Ssssskin-Crawling: 5 Snake Horror Films To Watch Before The ANACONDA Reboot

Its name is literally on the tin — I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the original Anaconda on this list, starring Jennifer Lopez as the leader of a documentary crew on a collision course with a deadly Amazonian predator. Also starring Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz, and The Mummy alum Jonathan Hyde, while the film was a critical failure, it’s probably the most recognizable snake horror film around, spawning three direct sequels and a crossover with Lake Placid.

While none of the kills from its titular snake are particularly gruesome thanks to a combination of a rubber prop and some…questionable CGI, let’s call it, there’s undeniably a simmering tension threaded throughout the entire film, thanks mostly to Jon Voight, playing a psychotic poacher determined to capture the film’s 40-foot namesake alive. It’s a cult classic for a reason, folks.

Most of the films on this list deal pretty directly with man-eating (or at least man-killing) snakes, but when you add Ken Russell to the mix, of course things get a bit weird. The Lair of the White Worm veers pretty far off the standard creature feature path, instead opting to mix English folklore with the eroticism of a vampire story for one hell of a wild ride. 

Based loosely (and I mean very loosely) on the Bram Stoker novel of the same name, the 1988 horror comedy stars future acting legends Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi as two hapless young men up against an ancient vampiress (Amanda Donohoe), sporting snake-like fangs and sacrificing young people to a snake god who lives in the caves surrounding their village. If that sounds completely crazy, you’re absolutely right — plus, Grant cuts a snake vampire in half with a sword. What more reason do you need to check it out?

No, I'm not talking about the Tom Hardy film. While it may slightly overstate the physical reaction to a snake bite, this 1981 thriller starring Klaus Kinski and Oliver Reed certainly doesn’t exaggerate the horror of being trapped inside with a deadly predator. Set in London, the film follows a group of international terrorists who attempt to take a wealthy couple’s son hostage, only for their plan to go horrifically wrong when the boy, an avid reptile collector, accidentally releases a deadly black mamba into his family’s home — talk about a wrench in the works. 

Being one of the few films on this list that actually uses a real snake, rather than a rubber replica, Venom sets itself apart by placing a very real danger in front of its actors — but it’s the humans who prove to be the deadlier ones. Kinski and Reed’s off-screen disputes transform into real, palpable tension on-screen, and the black mamba almost doesn’t stand a chance against two of the twentieth century’s greatest — if slightly worrying — screen actors.

If you thought killer creepy-crawlies were a new invention in horror cinema, there’s where you’re wrong. Cult of the Cobra, starring Faith Domergue and Marshall Thompson, takes us all the way back to the 1950s, when giant spiders ruled the silver screen and Leslie Nielsen was travelling to the Forbidden Planet. 

Made in 1955, this Universal film follows a set of GIs who dare to intrude on a sacred ritual while stationed in Asia, infiltrating a cult who believe certain people can turn into snakes. When caught, the cult’s priest curses them, and when the group heads home to normal life, suddenly they all start dropping dead — right as a beautiful, mysterious woman appears. It’s your classic femme fatale story wrapped up in the guise of a creature feature, with a tragic ending that’ll make you think twice about judging its rather unbelievable plastic snake prop.

For me, the scariest horror subgenre is easily body horror, so combining that with the creature feature really sets a movie up for absolutely terrifying success. The rather creatively named 1973 film Sssssss does just that, with a herpetologist (a scientist who studies amphibians and reptiles, in layman’s terms) enacting a Re-Animator like scheme that’ll leave your skin crawling for all the wrong reasons. 

In a story that screams “don’t answer every random ad you find on Craiglist,” this body horror film sees a college student slowly transformed into a human-snake hybrid, after agreeing to assist a doctor at his college with his experiments. Turns out those “experiments” actually mean being injected with a toxin that probably had some influence on Kevin Smith’s Tusk — and that is exactly why you should always read the small print.