SQUIRM 1976
Getting Under Your Skin: Reliving Squirm—A Worm-Infested Wonder That Creeps, and Captivates: When Schlock Turns to Gold: Celebrating the Crawling Magic of Squirm (1976)
There are certain films that crawl their way under your skin, not because they really nail the sense of cinematic artistry, but because they pulsate with a weird, authentic magic all their own. I would sort of argue that Squirm does possess a certain cinematic artistry. That’s the way it affects me, for all the revisits I pay to this special little horror artifact of the 1970s nature rebels subgenre, it never fails to indulge my longing to drift back into the ’70s, delivering a singular dose of moody nostalgia and conjuring the era’s signature brand of atmospheric horror. Whenever I return to Squirm, it casts that spell, reviving the textures, sounds, and uneasy beauty that defined my favorite decade for its horror vibe. I will be doing a deep dive into the mud with this buried treasure.
Some films bypass logic and burrow their way straight into your cinematic memory. That’s the improbable alchemy of Squirm (1976), a writhing, low-budget horror film that transforms its simple premise into unforgettable drive-in worthy weirdness. Squirm (1976) is one of those slippery masterpieces for me. Brush aside the muttering of the masses, those quick to sling the term “schlocky” with a dismissive wave, and you’ll glimpse beneath the wormy surface a movie that radiates a kind of alchemy: atmospheric, outrageous, and just as memorable as a hundred “respectable” horrors. This tribute marks the start of my deep dive at The Last Drive-In, where the beauty of B-movies is celebrated front and center, and my appreciation for this film will slither forth! Released during the heyday of creature features, Squirm offers a swampy nightmare where rural Georgia becomes a stage for ecological revenge and all manner of burrowing terror.
During its original theatrical run, I experienced Squirm on the big screen, absorbed by its clammy Southern atmosphere and properly unsettled by the film’s shadowy, crawling tension. Even as the premise bordered on absurdity, the movie’s moody tone and relentless creepiness made it impossible to dismiss; even with its intentionally dark humor, it got under my skin both literally and figuratively, leaving me squirming in my seat and taking its horrors all too seriously.
Directed by Jeff Lieberman in his first feature, the movie is steeped in backwoods authenticity and pulses with a gritty eccentricity that far exceeds, with creativity and impact, its dim budget. Lieberman takes a modest set of tools—a freak electrical storm, a sleepy Southern town, and even sleepier characters- and electrifies the soil beneath their feet, literally. The result? Carnivorous worms surge from the ground, ready to turn every patch of mud, moss, and tight spaces into a scene of squirming menace and grotesque dark humor. Lieberman has cited Hitchcock’s film The Birds 1963 as this film’s biggest influence.
From the first queasy moments, where wriggling annelids slither beneath a muddy Southern sky, Squirm announces itself with a sense of place that’s equal parts cozy and sleazy. Writer-director Lieberman transforms rural Georgia into a teeming petri dish for eco-horror mayhem. The plot, inspired by Lieberman’s real-life childhood experience, which left a vivid impression on him, provides the scientific basis and unsettling memory that fueled the concept for Squirm.
The inspiration for the film came from a childhood experiment between director Lieberman and his brother. One evening, the two hooked up a train transformer to wet soil and used the electricity to drive hundreds of worms out of the ground. Young Lieberman noticed that the worms tried to get away from the glare of the flashlight that the boys were using to see by because worms are sensitive to light. It became the scientific basis behind this film, as the worms in Squirm also hate the light. The story of the experiment is retold by the grotesquely goofy character of Roger Grimes.
The plot slinks along this central premise: a freak storm downs power lines, electrifying the earth and unleashing a nightmarish writhing mass of carnivorous worms. Their audible squeals and bear-trap-like teeth are as unnerving as their slithering around and worming their way into the movie!. The resulting invasion isn’t subtle, but why should it be? Lieberman’s camera loves the ooze and clutter, the tangle of moss, the glisten of worm trails on wood and bodies, and the off-kilter angles that make even a queasy dinner scene squirm with unease. And… I’ll never eat another egg cream.
