Snakes on Film

The Adam-and-Eve plot twist was already old hat when Women of the Prehistoric Planet was released in 1966, a movie strangely uncontaminated by prehistoric women. In a scene that in no way has anything to do with foreshadowing, one of the expendable crewmen says, after an encounter with a giant stock-footage iguana that they lasered into burning papier-mache, “If that’s the way they grow lizards around here, I’d hate to run into a snake.” And wouldn’t you know it, a snake shows up mere minutes later — after all, you can’t have a transparently bad science-fiction take on Adam and Eve without a snake, can you? Even if it’s a big, menacing snake … well okay, it’s a half-grown Boa Constrictor that, once shot by a pocket crossbow, magically morphs into a rubber snake that looks nothing like it. Still: eek. Amirite?

Best viewed in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version: can’t be too careful.