Rattlers (1976)

Absolutely Fantastic

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

After a series of fatal rattlesnake attacks, sexist reptile expert Tom Parkinson (Sam Chew) and feminist photographer Ann Bradley (Elisabeth Chauvet) are hired by the local sheriff to investigate, the pair eventually discovering that the snakes have been accidentally exposed to a top-secret biological weapon that has increased their aggression.This one kicks off with two young boys being bitten to death by numerous rattlers, followed soon after by a dog meeting the same fate; with children and cute pets biting the big one, Rattlers looks set to be a whole load of mean-spirited 'animals attack' fun. However, barring one memorable scene featuring snakes in a bath-tub, the rest of the film doesn't fulfill its potential.Too much of the running time is dedicated to the dull investigative work carried out by Tom and Ann, as well as their blossoming romance, when what viewers of this kind of trash really want to see are lots of terrifying reptile attacks, AND the grisly aftermath: the reality is little interaction between human and reptile, and absolutely no sign of the hideously swollen victims covered in puncture wounds.

This movie begins with two kids climbing up the walls of a canyon and falling into a rattlesnake pit. Because they are so disfigured by the repeated snake bites the local sheriff calls in an expert by the name of "Dr. Tom Parkinson" (Sam Chew Jr.) who works at a nearby college. Although puzzled by the numerous bites he doesn't really offer much help until other cases begin to emerge. After that he and a female photographer named "Ann Bradley" (Elizabeth Chauvet) are led by their investigation to a top-secret army compound which seems to be in the in the middle of all of the incidents. Now, rather than reveal any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this wasn't terribly bad as far as films of this nature are concerned. Personally, I didn't think the acting was too bad considering the awful script and some of the ridiculous scenarios the actors were given. That said, although I typically enjoy movies of this type I thought this particular film wasn't nearly as good as it could have been and I have rated it accordingly.

Any horror movie that features the death of two young children – albeit taking place largely off screen – within the first five minutes can't be completely worthless in my humble opinion. Still, another five minutes and the world's most pathetic Cobra catch later, you might start fearing that "Rattles" may be worthless after all. Somewhere in the South- Western desert a bunch of rattle snakes attacked and painfully killed two young boys who were out on vacation with their parents. Since this was already the second deadly snake-related incident in the area in a short period, the local sheriff calls upon the help of Los Angeles university professor and snake-expert Tom Parkinson. Well, he may know a thing or two about slithering serpents, but he's also one of the worst actors I've ever seen in my life! The number of animal and human deaths caused by venomous snake bites alarmingly increases and our dreadful professor, along with a sexy female photographer, heads out into the desert to investigate. "Rattlers" is a very rudimentary type of 70's eco-horror feature. Every character that gets introduced, apart from the main ones of course, exclusively serves as snake bait and to get killed in imaginative settings, like a bathtub or an airplane cockpit. There's not a whole lot of suspense and the terrible acting performances are infuriating, but at least the script is never too boring. Quite the contrary, it is way too silly and nonsensical to be boring! The film doesn't really bother to explain in detail why the rattle snakes all of a sudden became so aggressive and bloodthirsty, but maybe that's because the professor is a bonehead who prefers to take his photographer out on a date in Vegas (during a tremendously hilarious let's-fall-in-love compilation) while they should be researching! Oh well, it's a cheap 70's creature-feature, so it's bound to have something to do with a military experiment gone wayward. Some other interesting things I've learned from watching this film is that snakes can apparently bite through the moving tires of a jeep! How about that! Oh, and I also learned that it's perfectly okay for drunken army medics to make extremely sexist remarks against liberated photographers.

Killer rattlesnakes of the American Southwest gather up in large numbers and start unprovoked attacks on people, and it's up to a male expert on reptiles and a female photographer to find out why and stop them. "Rattlers" has a thin, one-note script that can barely sustain even the 79 minutes of its running time, and the snake-attack scenes aren't anything to write home about either, though at least the snakes are real which is instantly preferable to the obvious CGI we would probably get in a similar film today. The print I saw was in pretty poor shape, and made a constant crackling sound, as if someone was burning it up; the movie is not offensively bad (apart maybe from the scene near the end where the two heroes are enjoying a carefree romance in Vegas without having done anything to stop the snakes first!), but it is so unremarkable that if someone DID burn the master print up few people would probably notice. On a side note, the female lead is absolutely gorgeous. I was somewhat surprised to find out that she never made another film. (**)