Sssssss (1973)
Directed by Bernard Kowalski
Starring Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, and Heather Mengies
There are very few movies I have ever seen that made me immediately regret watching. The title alone should have stopped me, but I thought it could fun and campy. I was so wrong. Sssssss fails to deliver anything except disappointment.
The story revolves around snake specialist Dr. Carl Stoner (no joke) and his enigmatic experiments with snakes. After paying a carny to take away his previous assistant in an animal crate, the good doctor goes searching for more grant money and a new assistant at the local university. There, Stoner picks up David to fill the position and the two return to Stoner’s country home/laboratory. Stoner and his daughter, Kristina, show David around and spend a great deal of time discussing snakes. But not everything is right with the Stoner family business. What happened to the last assistant? Why does the doctor keep rambling about the biblical roles of snake and man? What is up with that snake boy at the local carnival? And why does David feel progressively worse after Dr. Stoner’s mysterious snake serum injections? Soon enough, David will regret finding these answers.
This film is a mistake in nearly every way imaginable. It looks like the budget went into procuring the snakes, because everything else is lacking. The sets and locations have the appearance of back lot buildings and reused stages. The makeup effects are on par with most Halloween costume kits. Several snake/man hybrids are shown to have the occasional grouping of drawn on scales and body makeup that can only be described as “Faded Christmas Tree Green”. And during a transformation sequence, a snake man gets progressively more rubbery looking until he is finely replaced with an actual snake. The most imaginative part of the movie should have come when David has snake venom hallucinations. Here is the chance to show some real creativity with interpreting the thought process on poison, but instead it is a stock footage montage. There are sunsets, various human body parts, a Cobra, and many changing colors that form something resembling a cologne advertisement.
The actors had to work with some exceptionally terrible dialogue, so no one comes out of this looking like a better performer. Dirk Benedict tries to play David as naive, but his lines present the character more as borderline mentally deficient. Heather Mengies is given little more to say than screaming David’s name repeatedly. Only Strother Martin seems to have the most fun chewing scenery with his role of Dr. Stoner. He plays Stoner like the lamest Bond villain that never was, savoring his rambling monologues and righteous snake love. However, the most convincing acting comes from the snakes themselves. They look ready to bite faces in every shot. Black Mambas slither with fear for their own lives, Pythons size everyone up for potential meal value, and one particular snake makes for quite a convincing drunk. The production prided itself on using real poisonous snakes, which makes their performances wonderfully authentic.
Questionable aesthetic choices plague this production. There are parts of the film that would include nudity if not for an odd addition. There are images of twigs and of a lamp shade in place to conveniently cover up bare actors. It takes little effort to notice that these images move with the camera frame, meaning they were added in post production. A producer or studio executive saw this movie and probably thought the only way they could make their money back was to remove all the naughty parts and secure a PG rating. Also, the only genuine fright in all of Sssssss comes from the fact that the snakes are very real and shown to still have fangs. Snake milking scenes hold true terror once you realize that their venom is not a prop. The most effective scare of the whole movie comes when a King Cobra is clearly attacking the camera getting its close up. Try not to feel fear when you realize that some poor cameraman could have died making Sssssss.
Snakes make for terrifying film villains. Mankind’s misuse of science makes for scary scenarios. But, when Sssssss combines the two, they turn into an unmitigated disaster of a film.
1 out of 10
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