The Snake Woman

"The Snake Woman" is a brief (only 68 minutes long), painless, silly, and quite amusing British horror film with some decent atmosphere and capable performances. It's not memorable, overall, save for its sexy "snake woman", but it's entertaining stuff. It's low budget enough that the monster action is all off screen, and it's got a talky script, to boot.

An early credit for Canadian born director Sidney J. Furie (whose diverse career has included things such as "The Ipcress File", "The Entity", "Iron Eagle"...and "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"), it's not strong on story, but it has its moments. In a 19th century village, a herpetologist (John Cazabon) is treating his wife's mental illness by injecting her with snake venom (!). The result is their daughter is born with cold skin and blood, and other reptile like tendencies. A doctor (Arnold Marle) spirits the kid away and gives her to a shepherd (Stevenson Lang) to watch over. 19 years later, the doctor returns from an extended stay in Africa to find that villagers are perishing from snake bites. A Scotland Yard detective (John McCarthy) is put on the case.

The highlight of the piece has to be the presence of beautiful Susan Travers, who plays our snake woman. Her appearances in the woods have just the right slightly spooky touch. McCarthy is a moderately engaging hero who of course believes in sane, routine, believable answers to questions, but realizes that there's something genuinely strange going on here. Geoffrey Denton offers likable support as the retired colonel Clyde Wynborn who asks for the Yards' help. As befitting a character of her type, Elsie Wagstaff is a hoot as the witch-like woman Aggie who knows the girl and the village are "cursed". As one can imagine, the resolution to this is rather abrupt, which prevents it from being completely satisfying.

Still, one could do much worse than this and even those who dislike it won't have to put up with it for long.

Six out of 10.

It's obvious that The Snake Woman was made on a shoestring budget: the production values are very low, the special effects nonexistent and the film only runs for little over an hour, but in spite of that; Sidney J. Furie's film is at least an interesting example of early sixties horror. The film proclaims itself to be based on a legend and is set somewhere out in the English countryside. The plot is rather ridiculous and unlike other horror films based on similar subjects; this one doesn't quite have enough to distract from that fact. The film opens by introducing us to a scientist and his wife. It transpires that the wife has been having some mental health problems; and her husband has been treating her using snake venom. The wife also just happens to be pregnant, and naturally the snake venom treatment has an effect on the newborn child. A local midwife/witch labels it 'evil' and pretty soon the villagers are trying to burn down the couple's house...but not before they manage to get the child to safety. We pick up the story some years later; and some of the villagers have been dying in snake related incidents.

The biggest problem with this film is undoubtedly the script, which at times is just mind-bogglingly stupid. Some of the lines of dialogue are absolutely shocking and many of the characters would be strong contenders for the 'most stupid character of all time' award. It takes many of them an eternity to work out the most obvious of conundrums and it makes the plot a bit harder to swallow. The film is very short, running at just over an hour...and to be honest this is probably a good thing as I can imagine it would become tiresome if it went on for much longer. The film is without special effects for most of that duration and relies mainly on the story to pull it through. It does work fairly well; we don't really get that much information on anything (a shame, since a bit of back-story could have been really interesting!), but there's a few good ideas on display. Overall, I wouldn't really recommend that anyone goes out of their way to track this little film down - it is interesting in it's own right but in all honesty there's plenty of better examples of this sort of thing out there.

Fans of atmospheric and story-driven 60's horror all over the world should urgently combine forces and catapult "The Snake Woman" out of oblivion and into the list of favorites! Despite the compelling storyline and an acclaimed director in the credits (Sidney J. Furie), this early 60's chiller incomprehensibly got neglected over the years, whereas other – much worse – horror films from that period received unnecessary fancy DVD-releases. This is a solid thriller, filmed in stylish black & white and filled with fluently written dialogues. The events take place during the late 19th century in a little Northern English town inhabited by superstitious and easily petrified people. Since many years, a brilliant scientist successfully keeps his wife's mental illness under control by injecting her with snake venom. When the wife dies whilst giving birth to a daughter, a local witch claims that the newborn child is pure evil and must be destroyed. The scientist is killed by an angry mob but the baby girl is miraculously saved with the help of an understanding doctor. 19 years later several corpses are found in the Moors, containing a lethal amount of snake poison. The frightened villagers believe that the curse of the snake woman has struck them, but the young Scotland Yard inspector doesn't believe in old-fashioned witchery and investigates the case. Sidney J. Furie impressively manages to maintain the mysterious atmosphere throughout the entire film and makes great use of the rural locations and spirit of the era. You can truly sense the fear of the villagers when they're confronted with yet another new murder and their belief in the supernatural, voodoo and evil curses is impeccably portrayed. The subject matter of venom and reptiles in general apparently got researched in detail. For example, the snake girl has no eyelids, she's highly sensitive to certain sounds and she regularly sheds her skin. It's little details like this that make mythological horror so great! My only complaints are that the movie is too short (runtime 68 minutes) and that there isn't enough background to Atheris' (the snake woman) character. What happened to her in those 19 years? Does she hold a grudge against the town or does she just kill by instinct? The acting performances are very adequate and the paranoia end sequences are typically 60's.

