SPASMS (1983): WHEN THE MONSTER GETS INSIDE YOUR HEAD

SPASMS (1983): WHEN THE MONSTER GETS INSIDE YOUR HEAD
A gigantic serpent, psychic possession, Peter Fonda, Oliver Reed and some wonderfully strange practical effects make this imperfect Canadian creature feature far more visually interesting than its reputation suggests.

By the BEAUX HOMMES Film & Culture Desk

Some science-fiction movies want to explain the universe.

Others want to put a gigantic supernatural snake in a laboratory and see what happens.

Welcome to Spasms.

Released in 1983, Spasms is a Canadian horror/science-fiction hybrid directed by William Fruet, starring Oliver Reed, Peter Fonda and Kerrie Keane. The film was adapted from the novel Death Bite by Michael Maryk and Brent Monahan.

It is strange.

It is uneven.

It occasionally looks much better than you expect.

And it contains the kind of gloriously excessive premise that makes old science-fiction and horror movies worth rediscovering.

For BEAUX HOMMES Summer of Sci-Fi, that is more than enough reason to investigate.

Because Spasms gives artists, photographers and imaginative viewers something useful:

A reminder that a movie does not have to be perfect to contain great visual ideas.
THE STORY

Oliver Reed plays wealthy adventurer Jason Kincaid, a man whose life has become psychologically entangled with an enormous and mysterious serpent.

This is no ordinary snake.

Kincaid has somehow developed a psychic connection with the creature.

When the serpent attacks, Kincaid experiences its violence.

He sees through it.

Feels through it.

Suffers through it.

That supernatural connection becomes the film’s central science-fiction idea.

Kincaid brings in Dr. Tom Brasilian, played by Peter Fonda, an expert interested in extrasensory perception and psychic phenomena.

Naturally, the giant serpent is eventually brought into the world of scientists, laboratories and civilized society.

And naturally—

that turns out to be an extraordinarily bad decision.

The official synopsis reduces the premise beautifully: an ESP specialist studies a wealthy man who claims to share a psychic connection with a gigantic deadly serpent.

From there, Spasms becomes part creature feature, part occult thriller, part psychic-horror experiment.

There is also a religious cult interested in the serpent, adding another layer of supernatural weirdness.

Science wants to study the monster.

The cult wants to possess it.

Kincaid wants to understand—or perhaps destroy—the thing that has invaded his mind.

And the snake?

The snake mostly wants everybody to leave it alone.

Unfortunately, it expresses this preference rather violently.

THE MONSTER YOU DON’T ALWAYS SEE

One of the most interesting things about Spasms is how frequently the movie avoids showing its creature.

That was partly necessity.

The production experienced serious financial and technical trouble. One co-producing company reportedly collapsed during production, while the large mechanical snake was difficult to complete and operate convincingly. Director William Fruet therefore relied heavily on point-of-view photography, rapid editing and other techniques to suggest attacks rather than continuously showing the serpent.

Ordinarily, we might call that a weakness.

Sometimes it is.

But sometimes limitation creates style.

The camera becomes the serpent.

We rush toward victims.

The imagery changes.

Movement becomes aggressive.

Instead of watching an animal approach from across the room, we become temporarily trapped inside its perspective.

That produces a surprising visual idea:

The monster is not merely something Kincaid sees.
It becomes a way of seeing.

For photographers and filmmakers, that is worth remembering.

You do not always need to show the object.

Sometimes the point of view is the special effect.

BLUE-TINTED PREDATOR VISION BEFORE PREDATOR

The serpent’s point-of-view sequences frequently use unusual coloration and distorted imagery.

The effect can look crude to modern eyes.

But conceptually it is effective.

We are seeing the human world through something nonhuman.

That simple shift changes ordinary spaces.

A hallway becomes hunting territory.

A bedroom becomes vulnerable.

A laboratory becomes a cage waiting to break.

The technique anticipates a visual language later creature films would use more famously: allowing audiences to temporarily occupy the predator’s sensory world.

One retrospective noted the movie’s aggressive Steadicam-heavy movement and atmospheric lighting as among its strongest technical qualities.

For visual artists, this is a valuable exercise:

Take an ordinary room.

Now imagine how something completely different experiences it.

A snake.

An android.

An alien.

A ghost.

A machine.

Suddenly composition changes.

Color changes.

Scale changes.

Motion changes.

That is science-fiction thinking.

