Rattlers (1976)

Sadly what could have been a lot of fun (it is for some…but for the wrong reasons), I just found Rattlers (1976) rather dull. You have the Mojave Desert and killer rattlesnakes: just put together a decent plot to accompany those items in a film and voilà. Alas. The film has this herpetologist hired by a desert sheriff to find reasoning behind a series of snake attacks on locals in his town and county. Added eventually to his mission is a female photographer immediately initiating her women's lib philosophy as he is hesitant to take her along with him into the desert to research possible reasons regarding the snakes being so aggressively hostile and homicidal. A military base with a colonel who had a barrel disposed of in a mine shaft soon emerges as a potential suspect in what might be causing the snakes to kill as they do.Set pieces include a young man climbing up a ladder in a barn and finding a rattler waiting on him in a loft, snakes found scattered in a domestic mother's home, a plumber underneath a house in cramped confines (my favorite moment) undoing a pipe and receiving some uninviting company, and a loose pipe allowing snakes to sneak into the bathtub of a divorcée as she kicks around (hey, stupid! Get out of the tub!). The jeep tire sequence with the two soldiers getting out to put on a spare--instead getting an unwelcome attack from snakes (yep, snakes can fly up to a spinning tire, grasp a moving tire with their fangs, and take a chunk out of it…this, a military-issued jeep)—is as head-scratching as the herpetologist and photographer driving off to Vegas for a bit (in one of those cheesy romantic interludes vignettes, no less) of a getaway. They return and immediately have their tent (none other time but this one, at the end) raided by the snakes. The barrel soon brings military superiors to the colonel and he goes off-the-grid mentally, shooting a "biomedical doc" (a drunk who knew too much; in his first appearance he flirts with the photographer) before driving on to the mine shaft, getting into a gunfight with the sheriff and his cops and a couple military guys (the colonel even tosses a couple of grenades!). The snake shots are done cautiously to avoid seeing the snakes actually biting the human victims through the editing. None of them are all that impactful. The film does come right out of the gate with two boys falling into a rattlesnake trap informing the audience that no matter who you are or what age, death is right there at any time. There is simply too much dead space that drags the pace and its lack of real talent in front of the camera doesn't help, either. It fits, however, into the summer where movies like this might go down easier. This is for the drive-in, especially, and for nights where you could afford to forfeit good time for bad product. Rattlers is probably best for bad movie lovers. It has a plot and characters, performances and style, fit for those who enjoy the mildew of film. The Mojave desert, though, is a fantastic place to shoot a killer snake movie...too bad talent hasn't done so yet.

This One Came From the Studios of "Nudie Cutie" Mogul Harry Novak. Known for Higher Than Usual Production Values in the Nudie Genre, His Films had a Beautiful Color Palette and a Higher Sheen Than Most of Novak's Contemporaries.In This One, He Produced One of Those "Nature Nasty" Pics Popular in the Seventies. Here it is Snakes, Snakes, and More Snakes. You Can't Blame Them Though Because the Evil Military was Meddling in Things Best Left Un Meddled, Searching for a New Nerve Gas. Yikes is This 1917? Oh Yea, Viet Nam.Anyhow, Novak Forsakes Human Females for Sheddable Reptile Skin Here and Tries Hard to Make it All Work Enough for Inclusion on a Double Feature at at the Drive-In. The Thing Almost Succeeds but the Snakes Only Know How to Do Two Things, Rattle and Bite and This Gets Old Fast.Easy to Ridicule with Clunky Editing and Storytelling with Limited Talent On Hand the Movie Has Little to Recommend Unless Ripping it Apart is Your Idea of Fun. Otherwise it is One of those for Genre Completists Only. Casual Viewers Can Miss the Boos and Hissing Without Missing Much.

Rattlers (1976) ** (out of 4) After a series of snake attacks, an expert (Sam Chew, Jr.) is called in and he's assigned a photographer (Elisabeth Chauvet) and the two set out to discover what the cause is. As they're investigating more violent snake attacks begin happening and it seems an abandoned mine might have something to do with it.RATTLERS is one of many "nature gone wild" movies that were released throughout the 1970s. Obviously the greatest of these was JAWS but there were some pretty good films like GRIZZLY, DAY OF THE ANIMALS and countless television movies. RATTLERS really isn't all that entertaining and the "snake" subgenre had better stuff including SSSSSS and even FROGS had some good snake scenes.If you're a fan of the genre then this one here is certainly still worth watching at least once and there are some effective scenes scattered throughout. The highlight of the movie is a scene where a woman goes to take a bath and gets some uninvited guests. This sequence is directed and edited extremely well and will have your skin crawling. Many of the attack scenes look somewhat cheap because of how they were edited as it's clear most of the time there aren't any snakes anywhere near the person on screen.The biggest problem with this picture is that there's way too much downtime where the characters are just talking back and forth. The dialogue isn't all that entertaining nor is the relationship that blooms between the two leads. The performances by Chew and Chauvet are good but we just needed more snake action.

Okay, I'm exaggerating when I call this a classic, but I like these '70s revenge-of-nature films. I remember seeing the trailers for films like "Rattlers" and "Grizzly" and "Empire of the Ants" on TV when I was a kid. But would my parents ever let me attend these gems? Heavens no! So now I'm making up for lost time as an adult, rediscovering these terrible films from my youth. In many ways these films are like a time machine to another era--an era with bad clothing, terrible dialogue, cool cars, and in-your-face feminism, buster! While you can't really destroy the plot of "Rattlers" (rattlesnakes attack people, duh!), I would urge you to watch the film for the "performance" of the main female lead. You haven't seen cardboard until you've seen her. Wow. Awesome.