Reviewed by: dandan Date: 10/15/2008 Summary: cake, worms, dog, eagles blood... a woman, juk (lo pooi pooi) buys a jade vase from an auction, whilst her husband is away on business. unfortunately, the vase contains a demon, which begins sleeping with juk. juk's husband arrives back to find juk and the vase beast making a beast of their own: the vase explodes, his face falls apart when it becomes fiddled with maggots and he throws himself out of a window. juk soon finds herself following her husband to the grave, but is carrying, you've guessed it, a devil fetus (sic). ten years later, disturbed by juk's god-daughter jojo (shirley lui), the demon comes back to cause no end of problems in the remnants of the ching family... well, this was better than expected. mixing a more serious tone, with hong kong (gore heavy, scare light) horror and a few nifty effects. this isn't to say that it is not a hokey, ridiculous film, packed with daftness and some crappy effects. but. but, lau hung-chuen, making his directorial debut after years of lensing films, adds some visual flair and there's some quite nifty editing and good, old fashioned, special effects. none of the cast shine enough to garner a mention, apart from the dog which played bobby the dog, whose name i don't know. by no means great, but watchable enough...

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 07/29/2008 Devil Fetus is sure an odd duck, even in the goofy world of Hong Kong ghost/horror movies. The film starts with a young woman buying a vase. It turns out the vase is actually a demon, and it pops out to impregnate the woman -- just as her husband arrives home from a business trip. Hubby is understandably pissed, so he smashes the vase, which causes his skin to fall off and become infested with maggots. Yummy. He then takes a header off of the balcony. Apparently, this sort of thing is commonplace for this particular family, so they go about their business like nothing happened. The wife begins going nutty and eventually takes a header herself. The resident kook of the family, grandma, begins to surmise that something wrong might be going on, so she brings in a priest to trap the husband and wife's tortured souls. Fast-forward about twelve years, and the trap gets broken, which causes the demon to occupy one of the family's sons, which causes all sorts of fun and mayhem, including, but not limited to, rape via slimy demon and eating of raw dog intestines. Make no doubt about it -- Devil Fetus is junk all the way, but it is fun junk. This is not a film that you can take seriously at all, or your head will explode from trying to 1) rationalize the plot, and 2) trying to tie together the loose ends and/or shortcomings. The biggest example of the latter is the simple fact that the family lets the demon-possessed kid just stay in the house. Um, I'm sorry, if junior's gnawing on a dog carcass he keeps under his bed, then maybe it's time to shoot him off to the looney bin. Devil Fetus is the type of movie that you watch for the over-the-top gore. The bits that are in there are effective, despite the special effects being incredibly cheap. The film's main problem is that there just aren't enough of the bloody moments. When the movie actually tries to concentrate on exposition and plot development, its' shortcomings become painfully apparent. But if you're a viewer that can forgive shortcomings in the storytelling department for a dose of thrill of the claret kind, then Devil Fetus might be right up your alley. [review from www.hkfilm.net] Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: metamovie Date: 07/18/2001 Devil Fetus has some relationship to the same year's Rape After: Devil Fetus' co-writer Tsang Man-wah produced Rape After, both movies were directed by a talented former (and later) cinematographer and first time-director, and their soundtracks share same library cues. And of course, both Devil Fetus and Rape After feature supernatural intercourse, unhealthy offspring (on-screen for only a short time in both movies) and gory deaths while omitting "funny" interludes. Where Rape After has obviously found some inspiration in European horror movies and includes curious forays into "sociological" non-horror concepts (a main character is saddled with a retarded brother and a mother who is apparently going mad) to darken the mood even further, Devil Fetus is more what you would expect from a HK horror movie: wild and pointless. Visually, Devil Fetus (in its original format, as opposed to Ocean Shore's dark transfer of Rape After) looks good enough; the camerawork is effective (director Lau Hung Chuen later lensed The Bride With White Hair, amongst others), and the cutting is quite elaborate (cutter David Wu later worked for John Woo). While the special effects and make-up may not meet today's standards, they are executed enthusiastically enough. Read more at http://www.metamovie.de/film/df.html

Reviewed by: STSH Date: 11/26/2000 Summary: Above average In general, HK filmmakers seem to have no idea how to make a good horror film. They concentrate on blood and gore, and pay very little attention to actually trying to scare. So, when an HK film manages to be a proper horror film, it stands out. This is the case for Devil Fetus. It is genuinely creepy and even a bit scary. That slimy monster screwing every fem in sight. Ugh ! There is a fine cast and A-grade production values too, all of which lift this one well above the HK run of the mill "horror" flicks. The music of Vangelis is very popular in HK films, and his several of his lovely tunes are used here, and quite well. Certainly no classic, but worth a look. Reviewer Score: 6