Also known as Ninja Killers or A Real Man, this started as Tou tiao hao han. Directed by Min-Hsiung Wu and written by Yang Ho, it was remixed in the U.S. by William C.F. Lo and Richard S. Brummer, who edited New Year’s Evil, Schizoid, Godmonster of Indian Flats, and Alabama’s Ghost, and did sound editing and effects for plenty of Russ Meyer movies. He ran the boom mic on Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 

This was distributed by Ellman Film Enterprises, who also put the original The Toy, Scream Bloody Murder, Will to Die, Panorama Blue, Coed Dorm, Diabolic Wedding, The Loves of Liszt and The Gatling Gun into grindhouses and drive-ins.

To Pa (director Mo Man-hung) and his Eagle Claw Fighting Clan are trying to rob some gold but are stopped — at first — by Chen Chen Chow, the Lightning Whipper (Ma Kei). Yes, despite having a name like that, they are able to kill the hero, but Lei Peng (Yik Yuen) takes the gold back and plans on returning it to the government. To Pa reacts to this by killing his entire family, except for his son, who is saved by Lady Tieh (Mo Man-ha).

Chen (Chiang Ming) and Mu Lan (Chang Ching-ching), the children of the Lightning Whiper, are able to save Lei Peng from prison. This allows all of them to join up and take the fight back to To Pa.

This has kung-fu vampires, a dude called the One-Man Army because he can hypnotize people before hitting them with his wild double swords, the “Solar Ray of Death,” and a bad guy who loses his arms but gains the kind of martial-arts weapons you watch these movies for. 

You used to be able to buy this for a dollar, but now, someone will put it out on 4K UHD and ask for $70. At least you’ll get a slipcover.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Russ Meyer made Fanny Hill in 1964, the Oliver Reed version I watched numerous times on Cinemax was in 1983, and Tinto Brass made Paprika in 1991. But this is the Swedish version, and the American print ads didn’t just say “from the makers of”; they said “from the country that gave you I, A Woman, Inga, I Am Curious (Yellow).” Yes, the whole country made this.

Actually, Mac Ahlberg directed and wrote it. He made all of the I, A Woman movies as well as working as the cinematographer on Hell Night, The Seduction, Parasite, Chained Heat, The Graduates of Malibu High, Dolls, House, Good Burger and Re-Animator. 

Diana Kjær is Fanny. Maybe you know her from Dagmar’s Hot Pants, Inc. Anyway, she’s a girl from the country who has become a sex worker. A rich older man, Jan Wilhelmsson, falls for her, and when he dies, she’s in the will. This allows her to support a past lover, Roger (Hans Ernback).

In the November 19, 1969 issue of Variety, this film was listed as the top movie in the U.S. 

There would be a sequel, Around the World with Fanny Hill, starring Shirley Corrigan. She was also in Devil’s Nightmare, Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf and Who Killed the Prosecutor and Why?

Les Tremayne, who was one of the most popular and well-known voices of the Golden Age of Radio, working on shows like The Jackie Gleason/Les Tremayne Show, Ford Theatre, Inner Sanctum, The Whistler and more. He even had a breakfast show with his second wife. As entertainment moved into television, he was all over the dial, as well as showing up in movies like The War of the Worlds, The Monolith Monsters, The Monster of Piedras Blancas, The Fortune Cookie, Forbidden Planet, The Angry Red Planet, King Kong vs. Godzilla and The Slime People. He even played Big Daddy Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard, Dr. Frankenstein on The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and the titlular mentor on Shazam!

None of those roles could have prepared him — or us — for Fangs.

As Snakey Bender, Tremayne plays a man of obsessions, obsession that we as mortal people just may not understand. There’s one day a week that he cares about and that’s Wednesday. On that day, he makes his journey into town where he visits the attractive schoolteacher Cynthia (Bebe Kelly, If You Don’t Stop It… You’ll Go Blind!!!), whose students perform the task of hunting down small rodents for him so that his beloved pets — he claims to be part snake by the way — have some food for the week. Then he harasses the general store employees before meeting up with his one true friend, Burt (Richard Kennedy), and they have a concert where they blast the music of John Philip Sousa.

Basically, Snakey is one of those people who seem harmless but if one thing impacts their life’s routine, the mental damage will not be visited upon him. No, it will be meted out to everyone in his path.

The first chinks in his armor appear when Brother Joy starts preaching against him, saying that snakes are the devil’s animals and that he’s making the children play on the left hand path.

And then Burt marries Ivy (Janey Wood, Pamela from Terror at Red Wolf Inn).

Unlike Snakey, Burt realizes that he’s old and that if he wants to marry a showgirl who really only cares about his money but will give him the kind of companionship a life of hard work deserves, well, he’s going to do it. And sure, the Wednesday concerts will end for awhile, but what’s the harm in that?

You can just imagine how Snakey reacts.

Actually, you can’t. Because things get worse.

It turns out that that schoolteacher likes having the snakes around because those visits are conjugal. That’s right, while Snakey is out with the kids, she’s doing whatever one does with a snake in a Biblical way. Her secret gets outed to the general store owners Bud and his lesbian sister Sis, who is played by Alice Nunn, who really has the best cameo of all time as Large Marge in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure who start blackmailing her, cutting off Snakey’s rodent supply and therefore pushing him on the path to no return.

The weirdest thing about this movie is that it has such a level of scum and sleaze all over it yet has no nudity and little to no violence. Heck, it barely has all that many snakes in it. But what it has is a man who realizes that the world is changing around him and no matter what he does, it keeps moving past him. And people use his snakes as sermons or for pleasure but never really see him as anything other than that old weird man from the desert that lives with all the serpents. Except the kids, and when the kids aren’t allowed to see him and hunt vermin, well, I mean, how dare you take away vermin-gathering little ones from an old man ready to explode?

Somehow, Snakey becomes a Bond villain, able to kill people with all manner of objects and traps and, yes, snakes. All along, he told the townspeople how moronic they were and now, he’s proving it. You should have let him keep air conducting and marching around the house and paying kids for mice and just let him be. But some people have Hell inside them and you should just keep them on their maze-like path so that they don’t solve the riddle inside their head and realize that they’d be better off if they just went and killed you.

Also known as Snakes, Snakelust and the wonderful title Holy Wednesday, this was directed and co-written with John T. Wilson by Art Names, who was mostly a sound man on all sorts of movies, including being the post-production sound guy for The Astrologer, which had to be the kind of experience that destroys your mind. Actually, his sound resume is packed with aberrant films that I adore, such as Alligator; Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker; Savage Streets and The Jesus Trip. He and Wilson also co-wrote Girl in Gold Boots and The Black Klansman, so their partnership wasn’t a one and done on the weird writing ability.

By direct, I mean he put the camera down and said action, really. You don’t really consider the direction or cinematography in this, but that’s the best part of it. It just plays out in front of you, with you as the casual observer to one man’s meltdown. He just wants to be alone with his snakes and needs the help of others. And he needs that one night of marching band concerts. I guess it really was too much to ask, huh?

There are weird movies that have been made to be weird and there are weird movies made because someone had a vision that perhaps nobody could ever understand. This would be the latter and that’s perfect. My dream is to go back in time and sit in a drive-in where the blockbuster baiting tagline for this movie got some cars in the lot and then this starts playing and people start wondering, “What is this? Who is this for? Why did they make this?”

Movies are awesome, everyone.