SNAKES ON A PLANE
In reality, it's cold up here for a snake
By Alejandro Alfonso, STAFF WRITER
COULD snakes on a plane happen for real? Probably not. Serious snake hobbyists will regard the movie as escapist entertainment. It's a movie that will attract couples who want to snuggle close, Samuel L. Jackson fans, the bare-chested guy you see at the beach and street fairs with a boa contrictor wrapped around his shoulders and morbid types rooting for the snakes to kill everyone.
Silliness is what some would call it. But there is something unique about the buzz this movie has created. The combination of snakes and a plane ride has stirred the collective imagination.
Snakes have inspired myths, phobias, worship, original sin and Hollywood movies. Misconceptions about them, and the mystery behind their behavior, have made them the perfect antagonists. It's not a stretch that they could play the role of terrorists on a plane.
"We're preying on people who are ignorant," says Jules Sylvester, the guy who wrangled up all the snakes in the movie. The owner of Reptile Rentals, he has more than 300 film credits to his name and is a regular guest on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
Sylvester says the premise of the movie is not realistic. For one thing, it's cold in the cargo area of an airplane, and when the temperature drops, snakes become inactive and lose their appetite.
Despite the hype around the fact that real snakes were used in the film, only two, an albino cobra and a diamondback rattlesnake, were poisonous. The rest were non-venomous, harmless snakes, he says.
The public's fear of creepy-crawlies has madeSylvester, who also worked on the set of "Arachnophobia," a movie about killer spiders, a good living.
He says, "As long as there is a dollar in it, I'll go for it."
Still, snakes can be deadly. They hunt by stealth, surprise prey and apply a merciless death grip before swallowing their food whole. A bite from a venomous snake can mean death for a human being who cannot get treatment.
Perhaps the fascination snake hobbyists have with their subjects could be attributed to certain characteristics, the shedding of old skin and seemingly effortless movements.
Owen Maercks, co-owner of the East Bay Vivarium in Berkeley, has more than 30 years experience handling snakes. He describes his interest in snakes as "taking an adventure in an alien world."
He says, "Because they are animals, but not mammals, their behavior patterns are completely different from ours. They are endlessly fascinating."
Maercks regards the idea of "Snakes on a Plane" as absurd. But he doesn't discount the very real threat snakes could pose in the wrong hands and is even surprised it has not yet happened.
"It isn't diffcult to get snakes on a plane," he says. Hobbyists fly with their snakes all the time — until now airport security has not been trained to spot snakes in luggage. A snake's skeleton passing through the X-ray monitor doesn't raise alarm bells.
"I could picture someone who knows how to handle a snake, especially a poisonous one, taking over the cockpit of an airplane and using the snake to keep everyone else away," he says.
Perhaps terrorists are scared of snakes too.
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