admire how much it foregrounds a cadre of gossipy old ladies as what - for lack of a better term - might reasonably be deemed protagonists. There is also a rather lovely aesthetic sensibility in many scenes, as its mist-drenched sets are stabbed with huge blades of light. The set design is also exquisite, and any scene that is content to explore the brothel's ornate interior is better for it.

Killer: Scarf Killer

Final Girl: Madam Lan

Best Kill: There is a particularly kinetic moment when a man investigating an abandoned building is attacked by the killer, who has been hiding in his back seat.

Sign of the Times: The random kung fu scene that breaks out for all of 25 seconds in a movie that is otherwise entirely devoid of martial arts.

Scariest Moment: Madam Lan drops something, and when she goes to pick it up, a hand appears from under the bed and drags her beneath.

Weirdest Moment: The killer rubs an artfully arranged corpse up and down with what looks like a big fluffy white oven mit.

Champion Dialogue: N/A

Body Count: 9; not including the naked wormy corpse lady who presumably dies before the events of the film.

1. Cop is stabbed in the gut.
2. Girl is killed offscreen.
3. Man is stabbed to death in his car.
4. Red Herring has his throat slashed while underwater.
5. Woman has her head beat in with a rock.
6. Cop #2 and 
7. Cop #3 die indistinctly during a chaotic police sting scene, but there sure are huge bursts of blood from whatever happens.
8. Man #2 is strangled with a scarf, possibly in a flashback.
9. Scarf Killer is shot by a firing squad.

TL;DR: Corpse Mania is prettier than it has any right to be, but its deviations from the slasher formula are too gross to be appealing.

Rating: 4/10
Word Count: 586