This baby just screams for a proper DVD-release!

I fully recognize that cinema generally and horror specifically leans on willful suspension of disbelief from the audience, yet some titles go a step further and it can be hard to surrender that disbelief. As this one opens we're greeted with a herpetologist who believes he's found a global panacea in snake venom; a midwife, played oh so melodramatically by Elsie Wagstaff, who embraces some vague mysticism and associated powers; and the immediate formation of a confoundingly unthinking mob, because Oh No, Someone Might Be Different (well, at least that last part is sadly easily believable). This is to say nothing of the tiresome recurring motif that trades on the false popular notion of snakes being hypnotized by music. Thanks to Sidney J. Furie's mindful direction, Buxton Orr's flavorful score, and some swell imagery even these early scenes are lent some welcome vibrancy, but right from the get-go 'The snake woman' is asking a lot of us as viewers. By this point, I should note, we're already one-third through the runtime of barely over one hour, which doesn't leave a slot of time for the rest of the plot focusing on the titular character.

Scenes of dialogue and plot development feel unwieldy and a tad forced, and at other no few times the pacing seems to lag. I do appreciate the art direction, the cinematography, those stunts and effects that are employed, and the loving shots of snakes that we routinely get. With some exceptions, by and large the cast give solid if unremarkable performances. And, well, then there's the remainder of Orville H. Hampton's screenplay, accordingly rewritten in part by filmmaker Furie. The plot leans on a conflict between modern science as represented in investigator Prentice, and the haphazard kluge of invented superstitions cobbled together to conjure midwife Addie, the credulous townspeople, and the titular curse. We viewers are supposed to see the Snake Woman of 'The snake woman' as the villain, an evil to be feared, maligned, and defeated, yet in reality she's the most sympathetic character here. After all, throughout the length we see the townsfolk reacting violently to innocent animals, and to people whose only crime is that in some way they don't fit in with everyone else; even that one character who seems to come closest to "Getting It" is only partway there. True, maybe Hampton and Furie intended this inversion after all, but the film isn't built that way.

In the very least this 1961 feature boasts a more earnest air of horror about it than some other contemporary fare. Some thoughts woven in here, in one manner or another, contrast sharply with the whole in their ill-fitting insincerity, yet by and large the ideas on hand are firm foundation for a tale of folk beliefs and a town beset by death. I think those ideas could have been strengthened with a stronger and slightly different focus, and in turn there would be greater atmosphere, tension, and suspense. With some revision, the movie could have gone from being only "okay," somewhat middling mid-century filler to being something genuinely rich and compelling. For all that, I don't think 'The snake people' as it exists is bad. However, it's only a fraction of the picture it might have been, and it's readily apparent that only enough care went into its creation to make it stand on its own two feet, and not enough to make it resonate and endure. I think this flick is passably enjoyable and worthwhile, though certainly something for a light, lazy day and far from a must-see; would that it had been shaped more mindfully from the start, in which case it could have been more meaningful and satisfying.

Snake Woman (1961)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Rare and incredibly silly horror film has a mad doctor trying to save his dying wife by injecting her with snake venom. She eventually becomes pregnant and gives birth to a little girl who grows up to transform into a snake or does she? This isn't a very original idea, not even for 1961 but what really kills the film is some of the worst acting I've ever seen. The acting provides many laughs but this goes against the serious mood of the story trying to be told by the director. A few better performances would have made this much more entertaining.