Snake Dick, written and directed by David Mahmoudieh, is about two girls driving towards a city when their car breaks down and they are hounded by two hillbillies who just don’t know when to shut up. As all men do, the hillbillies think they have the upper hand. However, the tables are turned quite weirdly and yet satisfyingly. The short film nails the whole neo-noir aesthetic, features some good performances from Poppy Drayton and Micah Fitzgerald, and leaves you wanting for more!
Whenever I watch a good short film, I am always reminded of Tim Miller’s Love, Death and Robots, and how every single one of those short films works as shorts and can also be converted into a full-length feature film. Wouldn’t you want to watch someone kill a dictator in multiple ways? Wouldn’t you like to watch a bunch of farmers fight off aliens to save a famine? Yes, now you can say that about every single short film about there. But I think those shorts are bizarre enough to bolster the science-fiction genre so that critics and fans who are still stuck in the ’80s can appreciate how excellently we have embraced the weirdness that comes with the genre and are fearlessly wandering into strange and bizarre territories. Snake Dick (Yes, I know) gave off a similar feeling.
Snake Dick is written and directed by David Mahmoudieh. It’s produced by Joshua Bachove, Annalea Fiachi, Stephen Fiachi, George Lako, and David Mahmoudieh. The cinematography is by Chris Saul, editing by Mahmoudieh, art direction by Graham Denman, costume design by Susanna Song, make-up by Sameerah Hoddison, sound design by James DeVore, and visual effects by Stephen Cunnane and Fiona Campbell Westgate. It stars Poppy Drayton as Jill, Sierra Pond as Julia, Micah Fitzgerald as Hillbilly Joe, and Ross Francis as Hillbilly Earl. The story revolves around Jill and Julia stopping at a gas station to fix their car and being sexually harassed by two hillbillies. However, things take a turn for the better when the girls take out the titular snake dick. I mean, it’s not shown literally but the snake does come out of the, well, pelvic region.
On a surface level, it’s about sexual harassment and how men are trash. Jill and Julia are minding their own business. They are on their way somewhere. Any half-sensible person would’ve simply helped them and sent them on their way and called it a day. But the hillbillies are hillbillies and they had to go out of their way and continuously harass them. So, when they face their eventual demise, it feels deserved and satisfactory. On a sub-surface/metaphorical level, I think it’s a commentary on how monstrous women have to become in order to deal with men, just like the Huli Jing does in Love, Death and Robots’ Good Hunting episode. It’s grotesque and horrifying but it is liberating in more ways than one. If you look at it from a Biblical perspective, you can say it’s about a version of Eve where she carries the serpent of Eden with herself instead of getting tempted by it. So yes, there’s a lot going on than just a snake dick.
Snake Dick, the short film, looks brilliant. It promised to be a neo-noir, science-fiction thriller and that’s exactly what it is. It is edited perfectly. The storytelling is immensely restrained so as to generate the maximum amount of intrigue while giving a good conclusion to the conflict at hand. But most importantly, it makes you wonder what’s the story before and after that particular gas station. The very existence of the snake begs the question that what kind of reality are we looking at. Is this a thing that just exists? Is this a mutation? What is the snake? How did it get there? Who’s Julia? How does she control the snake? And so on and so forth. Additionally, during that closing shot, you’re urged to think that where are these girls heading towards? What’s the fire about? What’s the “darkness” they’re talking about? Mahmoudieh has said that it’s set against the backdrop of the 2020 election, which just makes things all the more interesting and I really believe that a feature-length film will do it justice.
Final verdict.
The bizarreness of the Snake Dick’s plot is not lost on me. But I think that it’s executed well enough to justify its existence and ask for a broader, feature-length take on it. Are you going to look me in the eye, look at what’s going on there outside, and tell me that you’d say “no” to a movie about two girls, one of who has a snake in her body and another that controls it, using that said snake to take down misogynists and rapists? Really? I wouldn’t and I demand an at least 90-minute long movie on Snake Dick. It has been/will be featured at LA Shorts Fest (Oct 1-31), Warsaw International (Oct 9-18), and HollyShorts (November 9-15) and I sincerely that someone gives David Mahmoudieh the money to make it happen.
SEE ALSO: Laghushanka Review - A Shweta Tripathi Led Short Film About Finding Acceptance In Unlikely Places
Cover image courtesy: snakedick.com