Lieberman is known for infusing fresh twists into established genres, often blending horror with satire, social commentary, or psychological thrills. Other works of Lieberman’s include the very moody Blue Sunshine 1977 the premise: former college students who unwittingly became the victims of a grim case of underground drug distribution gone wrong lose their hair and become psychotic murderers a decade later. This film cemented Lieberman’s reputation for mixing horror with social commentary. Just Before Dawn (1981): A tense backwoods slasher set in Oregon, regarded as a standout of the “wilderness horror” subgenre, and Remote Control (1988): Sci-fi paranoia meets camp as a video store clerk discovers alien brainwashing via videotape, a clever satire of B-movie tropes.
The cinematography, by Joseph Mangine, proves surprisingly artful, favoring melancholy rural tableaux and worm’s-eye perspectives that make the ordinary landscape feel sinister and claustrophobic. For such a modest production: rural landscapes, mossy trees, mosquitoes, grimy diners, and lamp-lit kitchens all ripple with a sense of lurking threat, pulling us into a world that’s as damp and off-kilter as a hazy dream after a thunderstorm. All the shadow-slicked interiors cast the whole town as uneasy, with its sleazy, horny, spaghetti-eating sheriff and hostile townfolk, just a bit rotten at the core.
Mangine also shot Alligator 1980, Alone in the Dark for Alone in the Dark 1982, Mother’s Day 1980, and Neon Maniacs 1986 – he also directed Exterminator 2 1984, and the television series Swamp Thing 1992-93.
At the heart of the story are Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy), unflappable in farmgirl denim, and Mick (Don Scardino, who had a prominent part in William Friedkin’s Cruising 1980), the slightly jittery city boyfriend whose arrival kicks off the spiral of chaos. Together, they encounter Roger (R.A. Dow), a local misfit whose heartbreak and dimwittedness only add to his looming sense of stalking dread. Lieberman plays their interactions with just enough cheek, awkward exchanges, and fish-out-of-water humor, and provides a steady pulse of dry wit that counters the soon-to-be-massacre of bloodworms.
What makes Squirm remarkably fun is how it moves: we meet Geri Sanders (Patricia Pearcy), all farmgirl pluck and city skepticism, as she welcomes her nervous, wide-eyed boyfriend Mick (Don Scardino) from New York, who has come to look for the hidden trove of antiques Geri has touted. Fly Creek is a quirky haven for collectors, and she wants to give him a spirited tour.
Their chemistry is sweet and spry, instantly grounding the film’s more outlandish moments in a genuinely likable couple. They’re soon swept up in the creeping disaster, running afoul of the local Sheriff and the lug Roger (R.A. Dow), whose sunburned menace and broken heart (he longs for Geri) lend the story both awkward comedy and slow-building threat. Roger works for his abusive father, who sells bait to the local fishermen. I find myself endlessly mimicking Roger as he drags out the words, “It’s a suuuuppprrriiiise” with all the goofy charm of a slow Sunday afternoon in the South—half excited, half befuddled, and totally endearing in his earnest, dopey way, with a darker Gomer Pyle-esque energy.
Lieberman builds his scenes with a sense of offbeat humor, never letting us forget just how odd and occasionally inept his rural victims are. There’s the slick sheriff who wouldn’t be out of place in In the Heat of the Night, and a matriarch whose drawled warnings seem lifted (with tongue in cheek) from a Southern Gothic ghost story.
Geri and Mick’s curiosity quickly turns into panic as they poke around town, following a trail of unsettling clues that feel straight out of a nightmare laced with dread and decay. Their snooping leads them first to the old antiques dealer’s place, where the old guy’s (what’s left of him) cozy flannel shirt becomes a grim terrarium — flesh and ribs exposed, raw and rotting, a grisly feast that fuels the writhing mess of worms thriving in the carnage, nature’s grotesque handiwork. Not satisfied with just one horror, their investigation wriggles onward to Roger’s father’s worm-truck, a ghastly mobile mausoleum stocked with smashed crates and someone’s skull that turns the family business from already creepy to downright… creepy. Each discovery unearths a deeper layer of living proof that nature’s gone awry. Geri and Mick realize too late that this is no ordinary infestation, but a full-scale invasion from beneath the earth itself.
Incidentally, on the DVD commentary of the film, director Lieberman mentions that the old farmhouse used for the old antique dealer, Mr. Beardsley’s home, during the shoot, is known as one of the most infamous haunted houses in Georgia.
The supporting cast pops with weird energy: a suspicious, disbelieving, Yankee-phobic sheriff, Geri’s mother, whose angst seem half ghost story, half Southern Gothic superstition, and the townsfolk, remarkably good at both underestimating threats and looking shocked when the crawling menace finally burst out from ceilings, floors, walls, plumbing, and every dark corner.
