Eager to continue his research, Dr. Carl Stoner, (Strother Martin) asks old friend Dr. Daniels, (Richard B. Shull) to recommend a student for an assistant, and selects David Blake, (Dirk Benedict) for the purpose. Meeting with his daughter Kristina, (Heather Menzies) in their lab, and witnesses a public display for the group. As he continues to work in the lab, he begins to worry about the constant inoculations and treatments and tries to begin a relationship with Kristina. As he begins to secretly transform into a snake, he tries to hide it from her, and when the transformation finishes he looks less and less like his former self.
The Good News: There really wasn’t a whole lot here, and what’s here isn’t that bad. The film’s main claim to glory is the constant and continuous focus upon the snakes, and if they’re a creep-factor for yourself, then this will undoubtedly feature a lot of moments that are pretty unsettling. There’s plenty of time spent among them and around them, from handling them in their cages to researching them to milking them, and it’ll be a little tense whenever those milking scenes occur as the anticipation of whether they’re going to bite or not will really give some shivers. The main moment, though, is the sideshow display, which features a really big snake is let loose in front of a group of watchers and a display is put on with it in an attempt to milk it, and the constant use of it hissing and ducking whenever the hand comes near the head to grab it does have some unnerving quality to it. There are some individual scenes that are pretty good, such as the fight at the carnival which ends in a really unique fashion, or the bathroom attack, which is really creepy and is quite creative, being simple examples of it being entertaining without the focus on the snakes. The transformation isn’t that bad and must’ve been really impressive back then, as the face itself, which doesn’t have any snake-like features, to transform into a reasonable facsimile of one, is pretty impressive. It doesn’t look that bad, and has some nice features to it.
The Bad News: This really wasn’t that impressive, and there’s a couple reasons for that. The main one is that the film is very, very slow. It takes forever for something to happen, and aside from the two scenes above, it’s really unspectacular when it does happen. The snake wrangle and milking scene does have a few tense moments but it does seem to drag out and on, taking twice as long as it should’ve been. The moments at action don’t really come to pass and move along quite unspectacularly, and it moves onto something else. The only thing remotely considered action comes in the final minutes, and then it just ends. There’s really no set-up or anything, the action starts, then finishes and then the film just ends. It’s quite unremarkable and seems weird. The film’s other fatal flaw is that, unless snakes creep you out, there’s nothing of interest in the middle of the film. The middle is based around the concept of “snakes are creepy,” and unless that applies to you, all the contact time with them won’t register and it becomes an endless series of scenes that don’t do anything other than induce boredom. Its not the kind of response a film really wants, but it’s the one main flaw in the film. Otherwise, this wasn’t bad, if only it would’ve moved along faster.
The Final Verdict: This one really could’ve used a faster pace to be more interesting, since most of what’s wrong is derived from that fatal flaw. It’s still a cheap B-movie, so if that appeals to you, then give it a shot, there’s nothing here that won’t upset them, but those fearful of snakes are advised to seek caution, there’s tons of time with them in the film.
Today’s Rating-PG-13: Violence and Brief rear Nudity
