STANLEY

Chris Robinson in Stanley

When the standard for - what the hell should this class of horror films even be called? - "Man Uses Animals For Revenge Films" (?) is WILLARD, you know the only way you can go is up. Enter STANLEY, William Grefe's 1972 flick about an embittered Native American Vietnam vet who uses rattlesnakes to dish out vengeance against those that wrong him. It's an intriguing little film, not too corny, not too cheesy, but perhaps a bit too laid back and non-confrontational to make a real dent. Regardless of it's failures, it's good enough to replace WILLIARD as the standard bearer for this breed of film.


Stanley snake movie

Tim Ochopee lives a secluded life deep in the Florida Everglades. He makes his living by capturing rattlesnakes for a local medical facility where the snakes are milked of their venom for the purpose of creating anti-venom. Scarred by both his experiences in Vietnam and the death of his father in a hunting accident, Tim has become something of a misanthrope, preferring the company of his two pet rattlesnakes, Stanley and Hazel, to the company of people, all of whom he views as corrupted, dangerous parasites, destroying the balance of nature through animal consumption and slaughter. When a group of thugs offer him the chance to make a pretty penny by helping them collect snakes for the purpose of making designer clothing, Tim is expectedly angered. When the men refuse to take "no" for an answer and begin offing Tim's precious snakes left and right, things go from dangerous to lethal.


Stanley horror snakes

It takes a good while for STANLEY to kick into gear. The first half of the film is largely quiet and meandering, with large chunks of character development and backstory taking up most of the screen time. We get to know Tim rather well but virtually every other character is left under-developed and under-utilized. Tim is a strange character to hang a film on. He's rather dull, obviously strange - the way he slips a flower necklace on Hazel and coddles the soon-to-be mother rattlesnake comes THIS close to being laughably embarrassing - and generally unpleasant. The typical "white man is the devil" rants found in Native American stereotypes are all here as are a bunch of PETA-type monologues on the evils of modern consumerist culture. None of this paints Tim as anything but a selfish, misguided, borderline bigot with a misanthropic bent but there's something about Chris Robinson's portrayal of Tim that keeps him interesting. We know he is as close to edge as one can get without tumbling over but Robinson plays him with such a detached aire that the character takes on an added, unexpected dimension of pathos.


Stanley

When the shit starts hitting the fan, it's a little bit disappointing. The snake attacks, which are actually few and far between, are laughably unconvincing, shot with what appear to be retractable rubber snakes - including one attack at the end that gave me the feeling that Tarantino saw this film at some point while he was writing KILL BILL, VOL. 2. - and the final coup de grace delivered to the film's main baddie, played by the always amusing Alex Rocco, is a major letdown. Then there's the film's final 15 minutes, a major headscratcher of a denouement that feels like it was lifted from another film entirely. All this weirdness and slightly comedic stuff would crush any other film but for some reason it works in STANLEY. Maybe it's because the premise itself is absurd and bizarre or maybe it's simply because it all happens so quickly and is played straight... I don't quite know but the final 30 minutes or so of STANLEY elevates the film into definite cult status.


For a film with such a strong eco message, it's kind of puzzling - and aggravating - that Grefe decided to kill actual snakes in the film. A snake is shotgunned through the air, three baby rattlers are pummeled to death with the butt of a shotgun and half a dozen or so are simply whipped through the air, their heads shattering on the ground. While the on-screen deaths of animals can never be justified - except in documentaries where actual wildlife footage is being captured - the animal cruelty on display in STANLEY is even more egregious as it is a film essentially about man's inherent cruelty towards the world around them. I suppose it serves a point - in a CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST-kind of way - but it all seems so unnecessarily exploitative. Why not just fill a bunch of fake snakes with fake blood? Entirely baffling.


But dead snakes aside, STANLEY is a keeper, a weird little gem that deserves a wider audience.


Recommended.