OLIVER REED: A MAN POSSESSED BY SOMETHING HE CANNOT CONTROL

Oliver Reed is perfectly suited to this material.

There was always something powerful and slightly dangerous about his screen presence.

In Spasms, that quality becomes part of the story.

Jason Kincaid is wealthy and physically commanding, but he is not truly in control.

The serpent has invaded his consciousness.

That reversal is interesting.

A man who appears powerful becomes helpless against something happening inside his own mind.

For BEAUX HOMMES readers, there is a larger idea here.

We often associate masculine strength with control.

Control your body.

Control your fear.

Control the room.

Control your emotions.

Kincaid cannot.

And the movie becomes much more interesting because of it.

The most frightening opponent is not necessarily something standing across from you.

Sometimes it is something already inside you.

PETER FONDA BRINGS SCIENCE INTO THE MADNESS

Then we have Peter Fonda as Dr. Brasilian.

Fonda brings a completely different energy.

Where Reed feels heavy, emotional and haunted, Fonda represents investigation.

Measurement.

Observation.

The possibility that something apparently supernatural might somehow be understood.

That pairing gives the movie one of its better tensions:

Can science explain an experience that feels mystical?

Science fiction has been asking that question forever.

Telepathy.

Precognition.

Alien communication.

Artificial consciousness.

Life after death.

Parallel worlds.

Writers frequently take something that once belonged to religion or folklore and ask:

What if this were measurable?

That is essentially what Spasms does with Kincaid’s connection to the serpent.

The movie may not develop the concept with the philosophical sophistication of 2001 or Solaris.

But the idea remains good.

And good science fiction often begins with one strange question.

THE SERPENT IS OLDER THAN SCIENCE

There is also something archetypal about choosing a snake.

Human beings have been fascinated and frightened by serpents for thousands of years.

Snakes appear in religion.

Myth.

Medicine.

Sexual symbolism.

Creation stories.

Death stories.

Temptation.

Rebirth.

Poison.

Healing.

Transformation.

The serpent in Spasms therefore arrives with cultural baggage before the movie explains anything.

It feels ancient.

Forbidden.

Almost sacred.

That makes putting it inside a modern scientific environment visually satisfying.

Ancient creature.

Modern laboratory.

Primitive fear.

Scientific equipment.

That collision is one of the movie’s strongest ideas.

THE BODY HORROR

Then Spasms gets nasty.

The serpent’s venom does not simply kill.

Its victims suffer grotesque physical reactions.

For the makeup effects, the production employed legendary effects artist Dick Smith, along with Stephan Dupuis. Smith was one of the great figures in practical makeup effects, known for films including The Exorcist.

The bite effects use swelling and bladder techniques that make the body appear to distort from underneath the skin.

That is deeply unpleasant.

Which means it works.

The important artistic principle is simple:

Body horror is frightening because the body stops obeying its owner.

Skin changes.

Tissue expands.

The familiar becomes unfamiliar.

Your own physical form becomes the monster.

For a publication such as BEAUX HOMMES, which spends so much time examining the beauty and expressive possibilities of the human body, body horror creates an interesting opposite.

We usually ask:

How can the body become beautiful?

Body horror asks:

How can the body become frightening?

Artists should study both.

PRACTICAL EFFECTS HAVE WEIGHT

Today’s filmmakers can create almost anything digitally.

That is extraordinary.

But Spasms belongs to an era when monsters often had to physically exist in front of the camera.

The giant snake was mechanical.

Actors had to interact with something tangible.

Lighting had to fall across an actual surface.

The creature occupied real space.

It also didn’t always work.

That is part of the charm and frustration of practical effects.

The mechanical snake reportedly proved difficult enough that Fruet reduced many of its appearances and heavily re-edited portions of the climax.

Some viewers will see those limitations immediately.

We suggest looking at them differently.

Study the texture.

The surface.

The shadows.

The relationship between performer and prop.

Practical effects possess imperfections because physical objects possess imperfections.

Sometimes those flaws make them feel strangely alive.

WHEN A LOW BUDGET CREATES BETTER IDEAS

The production difficulties surrounding Spasms provide perhaps the most useful lesson for young artists.

Money disappeared.

Effects were unfinished.

The creature did not always cooperate.

Sequences had to be rethought.

The filmmakers adapted.

One retrospective argues that despite the troubled production, the movie contains strong cinematography, effective camera movement and atmospheric lighting.

That matters.

Creative people frequently tell themselves:

I could make something good if I had more money.

Maybe.

