Calamity of Snakes (1983)

Calamity of Snakes (1983)
Chinese Title: 人蛇大戰
Translation: Man Snake War

Starring: Hsiang Yun-Peng, Kao Yuen, Lo Pi-Ling, Wei Ping-Ao, Ou-Yang Sha-Fei, Chou Chung-Lien, Li Ying, Lo Toi-Lan, Lu Wei  
Director: William Cheung Kei
Action Director: Robert Tai

According to Chinese superstition, there are five main "poisons." That is, there are five animals which the Chinese believe to be able because of their apparently (and I mean apparently) dangerous nature. Those would be the centípede, the scorpion, the snake, the toad and the gecko. Of course, being evil animals, the imaginations of many have been inspired by them (such as Chang Cheh and the makers of the Five Deadly Venoms), not to mention the fear of the ignorant. These animals are oft mistreated and needlessly killed because of said designation.

The Calamity of Snakes, a low-budget Taiwanese horror film from 1983, capitalizes on both mystery surrounding one of the five poisons (obviously the snake in this case) and the irrational fear and hatred that some Chinese people might have of them. The result is a disturbing and frequently sick animal snuff film that might make any rational person wish that the entire film crew, not to mention anybody who might gain any psychological enjoyment out of the final product, be killed by snakes.

There's not much to the plot. A construction team building a posh apartment building comes across a huge den of snakes while digging the foundation. Instead of calling the fire brigade to have the creatures peacefully removed, the boss (who just happens to be on site that day) gets into a backhoe loader and starts crushing them, while some of the workers get in on the fun and start killing them with shovels and axes. The apartment is eventually completed, but the snakes are soon on hand to get their revenge against their human oppressors.

Animal rights activists will have a stroke watching this. While we might give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt that the huge mass of snakes getting killed by the backhoe are fake, the rest are most assuredly not. The filmmakers unflinchingly show us snakes being sliced, gutted, skinned and even victimized by mongooses in a rather unfortunately "set piece" about Midway through. By the time we reach the finale, we want every last one of those despiccable human SOBs to die a horrible death involving fright and snake venom. But director William Cheung (Ninja vs. the Shaolin Guard and Death Duel of Kung Fu) denies us even that, because the pleasurable scenes of people getting killed are mixed with scenes of firemen killing real snakes with flamethrowers. And I'm sad to report that some people actually survive the final onslaught of serpents (although the fate of the mother and daughter was sort of left ambiguous).

Taking a break from how offensive this film is, let's talk about how strange it is. You see, if you follow the opening credits, you'll notice that it has a fight choreographer. That would be none other than Robert Tai, who choreographed most of the early Venom Mob films for the Shaw Brothers and then went on to Taiwanese ninja films like the aforementioned Ninja vs. the Shaolin Guard. Why is there a fight choreographer in a horror film about snakes? Near the middle of the film, one of the characters says that for different species of snakes to attack as a group, it could only mean that a boa constrictor is leading them (I swear I'm not making this up). So they bring in a snake wrangler who ends up having a wire-fu duel with a 20-foot rubber boa constrictor(!). The WTF clímax also features a duel between a wire-assisted boa constrictor, a bunch of men armed with flamethrowers and a guy armed with a samurai sword.

As loopy as those scenes are, they in no way justify everything else that we're subjected to in this film. It's just a wrong, disturbing, mean-spirited little film that makes you hope that karma follows everybody responsible for it.