Short Takes

VICTORY OVER VHS OBLIVION! The vigilance of CineSchlockers has been rewarded with another capture after 117 weeks among CineSchlock-O-Rama's Most Wanted.

TV's Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) has a deadly "fay-yah to co-municate" with a mad scientist (Strother Martin) who loves dirty, stinkin' snakes WAY more than people. So much so, that he surreptitiously injects our hopelessly naive hero with an experimental serum that makes Face Man shed his skin, sprout scales and slowly transmutate into an oversized alligator handbag, er, King Cobra. Pre-title verbiage proclaims "all reptiles in this film are real," which makes one wonder how the heck they got that python to swaller a guy's SHOE and whose footsies actually got snake bit in the SHOWER!?! Ick!!! Sadly, Dirk's mid-mutation diddling of the doc's daughter (Heather Menzies) is sequel bait as yet left unexplored. Speaking of, in an apparent case where skinny dipping really WAS integral to the plot, even nearsighted CineSchlockers will notice leaves were strategically PAINTED OVER the nethers of Dirk and Heather during post production to preserve a kiddo-friendly rating.

No breasts. Four corpses. Boozing boa. Mamba milking. Surly carnies. Gratuitous wife joke. Multiple hypodermic closeups. Gratuitous nightmare sequence. One woefully mismatched fist fight. Not everyone appreciates a herpetologist in the neighborhood: "FREAKS!!! THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE! A BUNCH OF SNAKE FREAKS!!!"

1973, 99 mins, 1.85:1 anam, DD 2.0, Trailer.