Spooky Movies: Mr. Vampire

If you’re as sick to death of glittery, mopey, love-struck vampires as I am, I have a perfect palate-cleanser for you: Mr. Vampire, a Hong Kong horror flick released in 1985 and directed by Ricky Lau and produced by Sammo Hung. Taoist priest Mr. Kau and his painfully inept students are hired to rebury a weathy man, but when they see the body, Mr. Kau determines he is a vampire. The corpse escapes, causing all sorts of mayhem, and Mr. Kau and the students—one of whom bears a striking resemblance to a young Jerry Lewis, if Jerry Lewis were Chinese—fight the vampire with martial arts and large amounts of sticky rice. The Chinese vampires/jiangshi are undead—I’m told the film’s title translates from Chinese as something like “Mr. Undead Walking Around Guy”—and they spread their condition by biting, but they also hop around like stiff rabbits on pogo sticks and can be stopped—but not killed—by simply sticking a prayer paper to their foreheads. The film is delightfully silly and has a bonus of a neat little ghost story subplot.