Snakes on a Plane

Dusted off this dvd gem for a thorough review of its herpetological accuracy. Onward and upward we go to our next film, Snakes on a Plane.

1. First off, where did all these snakes come from? The plane takes off from Hawaii, which has only one native snake, the island blind snake, which looks a big black worm. They also have a few invasive (introduced) species, including the brown tree snake, but apparently those guys got delayed on the island as neither of them made it on the flight.
Instead there was a bevy of extremely accurate (except for the teeth) looking critters including the gopher snake (North America) in Mercedes’ purse, several shots of a milk snake (the Americas) a handful of eyelash vipers (central and south America), a couple of corn snakes (north America) slithering on the floor and coral snakes (widespread distribution) on the captain’s control board.
And then the big cabin attack with lots of coloubrids (a large group of snakes containing ½ of all snake species, most are non-venomous). The same cast of characters we met before and a few new including the venomous eastern diamondback (Southeastern U.S.) and cobras (Asia and Africa).
There is some mention at the end that they were acquired from some cohort from the southwest desert but Hawaii, being an island, has some of the most stringent importing regulations to protect their native wildlife, basically making it near impossible to sneak this quantity of illegal snakes onto the island) but I’m going to let this one slide as its a stretch, but the possibility of snakes passing inspectors at the airport is far more believable than some of the loosely concocted plot explanations I’ve seen.

2. Pheromones, the stuff being sprayed on the leis to make the snakes “go crazy” are extremely common in nature and, while they do exist in reptiles, they are very poorly understood in snakes. I will note that snakes do have excellent chemosensory devices, smelling not through their nostrils (yes, they do breathe through their noses, but that’s about it) but rather they “smell” by capturing scent particles in the air via tongue flicking and transforming the particles into olfactory information which is deciphered by the Jacobson’s organ, located on the roof of the snakes mouth.

3. While we are on the senses, some snakes (primarily the pythons, boas, and the pit vipers) also have keen heat sensory abilities. They use super-sensitive heat sensors in their face to zero in on the warmth given off by their preys’ bodies. The filmmakers try to relay this through the snakes’ eye view shots, which appear as a green blurry mess. Scientists aren’t quite sure exactly how good they can see, but in general, sight is one of their least developed senses, especially for the ground dwelling snakes.

4. At one point, the captain goes down to “reset the breakers” after the control board goes dead. Surprise, surprise, he gets bit by one of the plane’s serpentine passengers. His co-captain comes to his rescue and says to the flight attendant that the captain “must have had a heart attack.” Snake bites and heart attacks do have similar symptoms such as dizziness and fainting, excessive sweating, nausea and vomiting.

5. The dude back at the FBI office mentions that he needs the best poisonous snake expert in the time zone. Problem is there are no poisonous snake experts since there aren’t any poisonous snakes.
Poison is something that is ingested while venom is a substance that is injected. Snakes have fangs to dispense the venom into their prey and are not poisonous. In fact, several snakes apparently make good eating and are quite popular in some parts of the world

6. While we are on the topic of food: the scene with the Spanish woman asking for olive oil so she could suck out the venom from the little boy’s arm was slightly off. Yes, olive oil can be used to treat snake bites, but its usually mixed with plants to form tinctures or rubs which are applied to the affected area. Making cuts around the puncture or sucking out the venom has been tried in the past but most physicians find that cutting, sucking, or applying a tourniquet or ice to a snakebite can infect the bite and damage nerves and blood vessels in the victim, and sicken the rescuer if they use their mouth to try and remove the venom, doing more harm than good.

7. And then there is Dr. Price our “poisonous snake expert” who seems to have quite a bit of very accurate information (as well he should, since he’s the specialist).
- “Snakes don’t attack unless they’re provoked” - true.
- “It could possibly be a pheromone, that’s what female animals release to trigger mating behavior” – in other animals that’s definitely true, though not confirmed in snakes.
- “There are hundreds of species of snakes with hundreds of cocktails of venom” – true.
- “Some will kill you in 2 minutes others in 2 hours and some you can actually cure with a good nights rest” - true.
- “If you administer the wrong antivenin, that will kill you” –false (well, four out of five ain’t bad)

8. Then the pièce de résistance with the large Burmese python that falls through the glass ceiling. Except for the ridiculous teeth, this animal is fantastic. The way it strikes and constricts the small chihuahua is superbly accurate. It then moves on to the British man with whom the serpent flicks its prey’s head with its tongue (to “smell” if he is something good to eat) and then consumes the man from head to feet. This is exactly how snakes feed in reality, as the direction of hair growth in animals, from head to tail, aids consumption as the prey slides down the esophagus of the snake (think of how you pet a dog or cat, head to tail). Now the man is probably a bit bigger than what that snake could actually consume (they can expand their jaws up to 3 times the size of their head) but, then again, this isn’t a documentary.

So overall, a pretty decent offering for a Hollywood film and exceptional scientific accuracy for a “B”-movie.

Grade: B+