A ruthless land developer is building a high-rise condominium. He hires an architect to construct it. The developer is anxious to complete the construction in an eight-month timeframe. The builder is concerned about short cuts being done but he is assured that everything is fine. The developer’s wife is very religious and has been having some disturbing dreams about the building. She shares her concerns with her husband, but he thinks she is overreacting and basically dismisses her worries. The developer’s daughter is attracted to the architect. He is also attracted to her but thinks she is a little spoiled.
While working on the construction the work crew uncovers a giant pit full of snakes. The developer instructs the architect to kill the snakes. The developer’s wife arrives and tries to convince her husband not to kill them. In a pique the developer takes a steam-shovel to the snakes and begins killing them. The workers join in, and dozens of snakes are slaughtered. Some manage to get away.
Later the work crew is attacked by vengeful snakes. The developer calls in a snake handler who tells him that the snakes are organized and are being led by a boa. He says that only a snake master can handle the boa. The developer convinces the snake master to help. The snake master manages to defeat the boa. The developer believes all is now well and the building is completed. The condos are sold, and the tenants move in. The developer has a big party at the condo complex to celebrate.
Unbeknownst to everyone, the snakes were being organized by not one boa but two. Under the leadership of the second boa, the snakes band together and attack the condo complex. All hell breaks loose.
“A Calamity of Snakes” AKA “Ren she da zhan” was released in 1982 and was directed by Chi Chang. It is a Taiwanese independent horror movie with comedy elements.
The actual main horror is what happens to the snakes. Currently Taiwan does have some animal protection laws but in 1982 they didn’t. The filmmakers, therefore, felt that violently killing hundreds, if not thousands, of snakes was OK. Snakes were chopped, sliced open, blowtorched, run over by cars, stomped and chewed on by Taiwan crab eating mongooses. Many of the scenes are prolonged. Some of the snakes are fake, but most are not, and most died horrible deaths. The movie takes snakesploitation to a whole other level.
There are snakes in just about every scene of the movie. And there are hundreds of them. The number of snakes used is massive. However, it looks like the snakes got the worst of it. I’m not sure which was grosser, the snakes or the politically incorrect comedy. To try to make up for all the carnage the filmmakers have said that they are donating a portion of the movie’s sales to “charitable snake causes”, whatever that is. Suffice it to say, the actors didn’t fare all that well either considering they were inundated with snakes being thrown at them.
I’m not overly fond of snakes and tend to leave them alone unless they are somewhere they shouldn’t be, for example in my house. In that case I will gently remove them. Even though I’m not a snake fan, I had issues with the torture I saw on film. Most of the snakes in Vermont are harmless and the only poisonous one, (the timber rattlesnake) is rare. Snakes in Vermont have more to fear from people than people do from the snakes. After watching this movie, it seems that snakes everywhere have more to fear from humans than vice versa.
Footage from the film was used in the American made movie "Serpent Warriors" AKA "Snake Inferno" 1985. There is also a South Korean version of the film called “War Between Men and Snakes”. This version has additional footage and runs about five minutes longer.