H
ere is wisdom: whether he shows up in dra- mas, comedies, action thrillers or even the odd horror film, Strother Martin is not to be
trusted. He may not have spent his entire 30-plus-year ca-
reer playing villains, but he remains best known as that guy whose kindly countenance thinly disguises anything from moral turpitude to pure evil. His ca- reer-defining role was the sadistic Captain in Cool Hand Luke (“What we have here is failure to com- municate”), but he also famously scuzzed it up as the sleazy manager of a minor-league hockey team in Slap Shot and as a small-town doctor who secretly leads a coven of devil worshippers in The Brother- hood of Satan. Just prior to his death in 1980, he was to play bad guy Otis P. Hazelrigg in Dark Night of the Scarecrow and was subsequently replaced by Charles Durning. So when he shows up as a friendly, misunderstood herpetologist in a movie about poi- sonous snakes, should alarms start sounding? Damn skippy, they should. Although I make a point of
watching the classic (and still under-appreciated) Slap Shot at least once a year, my most recent reintroduction to Martin came via a sweet score I made during Blockbuster’s recent chain-wide liquidation sale: a two-disc set from Universal that includes The Serpent and the Rainbow (which I like), The Funhouse (which I really like) and Phantasm II (which I love more than life it- self). But it was the fourth film in the set that intrigued me the most, even though it’s far from the best one: the endearingly titled 1973 novelty Sssssss, which enjoyed a modestly successful theatrical run and then played regularly on TV for about a decade before falling off the map. A pre-Battlestar Galactica, pre-Love Boat, pre-A-
Team, pre-much-of-anything-at-all Dirk Benedict plays David Blake, a university student who takes a
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summer job as a lab assistant for Dr. Carl Stoner (Martin), a charming, slightly eccentric, snake-fancy- ing biologist who’s been largely ostracized by his ac- ademic peers. He adores animals and has a docile, alcoholic python (don’t ask) named Harry for a house pet – how could this guy possibly be dodgy? (Clue: he’s Strother fucking Martin.) David and the doc hit it off fa-
mously, and David soon falls head- over-Keds in love with his employer’s daughter (Heather Menzies of Piranha and that grindhouse cult fave The Sound of Music). At this point, even the most casual horror fan knows this can only go one of two ways: either our hero bonds with his future pa-in- law as they fight the forces of evil, or the doctor turns out to be mad, which
means tough decisions must be made and labs must be blown up. Given who’s playing the scientist here, things are likely gonna go south, and sure enough, Stoner has ulterior motives. That antivenom serum he’s been injecting David with, ostensibly to build up an immunity to snake bites, isn’t really an antidote at all; it’s a secret formula that’s slowly turning David into... wait for it... a SNAKEMAN! Why? Who cares!? Through some cheesy-looking yet ingenious makeup effects, we watch David slowly turning green, shed-
ding his skin and generally becoming more reptilian than most politicians or even strip club managers. Of course, things get even worse for our boy when Stoner learns that his lab assistant and daughter have been getting biz-zay out at the local skinny-dipping pond. (Whoah, time out here. You’ve been surrepti- tiously turning this guy into a SNAKEMAN without his consent, and now you’re getting all morally outraged because he’s boning your daughter? Dude, make like a python and get a grip.) With most people it all comes down to one of the
big three animal phobias: snakes, spiders and rats, and I’m spiders all the way. I generally don’t have a problem with snakes; I’ve held (and even snuggled with) more than one boa constrictor, and while I’m in- clined to give poisonous snakes a wide berth for com- mon sense reasons, they don’t creep me out on a visceral level, with one exception: cobras. Not just be- cause they’re incredibly poisonous and extremely ag- gressive, but mainly because their hiss is much lower-pitched than most other species and sounds almost like human breathing. Something about that makes me want to jump out of my skin, which is probably the reason why Sssssss – boasting a shit- load of real, live snakes along with its silliness, wonky effects and plot holes – still resonates with me after all these years. Now get the hell out of my basement and remember never turn your back on Ssssssstrother Martin.
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