In Squirm (1976), Jean Sullivan plays Geri Sanders’ mother, Naomi Sanders. Sullivan brings a distinctive Southern flavor to the role, reportedly basing her Southern accent on Tennessee Williams to lend authenticity to the character and the film’s rural Georgia setting. I guess that explains her well-dramatised languid Williams-esque angst.
The comic relief in Squirm comes courtesy of Geri’s younger sister, Alma Sanders, played by Fran Higgins. Alma is less a “baby” sister by appearance than by intention; her mannerisms, wardrobe, and efforts to act older than she is are key to her quirky onscreen presence. Alma’s gawky style is a pitch-perfect snapshot of small-town teenage rebellion in the mid-1970s: Towering footwear that, despite her age, announces her eagerness to stand taller and grow up fast, if not always gracefully. Alma’s bold 1970s halter top and platform shoes shout her wish to seem older and cooler than her rural world allows, and though her awkward attempts to ditch the “kid sister” role give her away, her comic energy comes from trying too hard—oversized sunglasses, heavy makeup, and all inspired by every big-sister magazine she’s flipped through at the drug store—as she clumsily inserts herself into her sister’s love life and city boy drama, desperate for her own share of attention.
Cheeky delight yields quickly to horror: thanks to the storm, that unassuming villain who starts it all by animating the soil with untold millions of hungry flesh-eating worms. By the time the first “worm attack” hits flesh, squirming, writhing, and worms oozing through plumbing and window cracks, Lieberman’s special effects (aided by a young Rick Baker) steal the show.
Mick:
“It’s electricity, alright, but it’s making the worms crazy.”Sheriff (in disbelief):
“This is the damnedest mess I ever seen.”
The horror escalates as the storm knocks out power in Fly Creek, Georgia. Lieberman’s best scenes wriggle with the practical effects of a young Rick Baker: latex faces bulging and rippling underneath with crawling worms. There’s a perverse bravado in the infamous scenes: in the boat during Geri, Mick, and Roger’s outing on the lake, where Roger’s face, pulsing with worms hanging from translucent latex skin, heightens the visceral horror. And leading toward the film’s climax at the bar/diner, jail, and especially the Sanders’ house, become scenes of chaos, as the slimy tide swallows victims, and the iconic loud worm screams as the writhing mass of “extras” becomes the real monster.
As the horror surges to its peak, Roger, now stark raving mad and homicidal as if he has formed one mind with the worms, finds himself overwhelmed by an almost impossible onslaught—the roiling mass of carnivorous bloodsuckers, spilling up the mainfloor stairs toward the second story of the house like a creeping, rising tide of slithering ‘extras.’ The camera lingers on his tortured expression as the slimy, writhing sea engulfs him inch by inch, the flesh on one side of his face already grotesquely consumed, revealing raw, worm-infested wounds. His desperate gasps and screams mingle with the sinister squealing of the worms, whose relentless advance seems unstoppable. The dim, shadowy lighting accentuates the sickening texture of the worms and the gruesome half-devoured state of Roger’s face, making the moment a visceral portrait of nature’s overpowering vengeance. This scene combines practical effects and suspenseful pacing to create a climax that is as repulsive as it is unforgettable and shocking.
The effect is as revolting as it is mesmerizing—proof that handcrafted gore and wild ideas delivered earnestly can sometimes win over slick production. These moments drip with practical, gooey ingenuity.
Dialogue is a riot of regionalisms, underestimation, or matter-of-fact delivery: Roger Grimes: You gonna be da’ worm face now!
The unforgettable exclamation as the horror begins to dawn right from the beginning of the film: Mick at the diner as an unwanted outsider: “There’s a worm in my egg cream!” Mick gets his lip viciously bitten by one in his glass at the unfriendly town’s local diner.
Sheriff bellowing with maximum incredulity.
Sheriff: [after Mick discovers Roger’s father’s body is not here to show the sheriff] Now, listen, fella. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you sure as hell ain’t gonna pull this bull in Fly Creek. I want you the hell outta this town.
Geri Sanders: But it was right here, Mr. Reston. We both saw it.
Sheriff: Now, Geri, that’s enough. I’d expect this bull from your sister, but not you. Your daddy was real proud of you. If he were alive and saw you now, he’d tan your fanny.
