Insect Woman: Off With Whose Head?

Hungry for something truly bizarre? Then here's a movie that definitely out-weirds such cult classics as Hera Purple and Terror Taxi, two fellow films that had at least one bloody foot in the horror genre. This particular bit of craziness is called Insect Woman and comes from the warped mind of Kim Ki-young, a director whom I only knew from The Housemaid. On this particularly occasion, he definitely starts off with a bang. What we learn in short order: A married man (Won Namkoong) is checking into an insane asylum where patients, with impotence issues, will double as doctors. And teary-eyed kleptomaniac student (Youn Yuh-jung) is going to be pushed into prostitution after her father dies without leaving her family a financial legacy. They're brought together for a relatively long-term extramarital affair by two nasty lady pimps — all while a lounge version of "My Cherie Amour" plays in the background. From here, it only gets stranger.

The ensuing oddities are both large and small. At the more extreme end, we've got a vampire baby who feeds on the blood of living rats. At the subtler end, we have an irritable son committed to a diet of honey to avoid eating anything that's ever been alive. Snarling lips. Broken plates. Slapped faces. Mexican chicken. Spilled milk. Then there's the calculating wife who dopes her husband so she can subject him to a vasectomy. This movie has serious balls! Whether the shadowy figure in the refrigerator or the aphrodisiac gumdrops on the coffee table get your rocks off depends on how turned on you get by freaky for freaky's sake. I found it very stimulating.

Awards: Insect Woman won best director and best actor honors at the Baeksang Arts Awards for 1973.