Yes, yes, the whole Snakes on a Plane phenomenon is pretty well played out (although I’m stubbornly holding out hopes that it might actually be, you know, fun, due to the stellar B-picture resume of director David [Cellular, Final Destination 2 ] Ellis). Still, for those backlash-impervious individuals planning on catching the first late-night show, you’ve got about 23 hours remaining to get your cheesy, anti-Rikki Tikki Tavi prefunk on. Behold, the world’s previous finest fake snake movies that I can sort of dimly recall after 2 beers.

3) Snake in the Drain: A relic from the glory days of Skinemax, the Canuck horror film Spasms features a mammoth, plague-carrying mystical African snake set loose in America. He ain't happy. My memories of the specifics of this are somewhat hazy, but the money shot where the rhino-sized, suspiciously muppety snake head breaks through a glass shower door and gobbles up a screaming co-ed will most likely stay fixed in my gourd forever. Also, Peter Fonda staggers around in an absolutely fly Great White Hunter outfit with an elephant gun, looking only dimly aware that he's in front of a camera at the time.

2) Snakes that Verge on the Profane: In Jaws of Satan, the Devil comes back as a King Cobra, and proceeds to fang up a bunch of sexy nuns. `nuff said, hopefully.

1) Snakes Drain the Main Vein: Viewed today, 1981's sadly neglected Venom shares a suspicious, possibly litigious, number of plot elements with Die Hard. To wit: a gang of thieves take over a house and terrorize an innocent family, with their last hope being an uninvited guest clambering around in the air shafts. The only significant difference here from the later Bruce Willis effort is that the lone hero is a goddamned black mamba. The 20 solid minutes of angry snake-o-vision are awesome enough, but what truly sets this apart from the other contenders is the climax, where the ticked-off hero slooowly climbs up the pants leg of a freshly incapacitated villain and proceeds to bite him square in the nards, oh, a good 50 or 60 times. The fact that the crotch in question belongs to a sweaty, noticeably hammered Oliver Reed makes it difficult to figure out which character to sympathize with, quite frankly.