"People just don't understand friendly rattlesnakes."
Tim Ochopee (Chris Robinson) returns from Vietnam wanting little, if anything at all, to do with people. He keeps himself sequestered in an isolated shack buried deep inside the Florida everglades. His only company being the many snakes he has managed to befriend and now cares for.
Enraged when his beloved snakes start being hunted and killed, or captured and exploited, Tim decides to have his pet rattlesnake Stanley do a little hunting and killing of his own.
The sole reason Stanley was able to slither its way into my movie collection was due to its disc being packaged with Horror High. Thus creating the kind of exploitation double-feature package one might have seen at the local drive-in, way back in the mid-1970s.
Stanley is the second of four killer snake movies I have childhood memories of. Number one, though, is 1973's Sssssss, which was a syndication staple. Then comes Stanley, because I remember being freaked out by one of its TV spots. Third is 1976's Rattlers, while fourth is 1981's Venom. This aside completes the memory lane portion of my review.
Coupling Stanley with Horror High does make sense, though. Both came out within a year of one another and both were distributed by Crown International. That means there was a better than average chance they played as an actual double-feature at some point.
Producer-director William Grefé, in the bonus features, shares how he was inspired to create Stanley after seeing the success of Willard. That the film's story came to him in a vivid dream. Maybe that story is true, maybe it is not. But the similarities between Stanley and Willard go beyond them just sharing a namesake title.
First is the antagonists all having a personal connection with protagonist's deceased father. Second is the tragic death of one the protagonist's beloved pets driving him over the edge. In Willard it was the white rat Socrates. In Stanley it is Stanley's mate Hazel and their children.
Wait... I'm no herpetologist, but I do know that reptiles are not known for being all that doting as mates or parents. But, it's just a movie... and a knock-off of Willard. So this makes the snake Stanley the reptile version of Willard's rat Ben, who just so happened to get his own namesake movie. Go figure.
Stanley could best be described as a film with an interesting character that is in dire need of a study. Star Chris Robinson does what he can with the paper thin material he has to work with, but there is precious little he is ever given to do.
Although this movie predates Jaws by three years, think of the dramatic boost it could have gotten if Tim, after discovering Hazel and the children have been killed, pours his heart out to Stanley via an Indianapolis story-style monologue, connecting the slaughter with something he either did or witnessed in Vietnam.
Wait, there is a moment in the film that comes very close to doing that. It is when Tim shares the dinner table with Hazel and Stanley, feeding them mice while he has a vegetarian meal. He voices his wish that they could become vegetarians like him. That they would not have to kill another animal in order to eat. The opportunity was right there. So close. So. Very. Close. Too bad they missed it.
Which leaves us with the slaughtering of the antagonists. There is a great scene involving quicksand, one not so great bit involving a couple in a bed, and a laugh out loud moment where co-star Alex Rocco, while preparing to jump into a snake-infested swimming pool, looks around at everything but the pool he's about to jump into.
Then there's that freeze frame. That glorious and goofy freeze frame. Oh, and Alex Rocco was not acting in that pool. The poor man was terrified of snakes and Grefé did not pass on the opportunity to exploit that for bigger and louder screams from the actor.
Having given Stanley a quasi-reluctant revisit (I remember watching it once on Creature Features, when John Stanley was the host) I doubt I will be making another. So it goes.
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