1982’s Calamity of Snakes is a curious beast. Focusing on natural vengeance wreaked upon an apartment block after a businessman kills a whole heap of snakes (and we’ll get onto this act shortly). Director William Chang Kee’s work has a culty quality to it, an aged quality and sensibility that feels a perfect fit for genre fans predisposition to seek out the unseen works that may well have passed them. Arrow and its competitors have had a great deal of success package these works in sumptuous blu-rays and Calamity of Snakes does, for the most part fit this.
And beyond one element there is much here to entertain as proceedings escalate to a rather thrilling second half. Performances are broad but you’re not here for that. The production quality is ok with some effect work that are now rather creaky but moments of clear competence here from a technical perspective. Kee doesn’t feel like a last talent worthy of reappraisal but capable enough at producing a fun work like this.
Well fun, except for one element. It’s an element I’ve been skirting around. Some of the snakes in this film are not real, the team’s effect work doing some of the heavy lifting. But most are real snakes and many, MANY, of these die for real. On screen. Calamity of Snakes is an unmitigated work of animal violence, with innocent creatures burned, chopped up or killed with axes. And it made me realise that outside of one contentious moment in Oldboy that I had never seen animals die on screen. And it leaves a quite terrible taste in the viewer’s mouth.
And does create a moral dilemma at the film’s core. There are obviously iconic genre works (the aforementioned Park Chan-Wook film or Cannibal Holocaust) where this happens. It gives a queasy quality to these moments but they both offer something beyond this. Calamity of Snakes did not for me. What fun cult quality there is here feels tarnished by the brutality waged on the titular animal. Go in warned of the rather monstrous quality of Calamity of Snakes.
And beyond one element there is much here to entertain as proceedings escalate to a rather thrilling second half. Performances are broad but you’re not here for that. The production quality is ok with some effect work that are now rather creaky but moments of clear competence here from a technical perspective. Kee doesn’t feel like a last talent worthy of reappraisal but capable enough at producing a fun work like this.
Well fun, except for one element. It’s an element I’ve been skirting around. Some of the snakes in this film are not real, the team’s effect work doing some of the heavy lifting. But most are real snakes and many, MANY, of these die for real. On screen. Calamity of Snakes is an unmitigated work of animal violence, with innocent creatures burned, chopped up or killed with axes. And it made me realise that outside of one contentious moment in Oldboy that I had never seen animals die on screen. And it leaves a quite terrible taste in the viewer’s mouth.
And does create a moral dilemma at the film’s core. There are obviously iconic genre works (the aforementioned Park Chan-Wook film or Cannibal Holocaust) where this happens. It gives a queasy quality to these moments but they both offer something beyond this. Calamity of Snakes did not for me. What fun cult quality there is here feels tarnished by the brutality waged on the titular animal. Go in warned of the rather monstrous quality of Calamity of Snakes.