Rattlers is a cautionary tale about what can happen when the U.S. military gets sloppy with its disposal of biological weapons, or when hospitals are remodeled with extremely ugly wallpaper. But it is really so much more. It teaches us that neanderthal sexism and shrill feminism can reconcile for a cheap sexual experience in a pup tent after an evening in Las Vegas.
It would appear that John McCauley directed two films during his career, this being the first, with the second coming nine years later and featuring Danny Bonaduce. I feel a bit cheated that Bonaduce's career hadn't tanked sufficiently to be included in Rattlers, but McCauley does give us Sam Chew in the lead role as Dr. Tom Parkinson, a herpetologist. And really, doesn't the mere usage of the word "herpetologist" sound like a springboard into a Rowan & Martin routine?
It begins with a family, camping in an RV in the middle of the Mojave desert. We quickly learn that all women are cranky bitches, since Mom yells at her kids for existing, shrieking that they can't go rock climbing. Or maybe she's just pissed off because her dumbass husband has driven the family out to the Mojave Desert in an RV. But Dad is much more pliable, so these two kids who look like eight year old Hagger Twins run off to play, fall into a pit of rattlesnakes, and get bitten to death. So far so good.
Sheriff Gates calls Dr. Parkinson, since the coroner has diagnosed the snake bites as advanced herpes. No, I'm just kidding. He calls him because he's a herpetologist. See? Isn't that funny? And then Dick Martin could say something about betting his bippy, and Jo Anne Worley could stick her finger into her cheek and roll her eyes around, and then Goldie Hawn could ... no wait ... must ... write ... about ... shitty ... movie. Okay, let's see. Yeah, so Dr. Parkinson comes over to examine the dead Hagger Twins, and when the sheriff covers up the corpses he says "definitely closed coffin material." I guess tact and law enforcement don't go hand in hand in Southern California. Just ask Rodney King.
After another snake attack in which an entire family with another bitchy Mom is killed, Dr. Parkinson is called back and teamed up with a photographer who also happens to be a bitchy feminist, because all women are bitches. It's not clear why a herpetologist (snicker) investigating snake attacks might need to take along a photographer instead of, I don't know, taking the fucking pictures himself, but it does set up a great tangent with Dr. Parkinson referring to her "liberated ass," her complaining about women not getting career advancement opportunities, and soulful soliloquies about working women, complemented by pan flute music. Best of all, after they spew venom at each other, they obviously need to fall in love, but only after their silhouettes dance and embrace in front of a water fountain. John McCauley, please come back and make more movies.
Then there's a plumber making a late night call to a lady's house, and the lady is a bitch and yells at him, and for some reason her cut off valve is located in her crawlspace, and there are rattlesnakes in her crawlspace, and they kill the plumber, and then she takes a bath even though there's a plumber shutting off the water to the house, and the snakes crawl up through the drain and kill her too. With her thrashing around naked in sudsy bath water, you can tell this was intended to spice up the trailer.
Meanwhile, Dr. Parkinson realizes that if you draw lines between all the snake attack locations on a map, you find a military base, so they drive there and meet Captain Delaney who mentions some other guy who got bit by a dozen rattlesnakes that nobody bothered to report since it was a military matter. There's also an alcoholic military doctor with two tone sideburns who offers people grain alcohol and hits on the feminist photographer with lines like "anytime you wanna leave me alone with a sexy lookin' young thing like Miss Bradley here, it's fine with me."
Dr. Parkinson recruits a pilot to fly him around in a helicopter, which kills about ten minutes, but during the tedium, the pilot mentions some "container" that he was recently told to bury in an abandoned mine and cover with concrete. You can see what's going to happen next coming up Fifth Avenue, because we come to find out that Captain Delaney buried some experimental biological weapon (the name of which nobody really knows how to pronounce), the snakes got into it, and you can plot out the remainder of this innovative story line from there.
Once this is revealed, the Captain morphs into a Strangelovian psychopath, starts killing people, and escapes. Dr. Parkins and the sheriff reason that he must have gone to the mine. Why the hell he would do that isn't explained, but sure enough that's where he goes, a gunfight ensues, and a single grenade somehow produces multiple explosions and somehow eliminates both the snake problem and the biological toxin problem, leaving Dr. Parkinson and his feminist girlfriend free to run off and eat Chinese food after laughing about how "crazy" they both are. Ha ha. Pan to another cave, and cue the rattlesnake sounds to leave the door open for a sequel that wouldn't get funded if cash flew out of the asses of stray cats. Roll the credits. Hit the remote. Mourn ninety wasted minutes of your life.
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