A new tenant has moved in across the street
with his invalid wife in early 20th century Guangzhou. The neighbors can’t
help but notice the loud grunts that emanate nightly from his residence
and speculate that he still seems to be having sex with his sick wife. Well
not quite and a wretched smell soon has the police discovering that the wife
is dead and always has been and the man has disappeared. It is a case of Corpse
Mania! Or better known as necrophilia. It is of course one thing having sex
with a dead person, but the multitudes of maggots wriggling and crawling about
would certainly have put me off.
Police Chief Zhang (Wang Jung) takes up the
case and learns that something similar took place in another nearby city
a few years back. Once there he discovers from Police Chief Liu (Walter
Tso Tat-wah) that a certain Mr. Li had bought a woman he loved out of the
Zui Hong brothel run by Madame Lan (Tanny Tien Ni) but that she soon died
of tuberculosis. That didn’t stop his love for his wife though and in some
almost lovely artistic scenes he keeps her clean and powdered using a large
cotton glove. Nor does it stop his desire for her. He was caught maggot handed
and sent to an asylum but had just recently been released. Now he seems to
be back and bloody murders begin to pile up as Zhang closes in on him.
The narration is told almost in a straightforward matter of fact fashion giving the story a feel of a “true crimes” realism, but within this format Kuei still creates a suspenseful mood and an eerie atmosphere though the very studio bound film has a fairly cheap look to it. For many there won’t be nearly enough gore, sex or gross-out scenes in the film, but it does have a few eye brow raising yuck moments revolving around sex and maggots – so much so that I have definitely decided to be cremated.
