Sssssss (1973)

Sssssss (1973) arrived when Creature Features had virtually lost the ability to shock and horrify.  Decades after King Kong and Godzilla, the screen has seen some amazingly wonderful monsters, but by 1973 ferocious animals didn’t work the magic they used to.  Killer Shrews and Giant Rabbits of Night of the Lepus and Squirm had brought the monster movie full circle, and it was time to reinvent the genre.  Two years later, Steven Speilberg did exactly that with the brilliant Jaws.  In comparison, films like Sssssss appeared like stale relics of a bygone era. 

Fortunately, B Monster movies never really go out of style, and even this year, we have had Cocaine Bear tickling everyone’s funny bone with its tongue-in-cheek splatter. 

With Anaconda’s success, the snake movie has seen a resurgence, but in 1973 there was no CGI to create spectacularly outlandish snake attack scenes.  By contrast, Sssssss starts with a mention of the fact that the actors had to undergo hazardous situations during the film shoot as they were close to venomous snakes imported from Thailand and Singapore.

The film is about the work of a respected snake venom expert who is seeking a new assistant for his lab work after the previous one left at short notice.  He finds a young, willing and able Dirk Benedict (of Battlestar Galactica fame), who is recruited as his assistant and understudy.  Benedict moves in and is shown the ways of the lab and introduced to the snakes, including some of the most venomous snakes in the world.  Before he starts work, the snake expert, Dr Karl Stoner, injects Benedict with a vaccine that will build his immunity to the point that even the worst venom will not affect him.  Benedict is pleased to have the vaccine but disturbed that booster shots will be continued for some time.

Dr Stoner continues to pump Benedict with injections resulting in some vivid dreams.  More worrying for Benedict is when he finds some of his skin peeling off, and the condition worsens.  Alarm bells start to ring for Benedict as he feels his weight loss and his body is realigning and reshaping itself.  Stoner keeps fobbing him off, explaining that all these reactions are normal and that soon his immunity would have built up so that nothing would happen even if ten Black Mambas were to bite him. 

Questions are asked about Tim, Dr Stoner’s previous assistant, who he claimed left to be with an Uncle.  An investigation has led the police to believe the missing assistant never returned to his uncle’s home, as Stoner claims.  Benedict finally begins to suspect that all is not as it should be as his skin starts to turn a shade of green and sprout some scales.

One day Stoner’s daughter, who has started a romance with Benedict, is in the city attempting to pick up a new species of rare snake, but she has to wait around and decides to check out the local Carnival, where it seems a snake-man is a big attraction.  Incredulous at the story, she makes for the Carnival to see for herself and is horrified to find there is indeed a hideous and pathetic creature crying out for help who is scaly and green and snake-like.  She recoils in horror when she realizes it is her father’s ex-assistant.  The penny drops that her boyfriend’s increasingly sickly situation is because of her father poisoning him. 

Will she arrive in time to save Benedict from being transformed into the next living freakshow monstrosity, or will her father’s mad fantasy hold sway?  Will the cops, now sniffing their way to Stoner’s misdeeds, resolve the mystery before it’s too late?

The film moves along at a decent pace and holds interest for the most part.  The great problem with Sssssss is that it is about as scary as a documentary on nature or wildlife.  There is little horror, hardly any blood or gore and not much tension. 

Strother Martin, as the mad doctor, does well, as does Dirk Benedict, and even though the film is watchable, it has the feel of a 70s TV movie – tame, bland and unscary.  The film won some acclaim and awards for its make-up effects, which were not embarrassing.  However, The Exorcist raised the bar in that department, relegating films like Sssssss into nostalgic oblivion. 

Sssssss is tame and hardly scary, but it is fairly well performed and watchable as a doomed love story more than a horror film.  Interestingly enough, Zanuck & Brown was behind this tepid slice of horror.  They were also the team who produced Jaws and ended up laughing all the way to the bank!