Reviews

As someone who studied anthropology and is a huge fan of folklore--especially from the region of Appalachia--I was sucked into this story from the beginning. Snake handling culture seems fascinating, and I loved the first-person interviews from people involved in the central story.

Then, as the documentary progressed, I realized that the narrative the filmmakers are presenting is an attempt to cast doubt on the guilt of an incredibly violent and abusive man who was convicted of attempting to kill his wife with a rattlesnake bite.

*Warning* description of violent content: This guy admitted to beating a man until his eyeball popped out of his head, not once but with two different men. (Once during an underground fight, and the second time was recounted by his son, who as a child was present when his father beat a man for flirting with his wife and "threw him off a waterfall for dead".) His first wife said he regularly beat her. One piece of evidence the doc offers for why he might be innocent: "If he wanted her dead, she'd be dead."

This was an interesting story, but I don't understand the need to present it from the side of the abusive husband. Despite the descriptions of extremely violent acts, it presents him as a sympathetic character who had a hard lot in life and did some bad things but then found "redemption." His wife, who was 19 at the time they got together (and at least a decade younger than him), described him as terrifying from day 1. She was presented as a temptress who manipulated others into seeing her as a victim. I get that it can be intriguing to approach cases that seem cut-and-dried from the opposite angle, but domestic violence and violence against women is a horrifically large problem in the US. This is not the "hot take" we want or need.

The wife is the "Alabama Snake" the title is referring to... YIKES.

Are these filmmakers incels or something? It really reads that way. Disappointing.