Mick: She didn’t do anything.
Sheriff: Well, I’m gonna let this go ’cause it’s too hot and I’m too busy to book this little city weasel. I’ve got goddamn time to put back together again. [turns to Mick] But if I see you even one more time, you won’t even be able to call the city lawyer… ’cause all the phones are dead.
Mick: Look, Sheriff, I know you think I’m a troublemaker.
Sheriff: That’s about the first thing you said that I can buy.Mick: It was the worms.
Sheriff: Worms?
Geri: They bite! [Geri’s outburst surprises everyone in the Italian restaurant]Mick: If you’d just come with us, I can show you where it happened.
Sheriff: [impatiently] Now, listen, fella. There’s a lot of spaghetti here. It may take us ten, fifteen minutes to finish it. That’s a bigger head start than you deserve.
The actors dive into their eccentric roles with both swagger and a touch of disbelief—Scardino sells Mick’s city-boy panic with endearing nerdiness, while Pearcy manages to be both level-headed and not above shrieking with convincing horror. R.A. Dow, as the socially clumsy Roger, gives the film its unsettling, almost tragic-comic edge.
All of this slithers along to a jittery, atonal score by Robert Prince, synthy and stringy, alternately evoking nature documentaries and nightmare circus music. The music winds itself into quiet scenes, then crescendos with worm’s-eye-view terror, pushing the atmosphere from camp to genuine unease. It’s not a soundtrack you’ll leave humming, but the song that plays over the ending credits of Squirm (1976), “Shadows,” composed by Robert Prince, stays with you.
Squirm may have wriggled into theaters as an underdog, but its impact wasn’t lost on critics willing to see past the surface. Some reviews called out its “overgrown Saturday matinee” energy while applauding its ingenuity, turning nightcrawlers of the earth into fuel for nightmare and campy climactic set-pieces.
At the time of release, Squirm didn’t exactly set critics wriggling with praise. Vincent Canby, in his review from The New York Times, July 31, 1976, called it “revolting and, in its own wormy fashion, effective,” noting its refusal to apologize for its own excesses. The effects, while crude, are suitably nauseating, proof that a movie’s magic sometimes lies in its ability to thrill and repulse in equal measure.
There’s real magic in how Squirm gets under your skin, both literally and figuratively. What could have been mere schlock instead lives on with a beating heart, awkward, earnest, squishy, and unforgettable. Sometimes a film doesn’t have to be a masterpiece in anyone else’s eyes for it to be pure gold in yours; it just has to wriggle its way into your imagination and refuse to let go. That’s the filmmaking alchemy at the creeping heart of Squirm.
Still, what makes Squirm a masterpiece—yes, I said mastpiece—(Squirm is one of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite films of the 1970s!) is that unique chemistry of awkward sincerity, creature-feature spectacle, and regional weirdness. It’s drive-in DNA pulses with everything that makes “schlock” so lovable: eager performances, a sly wink at terror tropes, and moments of gooey, genuine invention. If you look closely, you’ll see not just the wriggling monsters, but the earnest heart beneath. That’s why I’ll celebrate it at The Last Drive-In—a film that may never burrow onto AFI’s lists, but has nonetheless made itself a home somewhere deep and soft in my cinephile’s soul.
FROGS 1972
Clint Crockett: Well it seems like everyone in our family is hung-up on frogs
Now, from worms to frogs. There’s something irresistibly swampy about Frogs (1972)—a film that, for all its ribbiting absurdity, has managed to hop along in the pop consciousness as both eco-horror oddity and drive-in delicacy. Another 70s horror that I saw on the big screen, (and I love the movie poster of the hand emerging from a giant frog, so much that it’s hanging in my film room). Released at the feverish intersection of early ’70s environmental anxiety and Hollywood’s love for camp spectacle, Frogs takes the “nature strikes back” theme and throws the whole swamp stew at the wall with a menagerie of critters that would make even the boldest naturalist want to scramble back into the canoe.
Jason Crockett: I still believe man is master of the world.
Pickett Smith: Does that mean he can’t live in harmony with the rest of it?
