SSSSSSS (1973)

The 1940’s and 1950’s monster movies had their hokey charms. For example, over-acting, broadness, cheesy sets, weirdly not always professional mood music, a sense that the world isn’t right, and tragic heroes who get changed into monstrosities. Often showing up on late night TV or second rank theaters, they probably influenced directors after them and movie people to this day.

When horror and terror movies came back in the 1970’s as a film genre, an underrated pleasure was the movie, “SSSSSSS”. It definitely owed something to those earlier movies. Released on the Halloween of 1973, it was definitely a copy of the 1950’s ‘monster on the attack’ movies as well as ‘science gone bad’ movies of earlier days.

Starring the “A-Team”’s, Dirk Benedict, who is alright for this kind of production, it has a ‘don’t mess with nature’ moral. It also has a nice cheesy quality of terror in a small town, much like 1950’s horror movies.

The movie is ably supported by the now deceased actor Strother Martin as well as the nice clean, efficient direction by the late Bernard Kowarski. This was his biggest credit and it was a fairly good production.

The movie begins slowly and builds up to the monster he is changing into, genetically and mentally. From the first shot that the doctor gives him, you know it’s all going to go wrong. The makeup is early 1970’s, pre-computer era and is well done. It obviously was something made right in the studio special effects shop. It’s a very professionally done makeup job. Also, the acting by Benedict as the tricked and used young student is sympathetic and well crafted for someone who basically does B movie productions and triumphs above them.

The camera work is a little eerie and expressionistic in this small town where the doctor has a secret. Not everything is right in this small town, also a 1950’s movie theme here. The film is also using the plot of the 1959 enjoyably trashy movie “The Alligator People,” which also has a young, empathetic man turning into a monster before our very eyes.

The werewolf legend and myth is also present in this film though the creatures here are snakes. There is a love interest played by the actress Heather Menzies. She does well in the role but never had a real career after this movie somehow.

The film begins slowly without giving away the first plot point and in the pre 1980’s, pre-MTV style of slower movie making, it does begin quite creepily.

Martin was an underrated actor and he does take a lot of the movie as a maniacal, even homicidal doctor with his snakes. Underneath the country accent and the manner, he could play villains and totally dreadful people very well. You wonder what he would have done in a Quentin Tarantino movie, like some other actors who’ve passed away before that. The film is not bloody or extreme. It has a 50’s/40’s moral and social conservatism, funny enough, as those movies did. You only see the snake man in a mirror or only half of him. There is taste and discipline in the movie. There’s a mid American quality to it because of where it is set, in the small country town it depicts.

Benedict’s biggest credit was the TV series, the “A-Team”, where he was a comic banana. Here he proves his acting ability. He never got the roles that could have been after this. Here he does well in a role that could have been thankless as the victim of the scientist’s experiments.

Other supporting actors such as the late Richard Shull as a victim of Martin’s doctor and several other actors, even from other 1950’s movies, equip themselves well. The sets are simple and modestly budgeted but do the job, as the 1950’s movies did as well. I wouldn’t call it the greatest science fiction movie, but it delivers scares, empathy and the acting is generally decent and so are the camera work and sets. It’s much more than a drive-in movie today.