Two years before they changed movies forever with JAWS, producers Richard Zanuck & David Brown released 1973's camp horror classic SSSSSSS.
Strother Martin as Dr. Stoner (insert your jokes here) a snake expert who has a nasty habit of pushing the boundaries between man and reptile in VERY extreme ways. A pre-Battlestar Galactica Dirk Benedict stars as graduate student David Blake, who becomes Stoner's assistant and an unwilling participant in some very slithery business. This is one of those early 1970's Universal scary movies that features TV movie level photography and titles, some pretty sketchy acting in the smaller roles and a whole lot of the Universal backlot. But SOMEHOW, this all comes together for a fun, scary little movie. The ending is laughably bad, but the ride there is pretty good! All the snakes in the movie are real and that makes our cast pretty brave. The makeup tranformations by John Chambers and Dan Striepeke (Planet of the Apes) are very good. Classic early 70's horror and one of the best damn movie posters ever. Zanuck and Brown obviously know how to create a great poster and tagline ("SSSSSSS" Don't Say It, Hiss it" haha). Hard to find on video, but worth a look! Getsssssss a B!
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