Highly Overrated But Still Good

Expected more

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Blistering performances.

In a remote English township a scientist is treating his wife's dementia with snake serum. The woman dies immediately after childbirth; it is easy to note that the baby girl is a "little different". A housekeeper, believing in witchcraft, alarms the townsfolk that the child will mature with snake-like tendencies. For the next twenty years, area citizens are dying with two puncture wounds. Suspected is a pretty teen that lives in a field full of snakes. Scotland Yard sends an inspector to investigate the mysterious deaths. A chance middle of the night meeting of the inspector and the young girl brings suspicion as deaths and suspense continues.Starring are Susan Travers, John McCarthy, Geoffrey Denton, John Cazabon, Frances Bennett and Arnold Marle.

Yes for a snake woman movie don't expect to see any transformation scenes. If you go into this with these appropriately lowered expectations you'll find a fast moving movie with an engaging music score by Buxton Orr centered around a snake charmer's theme and various serial music technique's, the score is the most worthwhile element.Mainly if you look up the writer's credits and see he later gave us THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE you'll know you're in for, silly but fast paced nonsense and overheated under thought dialogue. It's a bit shocking to see dialogue this bad in a British film and the performers are either encouraged or allowed to play it loud and big. Without fake special effects to drag the story down you have instead fake acting--from the supporting players. Should make you appreciate LEE and CUSHING who could sell this type of thing--none of these actors can. It's the type of thing where evil becomes a three syllable word.The snake woman herself, Travers, isn't allowed to do much which is too bad as she sees alluring and has a spooky music theme augmented by bells.The director doesn't show much promise--something you could argue his whole career fails to do, but in fairness this moves along at a fast pace. There is a nice shot of a shake slithering out of a skull's mouth and a couple of shots behind or through foreground objects--something he became briefly famous for after THE IPCRESS FILE. It all cuts together and seems like a movie, if only he could have controlled the actors--he may have had no control over the script.The abandoned farm location is rather impressive. This movie is fun because it's never dull. Snake attack scenes aren't very good but there is a good lab fire sequence early on. Despite budget limits the plot just lurches from one unlikely premise you have to accept to ultimately come to an equally unlikely ending. Final scene adds a, ahead of its time, government conspiracy angle.It's like but better than The Giant Leeches or Leach Woman--so I give it credit for that. I prefer the same director's other early horror film Dr. Blood's Coffin.

Snake Woman (1961) * 1/2 (out of 4)Rare and incredibly silly horror film has a mad doctor trying to save his dying wife by injecting her with snake venom. She eventually becomes pregnant and gives birth to a little girl who grows up to transform into a snake or does she? This isn't a very original idea, not even for 1961 but what really kills the film is some of the worst acting I've ever seen. The acting provides many laughs but this goes against the serious mood of the story trying to be told by the director. A few better performances would have made this much more entertaining.

Fans of atmospheric and story-driven 60's horror all over the world should urgently combine forces and catapult "The Snake Woman" out of oblivion and into the list of favorites! Despite the compelling storyline and an acclaimed director in the credits (Sidney J. Furie), this early 60's chiller incomprehensibly got neglected over the years, whereas other – much worse – horror films from that period received unnecessary fancy DVD-releases. This is a solid thriller, filmed in stylish black & white and filled with fluently written dialogues. The events take place during the late 19th century in a little Northern English town inhabited by superstitious and easily petrified people. Since many years, a brilliant scientist successfully keeps his wife's mental illness under control by injecting her with snake venom. When the wife dies whilst giving birth to a daughter, a local witch claims that the newborn child is pure evil and must be destroyed. The scientist is killed by an angry mob but the baby girl is miraculously saved with the help of an understanding doctor. 19 years later several corpses are found in the Moors, containing a lethal amount of snake poison. The frightened villagers believe that the curse of the snake woman has struck them, but the young Scotland Yard inspector doesn't believe in old-fashioned witchery and investigates the case. Sidney J. Furie impressively manages to maintain the mysterious atmosphere throughout the entire film and makes great use of the rural locations and spirit of the era. You can truly sense the fear of the villagers when they're confronted with yet another new murder and their belief in the supernatural, voodoo and evil curses is impeccably portrayed. The subject matter of venom and reptiles in general apparently got researched in detail. For example, the snake girl has no eyelids, she's highly sensitive to certain sounds and she regularly sheds her skin. It's little details like this that make mythological horror so great! My only complaints are that the movie is too short (runtime 68 minutes) and that there isn't enough background to Atheris' (the snake woman) character. What happened to her in those 19 years? Does she hold a grudge against the town or does she just kill by instinct? The acting performances are very adequate and the paranoia end sequences are typically 60's.This baby just screams for a proper DVD-release!