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Curse of Snakes Valley

1987 film by Marek Piestrak

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ4184727 ↗
Source-derived summary

Curse of Snakes Valley (Polish: Klątwa doliny węży, Estonian: Madude oru needus) is a 1988 Polish–Soviet Estonian adventure science fiction horror film directed by Marek Piestrak. The screenplay is loosely based on the Robert Stratton short story "The Hobby of Dr. Traven", which was published by the end of 1970s in the Polish magazine Przekrój.

The trio of adventurous pals, a man who is a scientist, a fine lady and a former military pilot are in the Indochina jungles, looking for some mysterious vase that holds a metal container that is of no mundane origin.

Curse of Snakes Valley was a great box office success. About 1 million viewers saw the film in Poland and as many as 25 million in the Soviet Union.

In 2022, New Orleans hip hop duo $uicideboy$ used clips of the film for the lyric video of their song "$uicideboy$ Were Better In 2015", off of their album Sing Me A Lullaby, My Sweet Temptation.

Plot

In 1954, during the First Indochina War, a helicopter is shot by partisans. It lands on the edge of the jungle. Military pilot Bernard Traven goes to a Buddhist temple while looking for water, from where he steals a precious casket.

Editorial summary

“Curse of Snakes Valley” enters the record as 1987 film by Marek Piestrak. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Curse, Snakes and Valley can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988, 2022, 2015, 1954—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1987-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Curse, Snakes and Valley.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Curse of Snakes Valley” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Curse, Snakes and Valley provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4184727. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 2022, 2015 and 1954.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Curse of Snakes Valley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Curse of Snakes Valley primary sources, Curse of Snakes Valley archive and Curse research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Curse of Snakes Valley”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Curse of Snakes Valley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.