But constraints can force visual invention.

You cannot show the monster?

Show what the monster sees.

The mechanical effect isn’t convincing?

Cut faster.

The set isn’t enormous?

Use darkness.

You cannot afford ten creatures?

Build mythology around one.

Limitations don’t automatically create art.

But solving limitations creatively sometimes does.

MARK IRWIN’S CAMERA

The film’s cinematographer was Mark Irwin, who would later become closely associated with David Cronenberg and photograph movies including The Fly.

That makes Spasms particularly interesting in retrospect.

You can watch a filmmaker developing visual instincts that would become part of much more celebrated work.

There are moments when the camera moves with unexpected confidence.

Dark interiors.

Hard highlights.

Strange angles.

Predatory movement.

Faces emerging from shadow.

The film sometimes looks more expensive than it was because somebody behind the camera understands atmosphere.

That is another lesson for BEAUX HOMMES photographers:

Lighting can create production value.

You don’t always need a magnificent location.

You need to know what not to illuminate.

DARKNESS CAN BE PRODUCTION DESIGN

Many lower-budget horror and science-fiction films discovered the same trick.

Darkness is inexpensive.

But good darkness is not simply underexposure.

Good darkness directs attention.

The audience sees one object.

One face.

One doorway.

One shape.

Everything beyond it becomes imagination.

And imagination has an unlimited effects budget.

Spasms occasionally uses darkness and selective lighting to turn ordinary environments into threatening spaces.

This is especially effective in monster movies because viewers instinctively begin searching the shadows.

Is the creature there?

Was that movement?

Did something just pass behind him?

The audience starts participating in the film.

That is visual storytelling.

THE BEAUTY OF AN IMPERFECT MOVIE

We need to say something that is increasingly important in contemporary film culture:

Not every movie worth watching is a masterpiece.

Spasms has problems.

Its pacing can wander.

Some narrative ideas arrive and then disappear.

The cult material could have been developed much further.

The creature effects are inconsistent.

The climax was compromised by technical problems.

Critics have rarely been generous; Rotten Tomatoes currently lists only a tiny number of professional reviews, both negative.

Fine.

Watch it anyway.

There is a strange modern tendency to approach old movies as though we are conducting employee evaluations.

Did everything work?

Was the plot perfectly structured?

Did every effect age flawlessly?

Was every performance calibrated correctly?

Art can offer value without passing every test.

Sometimes one shot is worth seeing.

One costume.

One lighting idea.

One outrageous performance.

One monster.

One concept.

One mistake that gives you a better idea.

Creative people should become collectors of useful fragments.

Spasms contains plenty.

OLIVER REED’S FACE

Artists should watch Reed closely.

A face like Reed’s is a gift to cinematographers.

Strong structure.

Heavy expression.

Intensity.

Imperfection.

Character.

He does not require glamorous lighting to become interesting.

This connects to something BEAUX HOMMES frequently celebrates:

Beauty is not synonymous with smoothness.

A memorable face may contain tension.

Age.

Texture.

Lines.

Asymmetry.

History.

Reed looks like a man who has lived.

In a horror film about psychic torment, that matters much more than conventional prettiness.

SCIENCE FICTION DOESN’T NEED SPACESHIPS

We also include Spasms in our Summer of Sci-Fi because science fiction is much broader than rockets and robots.

The film’s central speculative concept is psychic connection.

Can one mind connect to another organism?

Can human consciousness extend beyond the human body?

Can a biological creature transmit experiences directly into a human brain?

Those are science-fiction questions.

Wrap them in occult mythology and giant-snake horror if you like.

The questions remain.

This blending of categories is precisely what makes genre filmmaking interesting.

Horror asks:

What are we afraid of?

Science fiction asks:

What might be possible?

Combine them and you get:

What if the impossible thing we’re afraid of becomes possible?

That is Spasms.

THE CULT AND THE CREATURE

The film’s snake-worshipping cult could easily have carried an entire movie by itself.

The idea suggests something important about human beings.

When confronted with something extraordinary, people frequently divide into groups.

Some want to destroy it.

Some want to study it.

Some want to exploit it.

Some want to worship it.

Think about first contact with extraterrestrial life.

The same thing would probably happen.

Scientists would demand samples.

Governments would demand control.

Corporations would see patents.

Religious movements would reinterpret prophecy.

Social media would lose its mind by lunchtime.

Spasms presents this dynamic in crude miniature.

And that makes its seemingly silly cult subplot more interesting than it first appears.

