Film

Encounters of the Spooky Kind

Sammo Hung's 1980 masterpiece blends martial arts, slapstick, and genuine scares into something that feels entirely its own. A boastful man accepts a dare to survive a haunted temple, only to face actual supernatural horrors. It's kinetic, goofy, and unsettling in equal measure—a film that invented its own vocabulary and never repeated itself.

TMDb rating3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy slapstick that keeps tripping over genuine creepiness, with kung fu fights breaking out between hopping vampires and a hero who refuses to be scared.

Skip it if you tire easily of broad, mugging physical comedy, since the jokes are loud and arrive in bursts that rarely let the scares breathe.

What it asks of you: Roughly an hour and three-quarters, it moves in brisk bursts, switching between laughs and chills, so keep your attention loose rather than settled.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Mr. Vampire1985

Lam Ching-ying's definitive vampire-fighting priest predates the entire jiangshi comedy boom. Stylish, funny, and genuinely eerie, with action choreography that makes every punch count.

But The tone whips between slapstick and horror without warning, and if you need consistency, this will frustrate you.

Mr. Vampire poster

Police Story1985

Jackie Chan's breakthrough is a love letter to stunt work and practical effects. Watch him throw himself down a building, then immediately make you laugh. Pure kinetic joy.

But The misogyny is dated and uncomfortable. The story is also paper-thin—it's really just an excuse for damage.

Police Story poster

Drunken Master1978

Jackie Chan, not yet a superstar, takes a Peking Opera method approach to kung fu comedy. The fights are intricate dances. The drunkenness isn't a gag; it's a style.

But It moves slowly at first, and the comedy lands hardest if you understand classical martial arts references.

Drunken Master poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Encounters of the Spooky Kind

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Vampire's Kiss1989

Both films use the supernatural as a mirror for the protagonist's self-deception. Cheung must face real horrors; Cage's character manufactures them. Each is a man tested by forces he chose to invite.

Nicolas Cage as a Manhattan businessman convinced he's becoming a vampire, spiraling into method-acting madness. It's a horror-comedy about masculine delusion and self-sabotage, utterly unhinged in ways that feel deliberate.

But It's aggressively weird and asks you to find terror in neurosis rather than jump scares. Many viewers find Cage's performance unbearable rather than brilliant.

Vampire's Kiss poster
More like this (8)

The Dead and the Deadly1982

Sammo Hung again, this time as a deaf-mute martial artist battling actual ghosts. Sentimental and inventive, with action that speaks louder than any dialogue ever could.

But The emotional beats might feel melodramatic if you're unprepared for how seriously the film takes its own weirdness.

The Dead and the Deadly poster

Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain1983

Tsui Hark's wild, effects-drunk fantasy with sword fights in the sky and gravity-defying choreography. Visually relentless and giddy with its own imagination.

But The plot is incomprehensible, the wire-work hasn't aged perfectly, and it's deliberately excessive—some find it exhausting.

Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain poster

Peking Opera Blues1986

Three women. One opera house. Revolution brewing. The action is inventive, the humor is sharp, and it actually has something to say about loyalty and change.

But The politics matter more than the plot, and the tonal shifts might feel scattered if you're used to conventional structures.

Peking Opera Blues poster

Eastern Condors1987

Sammo Hung directs and stars in a Vietnam War action film that's part war story, part video game, entirely bonkers. Spectacular destruction and real pathos coexist.

But It's simultaneously too silly and too violent for mainstream tastes, which is exactly why it's remarkable but also why it's hard to love.

Eastern Condors poster

A Better Tomorrow1986

John Woo's elegiac crime saga introduced the gun-fu aesthetic and proved Hong Kong action could carry genuine emotional weight. Style serving substance.

But Melodrama runs through it like water—if you resist that, the film's beating heart won't reach you.

A Better Tomorrow poster

Wheels on Meals1984

Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung as best friends running a food truck who stumble into adventure. The chemistry is real, the action inventive, the humor often very silly.

But It's baggy and episodic, with scenes that exist only to pad the runtime, and the climax doesn't justify the journey.

Wheels on Meals poster

Hellraiser1987

Both weaponize the supernatural against male bravado—one through possession and monsters, the other through pleasure and flesh. Both ask: what happens when a man gets exactly what he asked for?

Clive Barker's baroque, visceral horror where suffering is art and desire is dangerous. Gore and emotion tangled together. Britain's answer to the viscera-and-spirituality that Hong Kong was already doing.

But It's genuinely grueling, more interested in sensation than narrative comfort, and some of the special effects now read as dated in a way that weakens the impact.

Hellraiser poster

The Lair of the White Worm1988

Both films treat horror as a genre where the gloves come off—where camp and gore and earnestness can coexist. Both feature temples, priesthoods, and the supernatural as the local landlord.

Ken Russell's adaptation of Bram Stoker is operatic, perverse, and utterly confident in its own strangeness. Amanda Donohoe as a vampire priestess. Genuine weirdness made with serious money and serious craft.

But It's deeply strange even by its own era's standards, with sexual content and surrealism that can feel more pretentious than earned. Also visually chaotic in ways that obscure rather than clarify.

The Lair of the White Worm poster

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Recommended by

Vampire Hunters, The Dead and the Deadly