A product of its time, Frogs arrived as Nixon’s EPA was barely out of the swamp and B-movies had developed a taste for social cautionary tales. You can practically smell the pesticide as Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott in pre-mustache, proto-hunky environmentalist mode) photographs pollution along the bayous of the American South. His peaceful drift is cut short by a speedboat collision, courtesy of the riotously dysfunctional privilege-fueled Crockett family, a Southern dynasty gathered for a combined Fourth of July and birthday blowout at the manor of Jason Crockett (Ray Milland), their irascible patriarch.
Ray Milland, once a golden boy of Hollywood and an Oscar winner, delivers a delightfully sour performance here: Jason Crockett is a wheelchair-bound bully barking orders and belligerent barbs whose wealth has made him master only of isolation and poison, not the nature he so haughtily declares war on.
Milland’s transition from celebrated star to practically a genre lifer is almost meta-commentary in itself. His gruff pronouncements carry an acid fatigue, tinged with the awareness that even movie royalty sometimes ends their reign among the dim lights of B horror cinema, outmatched by frogs, snakes, and Spanish moss alike.
Joan Van Ark plays the sympathetic granddaughter Karen, and Adam Roarke plays the roguish Clint. Iris Martindale, played by Holly Irving, has a memorable scene involving her and her flighty net, pursuing butterflies on the estate’s grounds, which leads to her being attacked and ultimately killed by a combination of leeches and a rattlesnake. You might remember Irving playing the character Clara Weidermeyer on All in the Family. In one of the best episodes, Edith Has Jury Duty in Season 1, and Archie is Worried About His Job.
Amongst the rest of the parade of family members and staff, some future appetizers are Judy Pace as Bella Garrington, Lynn Borden as Jenny Crocket (Clint’s wife), Lance Taylor Sr. plays the long-suffering butler Charles, Mae Mercer plays Maybelle, and David Gilliam plays Michael Martindale.
What’s delicious here is the stew of archetypes: the haughty matriarch, the greedy heirs arguing over inheritances, the flighty fiancées, and the help who see the signs before anyone else. Yet it should have been a sly nod to Hollywood’s own shifting currents, the “Hag Cinema” of the era—once the dominion of stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford chewing the Gothic wallpaper, Ray Milland was taking up the mantle, and instead of ‘psycho-biddy’ you could call this ‘psycho-codger’ cinema. Milland was leading the way alongside Glenn Ford and Joseph Cotton, who were in a slew of these movies. I’ll talk about the hypocrisy in my upcoming feature, From Glamour to Trauma: Deconstructing Hag Cinema.
Jason Crockett: Karen… and everyone else… this conversation has ended!
Pickett Smith: No, it hasn’t, Mr. Crockett. Look, with Grover and Kenneth dead, I don’t know what’s going on around here… or if it is happening anywhere else… but we are a bunch of damn fools not to face the fact that we are in a hell of a lot of trouble! And we’re gonna have to get together to fight it!
Bella Garrington: Keep talking Mr. Pickett, ’cause you are the only man around here who’s saying anything!
Pickett Smith: First of all, we’re gonna have to try to find Iris, Stuart and Michael. But to be very honest with you… I don’t think we will. Not alive anyway. But whether we find them or not, we’ve got to get off this damn island! All of us, now! We’ll take the power boat. If we have to, we’ll tow the canoe.
Jason Crockett: And leave this house empty and deserted… on the Fourth of July?
Pickett Smith: I don’t really think there’s gonna be anybody around here to worry about today. Maybe if you didn’t notice, but there hasn’t been one boat out on that lake all day!
Clint Crockett: Do you think this is happening everywhere, Mr. Smith?
Pickett Smith: Well if it is, I think we’d stand a better chance if we all get out of here together.
Jason Crockett: Well, I forbid it! I control these people, not you!
Bella Garrington: Nobody controls me, Mr. Crockett! Now I’m asking for your permission to get off this island, by myself or with anyone else, I just want to go!
The plot unfolds in a fever of escalating animal attacks, choreographed not with logical precision but with the dream-logic of a nature documentary on the fritz. Pickett, after investigating the estate’s poisoned grounds, begins to realize the frogs aren’t the only mutinous species—snakes, moss, tarantulas, alligators, birds, and even butterflies join the assault. The reason? Jason Crockett’s legacy of dumping chemicals and declaring dominion over the wilderness has kicked off an ecological reckoning, a “revolt of nature” that plays like a vaguely sinister Dr.Seuss tale for the exploitation circuit, with all the childlike horror/sci-fi surrealism. Seuss’s stories famously feature imaginative, exaggerated creatures, a certain stylized rhythmic progression, and always possess a moral undercurrent, often cloaked in whimsical language and colorful chaos. Frogs choreographs its “nature gone wrong” premise with a parade of animal antagonists, each taking turns to rebel and cause mayhem in increasingly inventive vignettes.
