REVIEW: ‘The Killer Snakes’ (1974)

Shaw Brothers is known best in the west for its many colorful kung fu and swordplay films. But martial arts was not the only genre this industry giant was serving up during its heyday in the 1970s. THE KILLER SNAKES represents a high point of the studio’s less prolific exploitation film output which was every bit as outrageous as their blood-soaked pugilistic tales.

[minislides]
[rating:3.5]

MEDIA
• Trailer
HOME VIDEO REVIEWS
• Image Entertainment
AKA
• She sha shou
• 蛇殺手
GENRE
• Exploitation
• Horror
• Thriller
ORIGIN
• Hong Kong
LENGTH
• 99 minutes
FIGHT TIME
• na
STUDIO
• Shaw Brothers
RELEASE DATE
• 1974.05.02 (HK)
RATING
• IIB (HK)
DIRECTOR
• Kuei Chi-hung
ACTION DIRECTOR
• na
WRITER
• Ni Kuang
PRODUCER
• Runme Shaw
CINEMATOGRAPHER
• Yu Chi
MUSIC
• Chen Yung-yu
CAST
• Kam Kwok-leung
• Maggie Li
• Chen Chun
• Lin Feng
• Ko Ti-hua
• Liu Hui-yu
• Wong Ching-ho
• Li Min-lang
• Kok Lee-yan
• Ling Yin

THE KILLER SNAKES is Shaw Brothers’ answer to the violence and sexploitation film craze of the early 1970s that had become popular in America and Japan. After decades of heavy censorship, society had fallen down the slippery slope as it were and virtually nothing was taboo in entertainment. Seedy grindhouse theaters were dishing out porno and horro flicks with just about every senseless act of depravity imaginable committed to film culminating to the likes of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. Today, the exploitation phenomenon is parodied and celebrated by popular films like SNAKES ON A PLANE and Robert Rodriguez’ PLANET TERROR.

Shaw Brothers’ film combines a number of familiar exploitation elements with surprisingly effective results. The plot sees future TV producer Kam Kwok-leung make his feature film debut as a dirt-poor, insecure loner who befriends a shop-full of snakes and uses them to exact his devilish revenge on a bullying pimp and the people who drive his would-be girlfriend (Maggie Li) into prostitution. Scripted by the extremely prolific writer Ni Kuang, the premise is very similar to Daniel Mann’s WILLARD (1971), a film about a social misfit who enlists the aid of rats to gets his revenge on his boss and fellow co-workers. That film was faithfully remade in 2003 with the great Crispin Glover in the lead.

Complimenting or flinging poo on this premise, depending on tastes, is a seriously sadistic streak in Kam’s character, born from exposure to kinky BDSM at an impressionable age. Not content to let his snakes simply bite their victims and be done with it, unsatisfied sexual urges and a deviant imagination cause him to torture his female victims with the giddy delight of a demented serial killer. These scenes, that include one brazen act of bestiality, are about as offensive and sexually suggestive as you’ll find in any movie ever made in Hong Kong and there are some pretty wild Category III flicks from the 1980s and early ’90s.

There are other aspects of the film with the potential to offend, disgust or ridicule. Obviously, if you have a phobia about snakes this is not the movie for you. Most of the snakes in the movie are real and crawling all over people. Careful editing and decent makeup effects account for ample snake bite action. Things get a little absurd when snakes begin jumping at their victims though. Without PETA-like oversight, the filmmakers had no restrictions on mutilating real snakes in several scenes. One of the more unreal moments occurs when the bearded Li Min-lang, as a rapist pimp about to get his comeuppance grabs a machete to fend off a room full of snakes that begin to miraculously leap at him one by one. The room ends up littered with snake parts before he succumbs to snake venom, prior to cozying up to a Boa constrictor.

There is a bit of irony in how Kam’s character laments the use of snake parts for “over-rated” medicinal purposes. In the real world, China has a tradition of using odd parts of animals, such as a tiger’s penis, in Chinese medicine. This compassion for animals is his one redeeming characteristic and yet it becomes a catalyst for pure evil.

Putting the exploitation elements aside, I was struck by the overall quality of this film. This is not one of those no-budget horror flicks we’ve all seen and in terms of overall production, it actually looks better than a lot of the mainstream movies that Hong Kong has produced since. No exaggeration here. Yu Chi provides the same level of artful cinematography to this film that he did for earlier SB classics, THE 14 AMAZONS and THE TEA HOUSE. He clearly worked very well with director Kuei Chi-hung. Beginning with THE DELINQUENT (1972), the two collaborated on a total of eleven films and just about every one could be classified as a classic.

Kuei has a keen eye for shooting Hong Kong’s urban landscape with particular emphasis on the low-income areas that provided the settings for so many of SB’s modern-day films. There are few comparable Hong Kong directors with the same ability to put their characters convincingly into a real-world context and make them belong. Added to this, Kuei doesn’t neglect his extras and supporting cast. His style of shooting reminds me of Frank Capra in the way that he breathes life into each scene by using everything we see on screen to the fullest. A good indicator that Kuei really knows what he’s doing is that you could take out the snakes, the violence and the sexual content and still have a compelling movie about a young outcast struggling to overcome his social dysfunctions and survive in the city. I almost think that’s the kind of film that Kuei wanted to make but instead was handed this money-making exploitation story as a follow-up to his equally exploitive BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS. Some of his other films are straight dramas, although they never shy away from stark realities. THE DELINQUENT, THE TEA HOUSE and its sequel BIG BROTHER CHENG are all excellent examples. It seems like a waste that Kuei ended his career shooting lower-budget exploitation films like THE BOXER’S OMEN, although fans of such films have been able to benefit from even more truly twisted imagery from this talented filmmaker.

One of the greatest assets in SB’s filmmaking arsenal has been great lighting and THE KILLER SNAKES is proof within a real-world setting. Sometimes it feels like Hong Kong filmmakers today have no idea how to shoot a movie with proper lighting. They can make a movie look like a comic book page with exaggerated visuals but not a real environment that draws the viewer in. Either that or the equipment is too expensive to use. Since SB stopped making movies in the mid-’80s, Hong Kong action cinema has been drowned in dull, colorless landscapes, gaudy primary colors or stark spotlights in darkness. The use of fantasy computer effects in films like DRAGON TIGER GATE and BLACK MASK 2 has only turned filmmakers further away from an ability to shoot a normal scene well. With few exceptions there is no sense of genuinely balanced composition with good use of shadows, filtered light and colors. SB also had great production designers who were able to control the look of a film from start to finish. That skill was tossed aside during the years that Golden Harvest came to prominence. Although it seems unlikely, THE KILLER SNAKES in my mind is a textbook example of Shaw Brothers production muscle at full strength.

What viewers will think of a straggly, nail-biting youth tying up naked women and torturing them with poisonous snakes and lizards is less certain than what they might think about the quality of Kuei Chi-hung’s direction. THE KILLER SNAKES no doubt still has an audience but I’d wager it’s not going to be a big one. Then again, considering the commercial success of gross-out horror flicks like HOSTAL, there still seems to be a sizable interest in the darker side of human nature. At least the horror elements in this film are largely implausible, unlike genuinely repulsive, reality-based shockers like MEN BEHIND THE SUN (1988) and UNTOLD STORY (1995).