Sssssss[i] is a 1973 American body horror film directed by Bernard L. Kowalski and starring Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, and Heather Menzies.

[4] Its plot follows a college student who becomes a laboratory assistant to a herpetologist who is covertly developing a serum that can transform human beings into snakes.

Kristina visits a carnival freak show and is horrified when she sees a bizarre "snake-man", whom she recognizes as Stoner's previous assistant.

Growing suspicious, the police arrive and shoot the cobra before heading to the lab where a mongoose is attacking David's neck, attempting to kill him.

The "Snake Park" milking scenes were real and meant to mimic what Bill Haast did at his Miami Serpentarium in Florida daily.

[8] Sssssss received its first Blu-ray release on April 26, 2016, through Scream Factory, which included new interviews with stars Dirk Benedict and Heather Menzies as bonus features.

This aspect is fascinating and chilling, as a gentle old venom researcher, Strother Martin, putters around with cobras and pythons in a country lab.

"[12] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "highly amusing and genuinely creepy," and praised the "spectacular makeup.

"[13] Keith Alain of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that an "attractive streak of humour suggests in the early stages that Ssssnake may turn into a macabre little thriller on the lines of The Fly," and lamented that "parody is eventually jettisoned in favour of portentous horror ...

The rather disparate and ludicrous plot is not made any smoother by Bernard L. Kowalski's direction, which manages to be lumberingly predictable even in its borrowings (the Freaks-ish sideshow sequences, for example).