Let's talk about Snakes Bay-bee
If you want an audience to instantly squirm, throw your hero into a pit full of snakes. It's one of cinema's oldest shortcuts to panic. You don't need dialogue. You don't need a monster. Just a flashlight, some hissing, and a character who suddenly realizes the floor is alive.
Snake pits may be the hook, but today's films share more than just a healthy respect for reptiles. Both are adventure stories driven by a relentless search, led by rugged, imperfect heroes with a knack for finding trouble.
Movie #1: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) stumble into a snake-filled chamber beneath the Well of Souls while searching for the Ark of the Covenant. Indy hates snakes. The snakes couldn't care less.
Believe it or not, the snakes in the Well of Souls scene are mostly real. The filmmakers collected every snake they could find from pet shops across southern England. When they still came up short, they tossed in painted garden hoses to make the pit look even more crowded. Even with all those real snakes, Harrison Ford wasn't actually inches away from a spitting cobra. A sheet of glass separated him from the snake... but the cobra did spray venom onto the glass during filming.
Movie #2: True Grit (2010)
Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) helps young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) track down her father's killer. Their journey takes a terrifying turn when Mattie falls into a rattlesnake pit, leaving Rooster in a race against time.
Rooster Cogburn's snake bite treatment makes for great drama, but not great medicine. Modern medical experts no longer recommend cutting into a snake bite, sucking out venom, or applying a tourniquet. Those old movie myths have been replaced by safer, more effective treatment.
Snake Pit Survival Tips:
Although you're unlikely to run up on a snake pit in everyday life, it never hurts to be prepared:
- Wear leather boots, leather jacket, leather pants, wrap yourself in bubble wrap if you have a chance.
- Most bites happen because people try to move the snake. Move yourself instead - slowly. Screaming doesn't usually help.
- If you find yourself in a pit full of snakes, just reach around until you find a torch. The last archaeologist probably dropped one on his way out.
Want more? Make it a marathon!
EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE: Watch both versions of True Grit, 1969 and 2010, and decide for yourself: Team John Wayne or Team Jeff Bridges?
ONE MORE SNAKE PIT: Sometimes the most dangerous snake pit isn't filled with snakes at all. In The Snake Pit (1948), Olivia de Havilland plays a woman whose unexplained stay in a psychiatric hospital becomes increasingly frightening as her lost memories slowly return.
After the credits:
FUN FACT #1: Indiana Jones' love interest is Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). John Wayne's real name? Marion Robert Morrison.
FUN FACT #2: If you're a Better Off Dead fan, Kim Darby, who played Mattie Ross in the 1969 True Grit, also played Lane Meyer's mom. If that immediately made you think, "French Fries, French Bread… Peru?" …then you're among friends.