cult film freak: SSSSSSS

Written by James M. Tate / 6/27/2011 / No comments / creature , dirk benedict , heather menzies , horror , reb brown , seventies , strother martin

SSSSSSS

6/27/2011 | No comment

year: 1973 cast: Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, Heather Menzies, Reb Brown rating: ****

The title makes and breaks this picture. It's cheesy and funny and hokey and silly. Not the movie, the title: and that's the problem.

SSSSSSS is actually quite good, genuinely entertaining, with some terrific performances headlined by Strother Martin as a mad scientist who's actually down-to-earth, docile and friendly but has a sinister agenda: hence Dirk Benedict as the med-student being given supposedly standard inoculations.

Terrific side-roles by Heather Menzies ("Piranha") as the doc's faithful daughter; underrated character-actor Richard B. Schull as his droll collegiate nemesis; Reb Brown as a bully jock; Tim O'Conner as a circus owner and some real life snakes including a cobra, black mamba and boa constrictor all add up to a film that slithers with ease and perfection from one situation to the next, building to an inevitable and awarding conclusion.

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Tags : creature , dirk benedict , heather menzies , horror , reb brown , seventies , strother martin

James M. Tate

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