The penanggalan
A being of Malay belief that flies at night with its entrails hanging below it. Walter William Skeat's Malay Magic (1900) quotes Munshi Abdullah's account of it.
Walter William Skeat's Malay Magic (1900) quotes an account by Munshi Abdullah. In it, a woman able to become a penanggalan keeps a jar of vinegar at home. Her entrails swell once they leave her body and cannot go back in until they have soaked in the vinegar and shrunk. The account adds that many people had seen a penanggalan in flight, its entrails trailing and glowing in the dark like fireflies.
Wikipedia lists relatives of the penanggalan across the region: the ahp in Cambodia, the kasu in Laos, the krasue in Thailand, the kuyang, the leyak, the Temuan people's hantu polong, the ma lai in Vietnam and the manananggal of the Philippines.
Bloody Disgusting's 2021 review of the third season of Creepshow praised Nicotero's special effects for the penanggalan in one of its episodes.
""'The person who has the power of becoming a penanggalan always keeps at her house a quantity of vinegar in a jar or vessel of some kind. The use of this is to soak the intestines in, for when they issue forth from the body they immediately swell up and cannot be put back, but after being soaked in vinegar they shrink to their former size and enter the body again. There are many people who have seen the penanggalan flying along with its entrails dangling down and shining at night like fire-flies."
- Penanggalan, Wikipedia
- Review: 'Creepshow' Season 3 Ends with Two Strong Tales of Dark Secrets, Bloody Disgusting (2021)