I have one question for people who know this film well - was it a real snake all through that one scene, or a well-done prop? If the former, I would advise anyone who has the slightest liking for them to avoid this movie somewhere between the 40th and 43th minutes of it. (Anyone who does know it well will know what I mean.)
shareI had the DVD last week and watched that scene a couple of times. I'm pretty sure the snake was real. I don't think they had the ability then to make anything that looked that real. Even if they did I don't think it would be in this films budget. I know the original animal rights rules were put in place after The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). The snake lobby must have been lagging behind.
shareYes, too bad. If you hate snakes, it's still a (real) gross-out scene, and if you DON'T hate snakes, you have TWO reasons to hate seeing it.
shareYou can relax. It's a prop in this film, though they did use a live snake in the 1971 re-make WEB OF THE SPIDER.
shareThanks for sharing, Squonkamatic, it's interesting to know. Can you tell us how you knew? Are there any sources you can name?
share[deleted]
I just watched the movie for the first time since I was a mere lad. The snake scene had me curious too. I watched it with the pause button clicking one frame at a time. The frame before the actual "chop", there was a small black mark towards the bottom of the frame. This of course, could have been dust or dirt but I believe film makers put little marks like this on frames before an edit. The next frame, the knife was already on the snake so it looks to me like a clean edit. I think it was a REALLY well done prop/edit for that era.
If you want to reply to the OP, please go back to the OP's message to Reply, thanks!
I'm pretty sure it was a prop.
shareThey killed a real snake in Friday the 13th too, unfortunately.
shareAt least two live snakes are used. You can see the first snake's tongue flickering in and out and its body moving proving that it is not a prop. However, when the knife is pressed down on the snake, we do not actually see the head being cut off. That happens off camera or the snake we saw was not actually killed. After that shot we see a shot of the still-moving body and still-moving severed head of a formerly live snake that was just decapitated, which may or may not have been the first snake. When the scientist tells the journalist to touch the snake and we see the head of the snake move in reaction to his hand, the head and body were not in the same position we saw previously. That's because they used the decapitated body of one snake, and put the head of a second live snake of the same species through a hole next to the body to make us think that it was the severed head that was still alive. After the head moves we can see the snake's tongue flickering in and out, proving that it is the head of a live snake and not the recently decapitated head.
share