Pickett Smith: You see that? As soon as I went after them, they scattered.
Jason Crickett: And very intelligently too. The frogs are thinking now, the snails are planning strategy, they have brains as good as ours — is that your point?
The island’s telephones go dead, boats drift away, and one by one, the Crockett clan is pared down in inventive, animal-driven sequences: a greenhouse becomes a gas chamber, Spanish moss becomes a noose, and beady-eyed, croaking interlopers invade the mansion’s stately interiors.
Director George McCowan conjures an atmosphere that’s both humidly convincing and endearingly awkward, long, near-silent stretches are broken only by the drone of insects or the croak of frogs, while the Florida location (the real-life Wesley Mansion at Eden Gardens State Park) gives the whole production a sun-bleached, moss-draped texture that’s as much a character as any of the cast. Shots linger on amphibians and reptiles just a beat too long, heightening the uncanny vibe and making you almost root for the critters. Well, at least I do.
Of course, underlying the schlock is a melancholy theme that lands harder than most expected, the cost of corporate greed and human arrogance. Jason Crockett is the capitalist king laid low by the very environment he sought to domesticate, his empire literally croaked by the creatures he called pests. The film makes no secret of its moral: polluted waters, discarded bottle caps, debris, and chemical canisters aren’t simply set dressing; they are nature’s receipts, and the frogs and their pals are here to collect.
The final moments are a darkly comic slow burn: til the final nihilistic ending, where Jason alone, surrounded by an army of leaping splodging frogs as the lights flicker out, the phone lines are still dead, and the sound of croaks drowning out patriotic music. The last man standing isn’t rescued by wealth or status; nature’s persistence outnumbers him.
Frogs may have been dismissed as ludicrous on release, but it persists, warts and all, as an artifact of a time when America’s environmental guilt and horror film exuberance joined forces in the swamp. At its heart, the film is pure drive-in poetry: half satirical, half sincere, and fully alive to the possibility that nature, tired of being trashed and mere background, might one damp Fourth of July hop up and seize the scene.
Sssssss 1973
There’s an unmistakable hiss of 1970s horror running through Sssssss (1973), a dare-you-to-say-it title that’s become synonymous with the era’s body horror and mad science obsession. Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski—veteran of genre fare from Attack of the Giant Leeches 1958 and Night of the Blood Beast (1959), to Made-for-TV movies like Black Noon 1971, Terror in the Sky 1971 and Women in Chains 1972), to primetime TV hits, including several episodes of Columbo.
All the venomous snakes featured were authentic and the cast actually did have to interact with them for filming. Only in the shot where Strother Martin grabs the king cobra’s head during the show was a puppet snake used.
Sssssss features a cast led by Strother Martin, renowned for his unforgettable line deliveries and a face that seemed born for both ridicule and menace. Martin carved out a legendary niche as one of Hollywood’s most distinctive character actors. He often specialized in roles that were a touch slimy and more than a bit odd, and always left an indelible impression.
Strother Martin carved out a memorable career playing a wide range of unforgettable characters, from the menacing prison warden in Cool Hand Luke—where his iconic line “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” still echoes through cinema history—to the eccentric Bolivian mine boss Percy Garris in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He matched wits with John Wayne as the shrewd Colonel Stonehill in True Grit, and brought raw brutality as the depraved bounty hunter Coffer in The Wild Bunch, whether he was the sneering sidekick Floyd in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Martin’s nervy presence and offbeat charisma gave life and spark to every supporting part he took on.
One role that stands out to me is The Brotherhood of Satan (1971), an eerie folk-horror gem I’ve written about for this series, where Martin stars as a seemingly kindly small-town doctor who turns out to be the sinister leader of a Satanic cult terrorizing a desert community. Strother Martin fully embraces the bizarre, malevolent maestro in a film loaded with surreal imagery and a genuinely weird, unsettling vibe, and arch villainy. Another film I absolutely love is the underrated Walter Hill action drama Hard Times (1975), where Martin plays Poe, a loyal but eccentric “cut man” for Charles Bronson’s underground fighter, a role balancing gentle humor and beaten-down wisdom.
