Even by the schizophrenic standards of the Category III exploitation genre, Devil's Woman is an odd, odd film. The plot centers around a failed actress (Cammy Choi) who talks to a Taoist priest to get better luck and bigger roles. The priest agrees to help her on the condition that she help him. Apparently, "helping" this priest consists of doing the horizontal bop with a doctor and then dehydrating him by draining all of his sperm.

Naturally, this attracts the attention of the cops, and the investigation is being led by bald Cat III mainstay Elvis Tsui, who is shell-shocked after a recent case resulted in a bloody fetus being propelled via a shotgun blast onto his face. Elvis having a cock-tease for a squad-appointed psychiatrist (Marianne Chan) that leads to him having those sorts of erections that last longer than four hours isn't helping matters, either.

After a couple of failed attempts to break into the mainstream market via a couple of family-friendly comedies, director Norman Chan (aka Otto Chan) turned his attention to the seedier side of the jade screen, helming about a dozen Category III films before leaving the industry in the late 1990's. Chan's output never really seemed to attain the level of notoriety of other horror/softcore/exploitation entries released around the same time. Perhaps it's because of the (many times unintentional) comedic elements that run through this movie and others he directed? I can't say for sure, but it is extremely hard to take this film with any sort of weight, even though I don't think Chan intended for it to be a comedy.

Case in point: there is a scene where a "possessed" cat (actually just an obvious stuffed animal being thrown at some poor actress) is thrown into a microwave and blown up. I'm sure it was supposed to be something that was shocking enough to get people to get nauseous and/or disgusted enough to hastily eject the DVD. However, at least in this particular reviewer's case, it elicited a true and booming belly laugh instead. In full disclosure, that result may have been a case of my own skewed sense of humor combined with a couple (well, okay, maybe five or six) belts of Jagermeister, but Devil's Woman is a tough picture to take seriously at all.

RATING: 6