Rattlers (1976)

User Rating:

4.2/10   

Director:

John McCauley

Writers:

Jerry Golding (writer)
John McCauley (writer)

Release Date:

23 April 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Thriller

Plot:

A herpetologist investigating a series of fatal rattlesnake attacks discovers that the creatures have been infected by a mysterious nerve gas disposed of in the desert by the military.

Plot Keywords:

Rattlesnake | Desert | Nerve Gas | Zoologist | Dead Children

Cast

Sam Chew Jr.	...	Dr. Tom Parkinson (as Sam Chew)
Elisabeth Chauvet	...	Ann Bradley
Dan Priest	...	Colonel
Ronald Gold	...	Captain Delaney (as Ron Gold)
Al Dunlap	...	General
Dan Balentine	...	Pilot
Gary Van Ormand	...	Woodley (as Gary Van Orman)
Darwin Joston	...	Palmer (as Darwin Jostin)
Cary J. Pitts	...	Sergeant (as Cary Pitts)
Eric Lawson	...	Guard
Tony Ballen	...	Sheriff Gates
Richard Lockmiller	...	Deputy
Jo Jordan	...	Mother
Scott McCartor	...	Rick (as Scott McCarter)
Tip McClure	...	Plumber (as Tipp McClure)

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG

Company:

Boxoffice International Pictures (BIP)

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In some shots of Tom and the helicopter pilot flying through the desert you can tell that they are actually on the ground and that the helicopter's blades are not turning by the reflection in their sunglasses.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Extra Weird (2003) (V)

The "Plan 9" of killer snake movies

They have yet to make a good horror movie about poisonous snakes, but this 70's anti-classic is so bad it almost approaches goodness. It's kind of the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" of killer snake movies. They couldn't really afford too many snakes or the special effects to create venom-bloated corpses, so they substituted a bunch of nonsense about military tests making the rattlesnakes go crazy (although they never explain why the snakes all hunt in packs or how they sneak up on their incredibly stupid victims). But speaking of incredibly stupid, the heroes are a male chauvinist herpetology professor and a feminist photographer, who of course fall madly in love while hunting down the killer snakes. The sexist professor insists that his job is no place for a woman, even though, aside from the snakes, all he really does is drive around the Mojave Desert, and I don't know what the female photographer is supposed to be photographing. For some reason, these two geniuses seem to do all their hunting at night (when you're hunting rattlers I guess you don't want them to see you coming). They sleep in a tent for no other reason than to wake up surrounded by snakes. Then during the climax of the film they suddenly take off to Vegas to whoop it up while the rattlers run amok. (Your snake-fighting tax dollars at work, I guess).

The most famous scene involves a young housewife being attacked in the bathtub. However, this scene is neither scary nor sexy--laughably stupid perhaps. I actually liked the opening scene with the two little boys the best, but it was pretty much all downhill from there.