You might say Strother Martin was Hollywood’s patron saint of the peculiar—forever slithering around the fringes of respectability with a sly grin, a twang of insincerity, and a knack for playing characters who were as slippery as they were eccentric. Whether scheming, sniveling, or simply unsettling, his legacy shines brightest in those perfectly creepy, off-kilter roles where charm and shadiness meet with the same discerning eye.
Dirk Benedict (Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series (1978–1979)) plays lab assistant David Blake, and Heather Menzies, who played Maggie McKeown in Joe Dante’s horror satire Piranha (1978), plays Martin’s daughter Kristina.
The film slithers with both old-school creature feature charm and a creeping sense of perverse tragedy. At the center of this slithering tale is Dr. Carl Stoner, a herpetologist whose snake-centric research keeps him all but exiled in his dusty laboratory, nestled somewhere between a scientific institution and a low-rent roadside attraction. With the help of his daughter, Kristina, Stoner sells venom and puts on shows with his most prized venomous specimens, the king cobras. When his previous assistant mysteriously vanishes, Stoner hires a bright, trusting college student named David Blake, presenting him with the promise of practical research and a few “harmless” inoculations against venom. The reality is much darker and far more awe-inspiring in its audacity.
What David mistakes for anti-venom treatments are in fact the first steps in Dr. Stoner’s deranged notion of progress. Convinced that humanity is doomed and that snakes will inherit the earth, Stoner is quietly experimenting to transform men into serpents.
Dr. Carl Stoner: [Speaking to Harry the snake] You’re asking me questions, Harry, and I hear you. A scientist cannot afford the indulgence of guilt. And after all, if God doesn’t want me to continue, means of my disposal are always at his command.
Dr. Carl Stoner: I think I could turn to live with animals. They are so placid, so self contained. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition; They do not lay awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied; not one is demented with the mania of owning things; not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago; not one is respectable, or unhappy over the whole earth. Walt Whitman, Harry. A great man.
The early effects creep in insidiously: David’s skin peels, his temperature drops, and strange, scaly patches begin to appear. As his body changes, of course, a budding romance develops between David and Kristina, adding a bittersweet undercurrent to his metamorphosis. At first, Kristina is blissfully naïve, her devotion to her father and to David blinding her to the grotesque fate at hand.
Meanwhile, the cracks in Dr. Stoner’s sanity widen; he reacts with icy calm when a colleague, Dr. Daniels (Richard B. Shull), brings him bad news about his research grant. Suspicious, Daniels snoops around, only to become lunch for one of Stoner’s larger specimens after catching sight of David’s horrific state. This escalation underlines the doctor’s slide from maddened genius, which in these flicks almost always leads to an outright murderer.
The film’s most ghastly, unforgettable set piece comes as Kristina, chasing down rumors at the local carnival, stumbles upon a sideshow attraction: a limbless “snake-man” who’s been caged and put on display. To her horror, Kristina realizes this is none other than Stoner’s missing assistant, another failed subject of his experiments, doomed to live out his days as a living twist on the mythical chimaera. Terrified, she races home to find David nearly unrecognizable, locked in the final phase of transformation. By now, Stoner’s mania has reached its highest point; he declares his experiments a success and, in a moment of twisted triumph, allows a king cobra to bite him. The venom is fatal; he dies surrounded by his reptilian charges.
The chaos doesn’t end there; the authorities, growing suspicious, arrive just as Kristina discovers her father’s body. The last, tragic tableau is almost too much: David, now fully a king cobra, encounters a mongoose meant for lab tests. Their deadly struggle is interrupted only by Kristina’s anguished cry, a poignant (and, for 1970s horror, surprisingly open-ended) finish that leaves terror and heartbreak coiled side by side.
Universal released the film as a double feature with The Boy Who Cried Werewolf in 1973, making the program one of the studio’s last double bills.
Sssssss endures as a curio at the intersection of drive-in horror and cautionary horror/science fiction. With a cast honoring Martin’s classic slow-burn menace, Benedict’s commitment to transformation, and Menzies’ innocence, plus pioneering make-up effects from John Chambers, the film is both a camp time capsule and a surprisingly sophisticated nightmare fable. Its greatest horror is not the snakes, nor even the grotesque spectacle of mutation, but the chilling conviction of a man who wants to remake the world, and doesn’t much care who pays the price for his slithering, warped dream.