WHEN NATURE REFUSES TO BECOME A PRODUCT

There is another interpretation worth considering.

Kincaid captures the serpent.

Scientists want to study it.

Other people want to possess it.

Everybody assumes the creature can be relocated, contained and made useful.

The serpent disagrees.

Human beings have a long history of assuming that because we can capture something, we understand it.

Nature repeatedly corrects us.

The giant snake in Spasms becomes a wonderfully excessive expression of that lesson.

You wanted the mysterious creature?

Congratulations.

Now it is loose.

WHAT BEAUX HOMMES ARTISTS CAN LEARN

Watch Spasms with a sketchbook.

Not because every frame belongs in a museum.

Because imperfect movies are excellent classrooms.

Notice how the filmmakers use:

Point of view — making the camera itself become the creature.

Color — changing the image to suggest nonhuman perception.

Practical makeup — physically transforming the human body.

Shadow — hiding what the production cannot fully show.

Movement — creating aggression without expensive spectacle.

Faces — allowing experienced actors to carry visual weight.

Texture — rubber, skin, sweat, machinery, fabric and darkness all create tactile atmosphere.

Contrast — ancient serpent mythology placed beside contemporary science.

Those are transferable ideas.

You can use them in photography.

Painting.

Fashion.

Graphic novels.

Magazine design.

Video.

Illustration.

You do not need a giant snake.

Although we admit—

a giant snake helps.

WHAT WRITERS CAN LEARN

There is a useful storytelling equation hidden underneath the movie:

Connect the protagonist to the monster.

Do not merely have Jason Kincaid encounter the serpent.

Make him feel what it feels.

Now every attack has personal consequences.

The monster stops being external.

That is why stories such as The Fly, Alien, werewolf films and possession stories are so effective.

The barrier between human and monster becomes unstable.

Ask yourself:

What does the hero fear?

Now put it inside him.

That’s a story.

WHAT READERS CAN TAKE FROM IT

There is something unexpectedly personal inside all this creature-feature madness.

Kincaid has experienced something other people cannot fully understand.

He knows what the serpent is capable of.

He feels connected to it.

Other people interpret his experience through their own beliefs.

Scientists investigate.

Cultists mythologize.

Outsiders doubt.

Kincaid remains trapped inside the experience.

Many people know that feeling.

Not the giant psychic snake part, hopefully.

But the experience of trying to explain something deeply personal that other people cannot quite understand.

Fear.

Trauma.

Obsession.

Attraction.

Grief.

Even creativity.

Sometimes the most difficult experiences are those that cannot easily be translated into somebody else’s language.

Science fiction gives those feelings monsters.

That can make them easier to see.

OUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT SPASMS

It tries.

That may sound like faint praise.

We mean it sincerely.

This is not a safe movie.

Somebody decided that Oliver Reed should have a psychic relationship with an enormous mythical snake.

Somebody else decided Peter Fonda should investigate it.

Then somebody added a cult.

Then somebody hired Dick Smith to make bodies swell grotesquely.

Then they built a giant mechanical serpent.

Then much of the money disappeared.

And somehow—

there is still a movie.

We love creative audacity.

The world has enough competent beige entertainment.

Sometimes we want something that swings wildly and misses.

Because occasionally, somewhere during the swing—

it creates an image you remember for thirty years.

BEAUX HOMMES VERDICT
★★★½ out of five

Is Spasms a great film?

No.

Is it visually interesting?

Absolutely.

And for creative viewers, that distinction matters.

The movie benefits from Mark Irwin’s atmospheric cinematography, William Fruet’s attempts to solve his creature problems through point-of-view photography, grotesque practical makeup work associated with Dick Smith and Stephan Dupuis, and the sheer physical presence of Oliver Reed.

Its production difficulties are visible.

Its ambitions sometimes exceed its resources.

Its giant snake occasionally reminds you that somebody built a giant rubber snake.

We consider that part of the experience.

For BEAUX HOMMES Summer of Sci-Fi, Spasms earns its place because it demonstrates something we want every artist, writer and imaginative reader to remember:

Interesting is sometimes more valuable than perfect.

Study the strange movie.

Study the failure.

Study the effect that almost works.

Study the lighting that works beautifully.

Study the monster somebody had the nerve to build.

Then take what inspires you—

and make something even better.

BEAUX HOMMES — SUMMER OF SCI-FI

The strange. The beautiful. The impossible.

www.beauxhommes.com