Hisss (2010) – Review

Where to watch Hisss

1 1/2 Stars

Hisss is a strange blend of a monster movie, mad-slasher horror and a dash of police procedural (actually make that a barrel of police procedural). The plot takes place in India as George States (an American, what a creative name) takes the snake goddess’ snake hubby hostage in exchange for a cure to his brain cancer. As legend says, the snake goddess will turn human and then kill a bunch of people to get her rubber hose of a lover back (more on this later). As the snake woman leaves a trail of gruesome murders on her way to George’s lair (Jigsaw would approve of these digs), a police investigator is drawn into the mix in an effort to stop the killings.

The first act of the film is George acting crazy, killing people to prove he’s crazy and stealing away with the male snake. It’s the second act that screeches to a halt and really hurts the flow. We follow a cop for forty minutes while he slowly moves around and not finding anything concrete, except that every victim was killed with large amounts of venom. Essentially everything we already know and have seen. At this same time the snake woman is taking her time getting to her snake husband, even though that poor s.o.b. is being tortured and slowly dying at the hands of the ever crazy George. I suppose the idea is she’s learning what it’s like to be human, but really it’s just her moseying around and taking a dip in a lake in-between killing people. In this sense the film poorly portrays the goddess as the good gal and George the bad guy, regardless of the fact that she does kill innocent people as well. Which is one of the film’s ultimate problems, there’s no one to root for.

The ending is where all hell breaks loose as the snake goddess makes her way into George’s lair and rescues her lover. What’s the first thing they do instead of getting out of there? They have sex. Snake on woman sex to be exact. The snake prop here is so obviously rubber, but it’s the ridiculous moments like the gasping as they intertwine or the snake removing the girl’s clothing that really sells this as some sort of bestiality soft-core. The end fight sequence really feels like two, if not three, separate movies that just happen to all tie up in the same location at the same time.

Aside from some strangely mesmerizing yet fleeting effects work, the only good thing here is the beautiful actress Mallika Sherawat. Pass on Hisss, as the back cover says Hisss will have you crawling in your seats, I’ll say Hisss will have you slithering to the eject button or Hisss will put you to sssleep. I could go on and on, but unlike this film, I won’t bore you.

Director: Jennifer Chambers Lynch
Stars: Mallika Sherawat, Irrfan Khan, Jeff Doucette