A college student named David is looking for additional work, and is hired by Dr. Carl Stoner, an Ophiologist. Stoner injects the young man with a serum that he claims to be an anti-venom to protect against the many snakes in his laboratory. Unknown to David, however, this serum will gradually change him over time into the one thing most noticeable in Stoner's care: a king cobra.
Let me just start by stating that I don't feel comfortable calling Sssssss by its original title, so I think I'll just stick to the title it was released under in the U.K.: Ssssnake. Wait, that doesn't sound all that better. Oh well.
Strother Martin (the man who uttered THIS famous line) plays our "mad scientist" of the film, though it isn't really fair to call him mad since he doesn't show any real signs of being a threat until about the sixty five minute mark, which is coincidentally, one of the only two times we're witness to a fatality in the film. I don't think it would be fair to even call him strange. After all, how many of you feed your pet snakes whiskey in a petri dish and read it excerpts from Walt Whitman works? Heather Menzies (Piranha) and Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica) play vanilla teen #1 and vanilla teen #2 respectively. She's the scientist's daughter with a heart of gold and he's the college boy who looks old enough to play a high school teacher. It really is kind of astonishing to see the evolution of the "college kid" in terms of looks, though we're still able to occasionally mess it up.
Ssssnake's big claim to fame though is the disclaimer flashed at the beginning, where we're told that all of the snakes used in the film are real (save for a few blatantly obvious puppets in certain areas) and that a lot of the crew were legitimately in danger while filming. I can't say this was necessary, and it doesn't add a whole lot to the film other than a few faces that looked genuinely concerned, but it was nice. There's also a gratuitous skinny dipping scene involving two characters that will most likely aggravate anyone watching who get a kick out of unnecessary nudity in their horror films. I suppose the filmmakers were concerned about receiving an "R" rating at the time, so they do everything in their power to dart around or cover up all of the naughty parts (blurred vision, conveniently placed branches and leaves, Menzies wearing what look like granny panties). This was the 70s man! How could you be afraid of showing off at that time? Boo I say, boo. True Menzies has modeled for Playboy before, but its the principle of the matter damn it!
Certain products of the 70s can still be rather enjoyable, even by today's standards (or lack thereof). Ssssnake is sssstupid, but an enjoyable kind of stupid. True, the film seems to forget its own plot until about the seventy minute mark, and the ending is abrupt as well (it makes you wonder if they ran out of film to even finish a proper ending), but gather up a few friends and some beers, and you could have a fun time with its unintentional hilarity.
Tomorrow, I venture into my teen years with several adaptations from one of the all time greats of horror, Mr. STEPHEN KING!
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