SSSSSSS
That's seven S's, not 6, not 8

  Sporting what has to be the worst title ever (if you think it's silly to read, try using it in conversation), Sssssss (also known as Ssssnake, with four S's) gives us the tender tale of a young man (Dirk Benedict) who slowly transforms into a king cobra.

Young David (Benedict) is a college student who badly needs a job, something I think most of us can relate to.  So he takes a job from Dr. Stoner (Strother Martin), who should be conducting experiments with marijuana with a name like that, but no, he's working on snakes.  He keeps a king cobra, which he keeps addressing as "Your Majesty".  And he's muttering all sorts of nonsense about how snakes will surely outlast human beings, conveniently forgetting the many, many organisms out there which will likely outlast snakes.  Surely with this in mind, he injects David with something meant to immunize him to snake venom (?), and then David has strange reactions to it, and, well, The Fly this ain't, people.

Stoner has all sorts of fun snakes; snakes that grunt, snakes that constrict people on command, snakes that won't bite no matter how much you harass them, snakes which look identical to each other except only one is poisonous.  (I could think of any number of effective solutions to the problem presented in that scene, but by the time it was over, they'd all be rendered moot anyway)  He keeps a mongoose caged up near these snakes, presumably just to piss off the mongoose who can't get to the snakes.  And he takes all the fun out of feeding time by feeding his snakes not with animals but with a "pressure gun which delivers a perfectly balanced combination of nutrients."  Where's the fun in that?

(irrelevant reminiscing; when I was a kid I loved snakes, not like today where they inexplicably creep me out, but while my parents never let me get my own, I did get to keep my teacher's over Easter break once.  We invited all the neighbors to witness the spectacle of Ivan The Terrible being fed to Georgina the corn snake.  Pictures were taken and a grand time was had by all.)

Reb Brown from Yor, The Hunter From The Future (I tried to rent that one for a review this week but they didn't have it, I'll have to go to another store) shows up as the town bully, who gets lines like "Freaks!  That's what you are, a buncha snake freaks!"

Sssssss mixes in some appreciated and informative snake lore with some awfully unlikely snake behavior.  A title card at the beginning of the film claims that all the snakes are real (even the one whose head explodes?), which leaves me to wonder, how'd they get that one snake to eat that guy's boot?  How'd that guy lie still while a king cobra slithered over his face?  How'd they rig the mongoose vs. snake battle so that the mongoose loses?  (or does it lose?  It's hard to tell.)

There is some effective creepery in this movie, but it's probably only because of the way I break down with the oogies every time some snake looks like it wants to eat me.  If you're not as willies-prone as I am when it comes to them, you'll probably either be bored or find this unintentionally hilarious.

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