Calamity of Snakes (1983) Review 🐍

Calamity of Snakes | Blu-ray (Unearthed Films)

Director: William Cheung Kei
Cast: Kao Yuen, Hsiang Yun-Peng, Wei Ping-Ao, Zheng You-Xiu, Lee Ying, Ou-Yang Sha Fei
Running Time: 96 min.

By Paul Bramhall 

There’s only a handful of movies out there whose reputation precedes them, and 1983’s Calamity of Snakes is one of them. I first came across it in the late 90’s through the pages of the book Mondo Macabro by Pete Tombs (who went on to create a boutique DVD and Blu-ray label that’s still going strong today), published in 1997. It was a time when I was at the beginning of my Asian cinema journey, and while it was an educational experience to be reading about this world of cult Asian horror that I was only partially aware existed, back then the chances of ever watching them seemed slim. Thankfully, things changed a lot in the succeeding years. Starting with Celestial’s Shaw Brothers DVD run in 2003, titles like The Boxer’s Omen (of which an image graced the cover of the book), The Killer Snakes, and Seeding of a Ghost were suddenly readily available, and it was a joy to finally be able to watch them in all their gory Shawscope glory.

Independent productions fared less well, with even basic questions like who currently holds the rights to them often leading down a never-ending rabbit hole. In that regard the 2020’s are shaping up to be a promising decade when it comes to many of these more obscure entries in the Asian horror genre not only seeing the light of day, but also being meticulously remastered and given the deluxe treatment. Titles like 1981’s The Devil (thanks to Massacre Video) 1982’s Centipede Horror, and 1983’s Red Spell Spells Red (both thanks to Error 4444) have all hit Blu-ray in recent years, releases that would still be considered unthinkable at the end of the 2010’s. Perhaps most surprising of all, is that in 2023 Unearthed Films announced they’d be releasing Calamity of Snakes, and in what’s surely a first, will be donating a percentage of the profits from the release to a snake focused charitable organisation.

We’ll get to why later, but first, what kind of plot could lay behind a title like Calamity of Snakes? It’s a fairly simple one, involving a greedy developer who’s eager to finish the construction of his latest apartment building in just 8 months. Played by the legendary Hong Kong actor Kao Yuen (The Golden Sword, Brothers Five), this would be his penultimate performance before retiring from the industry a year later. When construction uncovers a snake pit writhing with hundreds of snakes, Yuen’s wife is keen to have them removed by a professional snake catcher, warning “Don’t kill them, there will be retribution.” However with time already in short supply, together with the architect (played by Hsiang Yun-Peng – The Deadly Angels, Challenge of the Lady Ninja) and office manager (played by Wei Ping-Ao – Hapkido, The Fate of Lee Khan), they decide to do just that so they can carry on working.

Once the apartment is finished and all the tenants have moved in, the snakes return in their hundreds (if not thousands) to exact their revenge on basically the entire cast, culminating in a snake infested finale that has to be seen to be believed. With that being said, it’s understandable that not everyone will enjoy Calamity of Snakes, which must hold the record for not only the number of live snakes contained in a single movie, but also for how many snakes are killed onscreen. We’re not even 10 minutes in and already subjected to close-up shots of them having their heads pulverised with a shovel, or decapitated using the shovels edge. Things don’t improve in the cruelty department, with the rest of the run time seeing snakes have their hearts torn out, run over, ripped and sliced in half, subjected to flamethrowers, and at its most bizarre, an extended sequence involving being eaten by a pair of mongooses set to an upbeat soundtrack.

Animal lovers are best to steer clear, even if a portion of the sales does go to charitable snake causes (notably, Unearthed Films has also included a Cruelty Free Version as an extra on their release, and while I’m unable to confirm, I’d assume it runs shorter than the trailer). Despite the gratuitous snake massacres that are never far away, Calamity of Snakes arguably lives up to its reputation through the sheer commitment it displays to its cause. Director William Cheung Kei was primarily a cinematographer, however made his debut in the director’s chair in 1976 with the Bruceploitation flick The Story of the Dragon. He’d stick with the kung-fu genre when directing (including Quick Step Mantis and Death Duel of Kung Fu), until in 1981 he got a taste for animal themed revenge with The Blind Girl and Dog (amusingly retitled Dog Ann’s Revenge internationally), and Calamity of Snakes followed 2 years later.

The most entertaining parts of Cheung Kei’s production ironically (and perhaps thankfully) don’t involve any real snakes, instead relying on a pair of “giant cobras” brought to life through stock footage, a massive fake rubber snake, and an overly enthusiastic wire-fu crew behind the scenes. Eventually visiting a mysterious snake master (who we’re introduced to meditating in a box up to his neck in snakes, including one curled up in his mouth!), the master ends up in what can only be described as a one-on-one fight with the projectile giant cobra in a blood spurting, tail thrashing throwdown. It’s a ridiculous gonzo scene that almost feels like it’s from a kung-fu movie, and a lot of that feeling is explained by Calamity of Snakes having a fight choreographer onboard (although the term should be used loosely) in the form of Robert Tai. 

One of Taiwan’s most inventive choreographers, and director of the likes of Ninja the Final Duel and Death Cage, Tai imbues the scenes against the fake reptilians with a welcome sense of kinetic energy, making me wish we saw more of them. For the rest of the action though, it mainly consists of crew members off screen throwing handfuls of snakes at the cast, and by the time it comes to the main actors and actresses turn to be on the receiving end of having 20 snakes thrown in your face, I can safely say their looks of sheer terror likely isn’t acting. The finale itself is quite the spectacle, set in the apartment building as most of the tenants attend an opening party on the top floor, and includes a recreation of the scene in The Shining where a deluge of blood flows out from the elevator doors, only replaced with snakes. How many snakes had to be used to create the scene is almost impossible to comprehend.

Far from being an out and out horror movie though, there are some absurd (and far from politically correct) attempts at humor throughout. As the brown-nosing office manager Wei Ping-Ao gives an entertaining performance, often breaking out into random English in an attempt to impress those around him, and generally indulging in moments of tolerable slapstick. Far harsher is the treatment of Zheng You-Xiu (The Sexy Lady Driver, The Hades Banquet), whose plump appearance is the source of several overweight jokes, none worse than when the footage speeds up to Benny Hill style proportions of her eating at a buffet, intercut with scenes of a pig scoffing from a trough. 

Interestingly Calamity of Snakes has a couple of versions out there, including a Korean version called War Between Men and Snakes which replaces much of the cast with Koreans, but keeps the snake chaos, and in 1987 scenes were edited into the Chris Mitchum actioner The Serpent Warriors. With so much of the carnage involving characters that are mainly there as snake fodder (the tenants include the usual stereotypes – a gold digger, a sugar daddy, a woman in a wheelchair, an annoying kid etc.), it’s easy to see how scenes could be taken in isolation and worked into a new story, which seemingly is exactly what some resourceful producers did! 

Taken on humanitarian grounds, there’s little doubt that Calamity of Snakes should be condemned for the amount of snake death it gleefully portrays. On the flip side of the coin, as a piece of exploitation cinema, it undeniably delivers everything that it promises, unlike so many of these long-forgotten movies that, once uncovered, rarely live up to the expectations that have been built around them. Needless to say, only viewers with a strong stomach and willingness to sit through such scenes should apply, but don’t worry, we won’t judge you if you do.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 6.5/10