The same year as starring in killer snake movie Venom, Oliver Reed also appeared in killer snake move Spasms (although this film would be released two years later, in 1983). I'm not saying that the actor was in a rut (okay, that IS what I am saying), but surely he was making these movies for beer money. Peter Fonda, whose career was hardly on the up either, co-starred, but the real draw was surely the massive reptile itself: what a shame, then, that the snake remains hidden for most of the film (the animal's attacks employing blue-tinted snake POV shots), and is quite laughable when it is finally revealed.
Directed by William Fruet, the man behind such mediocre thrillers and chillers as Death Weekend, Killer Party and Blue Monkey, this scary snake flick stars Ollie as Jason Kincaid, who has been cursed with nightmares ever since he was bitten by a supposedly supernatural snake that appears once every seven years in deepest Micronesia (the same part of the world where the strange plant in Blue Monkey originated). Wanting to put an end to his terrifying dreams, Kincaid has the creature captured and shipped to the States, and enlists help from expert in psychic phenomena Dr. Tom Brasilian (fnarr, fnarr!), played by Fonda. Unfortunately, an evil snake cult are keen to acquire the deadly serpent, and accidentally release it during a bungled raid on Brasilian's laboratory.
The ensuing chaos includes Brasilian and Kincaid's niece Suzanne (Kerrie Keane) coming face-to-fang with the escaped snake in a greenhouse (a scene that provides a 'parrot scare', a variation on the classic 'cat scare'), the snake going crazy in a sorority house (the reptile launching the body of one victim through a shower screen where another girl is washing herself), and the snake's hilarious slither through a crowded park, which allows Fruet to include a shot of a well endowed woman on roller skates (camera levelled at her chest) and a buxom blonde in a tiny pink bikini playing frisbee.
Hot woman in one-size-too-small swimwear aside, the film's most memorable moments come courtesy of make-up effects legend Dick Smith, who uses some terrific bladder effects to show the result of the snake's bite: as the victims go into shock, their veins bulge and their flesh swells until the pressure causes the skin to burst. I only wish there had been more of Smith's work, 'cos it's really good.
Fruet wraps things up leaving several plot threads unresolved: an incestuous relationship between Kincaid and his niece is hinted at and then totally ignored, while the snake cult conveniently vanishes. The rushed finale sees Kincaid using his psychic connection with the snake to track it down and try to kill it, Reed wandering around his house, having psychic flashbacks to the snake's previous victims (thereby padding out the runtime a tad), before meeting his scaly nemesis. Having only seen glimpses of the creature thus far, we finally understand why: it's rubbish. The Ollie vs Snake showdown is very disappointing: Kincaid is killed all too quickly, Brasilian arriving on the scene moments later to shoot the (now stationary) reptile in the head with his machine gun. It all sssseeems a little too eassssy for my liking (sssorry, I couldn't resssisssst).
