“SSSSSSS” (1973)

That's quite the provocative piece of poster art for (don’t say it, hiss it) “SSSSSSS” (1973). From the team of Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who would bring you JAWS (1975) just two years later, with Bernard Kowalski directing instead of Steven Spielberg this round, one could understand if you presumed this was just another tale of nature’s revenge on an unsuspecting populace, but you’d be wrong.

No, what (don’t say it, hiss it) “SSSSSSS” essentially boils down to is an old-fashioned parable of science gone amok.

For this round, the mad-genius behind this cracked vision of the future is Dr. Carl Stoner (Martin), a man out of time in 1973, who rightfully belongs with his Eisenhower era colleagues, Professors Deemer, Blake, Vornoff, and Branding.

Now, Stoner’s addition to this lore of “tampering in God’s domain” involves experiments and notions on de-evolution. As he, for some reason, wants to get homo-sapiens back in touch with their reptilian roots on a regressive genetic level.

Does he succeed? Well, I’ll answer that with this: People often ask me what's the most disturbing film you've ever seen. The answer to that used to be contestable between a lot of contenders until I put together what I saw and, more importantly, what I heard when first encountering (don’t say it, hiss it) “SSSSSSS”, which brought this debate to a crashing halt.

Here, the gist of our mad scientist’s dubious experiments is to turn his new and unsuspecting and unwitting lab assistant, David Blake (Benedict), into a human / cobra hybrid. (We’ll be getting to the guy he replaced in just a minute.)

In most films of this nature, these metamorphoses are usually quite painful. Here, the sinister transformation is slow, protracted, and extremely painful to the Nth degree.

Meanwhile, Stoner's daughter, Kristina (Menzies), begins to suspect that her father is up to something with her new boyfriend, David. And while tracking down a few leads, she stumbles upon the truth: the truth being the old man's first and failed attempt. And here, even now, my skin is starting to crawl as I type this up.

Sold off to some traveling circus, Stoner's previous lab assistant has been reduced to something akin to Joe Bonham from Dalton Trumbo’s novel, Johnny Got his Gun (1938, later adapted to film in 1971).

At the very beginning of the film, we hear something pathetically wailing and caterwauling as Stoner strikes a deal with a sideshow owner, something not quite human, as its treated roughly and loaded onto a truck unseen.

And when we finally get a look at this helpless thing, when Kristina finds him headlining a Freak Show, we can see it in his eyes, something very human, trapped, forever, an impotent lump, no hope for a cure, with no ability or means to communicate aside from that insidious mewling, pleading for help. Help that will never, ever come.

And that, Fellow Programs, that realization, with the auditory assist, is the most disturbing thing I've ever encountered on a screen. The effective creature makeup was provided by John Chambers with an assist from an uncredited Daniel Striepeke. Chambers, of course, famously provided the ground-breaking makeup appliances for The Planet of the Apes (1968) and all its sequels and spin-offs. And in that makeup was Noble Craig, who, I presume, also provided the vocals.

Taking up these ear-curdling cries is David, as each painful stage of his transformation peels off more of his humanity like the skin he's currently shedding. And though the heroine is on the right track to possibly abort the final stages, it's already too late, as the film continues its somber and morbid tone until the bitter end. 

Yeah, I know, that title is kind of absurd, but don't let that deter you from catching this fine fractured flick. You don't even have to hiss at it.

Originally posted on October 9, 2009, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

“SSSSSSS” (1973) Zanuck / Brown Productions :: Universal Pictures / EP: Richard D. Zanuck, David Brown / P: Dan Striepeke / AP: Robert Butner / D: Bernard L. Kowalski / W: Hal Dresner / C: Gerald Perry Finnerman / E: Robert Watts / M: Patrick Williams / S: Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, Heather Menzies, Richard B. Shull, Reb Brown

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