If Boris Karloff had a tombstone that read, “Here lies a man who deserved better scripts,” Snake People would be the ghost that apologizes for it. A zombie-sloshed, voodoo-choked train wreck with all the spiritual depth of a damp napkin, this Mexican horror oddity is less a film and more a séance for Karloff’s exhausted career. Filmed in 1968, released in 1971, and presumably pitched during a tequila-induced fever dream, Snake People is the kind of cinematic experience that begs for a barf bag and a priest.
Plot: Island of the Dumb and Dead
Captain Labische arrives at a mysterious island where the main exports appear to be voodoo, confusion, and an aggressively lax dress code. He wants to shut down all the “immoral activity,” which is another way of saying he wants to ruin the island’s low-budget fun. Naturally, he goes straight to Carl van Molder (Boris Karloff, appearing only in spirit and sitting), who politely tells him to bugger off. Van Molder spends his days warning people not to interfere while sipping from the Big Book of Exposition like it’s fine cognac.
Enter Annabella, Karloff’s niece and an anti-alcohol activist. She’s trying to convince her uncle to bankroll the International Anti-Saloon League—a subplot so dry it might spontaneously combust. Her romance with the rum-loving Lt. Wilhelm proves that opposites attract, especially when neither has a personality.
Meanwhile, the film remembers it’s supposed to be horror, so it awkwardly shoehorns in a snake dancer named Kalea (played by Tongolele, clearly the only one having fun) who leads zombified island girls in synchronized murder numbers. These undead women are apparently so irresistible that even the camera tries to kiss them with every awkward zoom.
Boris Karloff: The Undead Working Conditions
If you blink too long, you’ll miss Karloff’s entire physical contribution to the film. Seated in every scene, supported more by cushions than his own will to act, Karloff looks like a man who made a deal with the devil—$100,000 per movie for four stinkers and a guaranteed trip to the editing floor purgatory. His performance is actually impressive in the same way that reading a eulogy without falling asleep is impressive.
Every line delivery from Karloff feels like it’s echoing from the afterlife. And when the twist reveals that he is also the evil voodoo priest Damballah? Well, let’s just say that a Boris Karloff double—clearly twenty years younger, forty pounds lighter, and possibly from a different ethnic background—is not the face of a convincing transformation.
Production: Pieced Together Like a Voodoo Doll
Jack Hill, the director of Karloff’s scenes, did his best in L.A., filming around Karloff’s emphysema and advanced age. The result is a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie: stitched together in post-production by Juan Ibáñez, who presumably directed the rest while blindfolded. Scenes filmed in Mexico barely match the ones from L.A.—Karloff’s background looks like a Sears photo booth, while the rest of the cast is clearly sweating through polyester in a jungle sauna.
Karloff’s stand-in, Jerry Petty, is meant to pass as Boris from behind. In reality, Petty walks like a healthy man with a purpose. Karloff, in contrast, acts like a ghost with hip problems. Their combined effort turns the character of Van Molder/Damballah into a cinematic piñata: hollow, mishandled, and swung at blindly.
Special Effects: Dollar Store Rituals
From awkward snake dances to voodoo rituals conducted by people who look like they learned sorcery at a suburban yoga retreat, Snake People is visually offensive in the most boring way. The zombies are just tired extras painted greenish-brown and told to “walk sexy.” The snake? Plastic. The horror? Mostly the editing.
Even the film’s big dream sequence—where Annabella wakes up in a coffin and makes out with her evil twin—feels like a rejected perfume ad directed by Ed Wood. It’s less erotic and more confusing than a mime funeral.
Final Verdict: ★☆☆☆☆ — “Snake Eyes” in Every Way
Snake People is the cinematic equivalent of being bitten by a rubber snake: surprising at first, laughable on second glance, and deeply regrettable by the end. It’s a movie made of moldy leftovers—both narratively and literally, given the archival footage and Frankenstein edits. The voodoo is as authentic as a plastic tiki torch, and the “thrills” are more likely to lull you into a coma than excite your senses.
Skip this unless you’re a Karloff completist, a masochist, or someone currently trapped under a fallen bookshelf and need something to fast-track your escape into the astral plane.
This film is called La Muerte Viviente in Spanish—The Living Dead. A more honest title would be La Carrera Moribunda: The Dying Career.
