The sight of this VHS tape at a recent garage sale brought back memories of one of my childhood Kindertraumas.
The premise of the story is pretty lame. A scientist decides the human race can only survive if it's transformed into a human-snake hybrid. So he begins experimenting on his lab assistants, selling Snakeman 1.0 to a local carnival when it fails to complete transformation. Dirk Benedict, of Battlestar Galactica and A-Team fame, stars as the mad doctor's second hapless (and clueless) victim.
As bad as the storyline is, the effects and makeup...well...make up for its shortcomings. I remember watching "Sssssss" with my brother on a Saturday afternoon and being freaked out by this scene in particular:
Photo courtesy of basementrejects
The sight of the snake-man rolling around helplessly whimpering like a baby left a scarring impression.
Here's the trailer to give you an idea of how bad it is.
Their tag line was "Don't say it, hiss it!" With all those S's, I think a better one would have been "Say it, don't spray it!" It's hard to believe the executive producers of this went on to produce "Jaws" just 2 years later.
The full movie is on Youtube, but it has some added glare to the picture, I guess to trick the Youtube algorithms for detecting copyrighted material.
ohhh, i remember this movie. does every teen go through a b-movie horror phase? i don't remember it being particularly scary or anything, but i also didn't recall dirk benedict being in it, haha. luckily for him he got cast in BSG!
ReplyDeleteFunny, I always associate this one with early Sci-Fi Channel. They had a promo for it when they were airing it that just stuck in my head. I should go to YouTube and see if it is there.
ReplyDelete@FrankO: I don't recall being scared by it, mainly freaked out by that man-snake.
ReplyDelete@Joe: It is on Youtube, but it's altered to bypass Youtube copyright security. Pretty unwatchable because of it.
This movie was groovy! You had to love the 70's with all those wild animal flicks.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems animals were running amok in the '70's. Snakes, Frogs, Worms, Bees, you name it.
DeleteThere's another film from that same year that I hope was double-billed at some theatre with this.
ReplyDeleteImagine seeing this on a marquee: Sssssss / Hit!