THE KILLER SNAKES (1974)
January 6th, 2011 by Mr. C
Director: Chih-Hung Kuei
Actors: Kwok-Leung Gan, Lin Lin Li
Everyone usually associates Shaw Brother Studios with creating epic period piece kung fu action films, but they also got a hand in the horror, sex, & exploitation cookie jar, too! Case in point, THE KILLER SNAKES. This movie has got to be one of the most sleaziest exploit films that the Shaw Brothers has ever released! There’s plenty of topless action, s&m, & violence that would make the Shining look like a G-Rated movie. Never mind the cruelty to all the snakes that were filmed. I’m sure in 1974, there were no CGI or fancy pants software to superimpose inanimate objects. Just ask Jackie Chan!
Oh yes, the story! It’s 1970’s Hong Kong when a young adult has flashbacks to when he was a kid watching his mother get tied up by her significant other while getting whipped into S&M submission. Witnessing these incidents as a kid has turned him into a social misfit with similiar fetishes as a young adult. He dreams of tying up woman & whipping them into a sexual disposition. He struggles with day to day routines & gets robbed by a prostitute & pimp of his delivery job money. He is a total outcast in his own mindset. His only outlet is when he came upon a snake that is left for dead which he rehabilitates. In Hong Kong, drinking snake blood mixed with alcohol is an aphrodisiac. Drinking the blood of a snake from the gall bladder was said to bring sterility and strength. Some snakes would get skinned & then gutted while others would just get gutted for the gall bladder & then tossed aside. With his new found snake friend, he meets other snakes that need rehabilitation, too! Soon, he will have an army of snakes by his side willing to lash out on moments notice! The turning point for this young man in the movie is when he patronizes a brothel, but gets robbed in the end by the prostitute & pimp, yet again! With his snake buddies on hand, you can imagine what will come next! Before murdering the lady of the night, he satisfies his fetish before ordering the snakes to take a bite out of crime! Besides snakes, a komodo dragon reptile makes an appearance on the set as well! That is one scary looking mofo! There is one scene where the snakes were flying around every which way to attack the low life pimp assailant. As a defense, the pimp slashes the snakes with a machete as if they were like spaghetti! I hope there were props to properly display this snake massacre when they filmed this sequence….but, I don’t think so! As a side story, a young lady turns to prostitution after losing her father unexpectedly. She meets her fate when the snake man intervenes!
This movie is definitely not for the sqeamish! There’s plenty of breastesses, category III HK sex, horror, violence, & unfriendly PETA scenes dashing around that would probably scare Stephen King away, but make Art Crumb happy! Wait, on second thought King might enjoy this, too!
THE KILLER SNAKES is a depressing, quirky, & sleazy sexploitation film that probably could of won best film of the year awards if it were showcased in NYC’s Times Square area at the raunchy grindhouse theatres in the 1970’s & 1980’s which is precisely why you have to watch it! Just remember to turn the volume down if your little ones are around because there is lots of moaning, groaning, & screaming going on from ecstacy, murder, & horror! Do you know where your snakes are today?!
Tags: chih hung kuei, kwok keung gan, lin lin li, shaw brothers, the killer snakes
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