Punnami Naagu
Directed by	Rajasekhar
Written by	Rama Narayanan
Produced by	M. Kumaran M. Saravanan M. Balasubramaniam
Starring	Narasimha Raju Rati Agnihotri Chiranjeevi Menaka
Cinematography	V. Ranga
Edited by	M. Vellai Swamy
Music by	K. Chakravarthy
Production company	AVM Productions
Release date	13 June 1980 (1980-06-13)
Country	India
Language	Telugu

Punnami Naagu is an Indian Telugu-language horror drama film directed by Rajasekhar and produced by AVM Productions. The film brought recognition to Chiranjeevi and his first Filmfare nomination. The other leads in the film, including Rati Agnihotri, Narasimha Raju and Padmanabham played important roles. The film was released on 13 June 1980. It is a remake of the director's own Kannada film Hunnimeya Rathriyalli.^[1] It also marked the Telugu debut for Malayalam actress, Menaka G. Suresh.

Plot

Naagulu (Chiranjeevi), a snake charmer, falls in love with Menaka, whose adopted brother Raju (Narasimha Raju) is in love with Naagulu's cousin Laxmi (Rati Agnihotri). Naagulu's father has been mixing snake venom into his food since childhood, making Naagulu immune to any snake bite. Every full moon, Naagulu behaves like a cobra and searches for a woman and every woman he meets dies from his poison. On one such full moon, he kills Menaka and Raju gets suspicious about this, as there are no marks of a snake bite on her body. A young teacher comes to the village and becomes Naagulu's victim. Raju investigates with the help of film in her still camera and discovers that Naagulu has become a snake. Naagulu's father reveals his secret before dying and Naagulu tries to find a remedy, but it's too late for that. His skin starts peeling off like a snake and Raju advises him to leave the village before villagers find and kill him. Naagulu prefers death to the life of a snake and commits suicide from a hilltop.

Cast

• Chiranjeevi as Naagulu
• Narasimha Raju as Ravi
• Rati Agnihotri as Lakshmi
• Menaka as Poorna
• Jayamalini as Servant maid and accomplice of Musalayya
• Sumangali
• Padmanabham as Mungisa Musalayya the Snake Charmer
• Mikkilineni as Zamindar
• Dhulipala as Sastry, Temple Priest
• Balakrishna as Mungisa Musalayya's brother-in-law
• Ramadas as Pamula Pappanna