HBO has a reputation as a home for high quality documentary filmmaking, particularly in the true crime realm. I mean, this is the network that got a suspected murderer to mutter a confession into a hot mic after a long interview. At the end of 2020, the network released four in quick succession, and I figured I should try to check them out at my leisire.
I opted to start with Alabama Snake, the story of a snake-handler that might have committed attempted murder.
Alabama Snake is the story of Pastor Glenn Summerford. A snake-handler, paramedics were called in when his second wife Darlene was bitten by a poisonous snake not unlike the ones Summerford kept in his house for religious services. There’s an investigation, a trial, and Summerford got a sentence of 99 years for the crime. Did he do it?
Well, it sure looks like he did. The documentary spends more time trying to explain who Summerford is and what he believed. A product of a rough childhood, he learned to fight from his stepfather but tried to become a better man following the death of a daughter during a mysterious house fire and eventually found Jesus. Married twice, the documentary interviews both of his ex-wives, and while Darlene lived through the snake attack, she may not be the most reliable of witnesses. Heck, she’s the only person in the entire documentary whose speech is subtitled, and she does speak English.
If anything, it looks like the documentary is more interested in Summerford’s faith. The snake handling is treated as something of an oddity but in a tone that doesn’t suggest the movie is laughing at it or even treating it as anything particularly sinister. It’s more something that various people deeply believe in, but it’s only one detail among the many strange things that come to light during the course of the movie. Summerford speaks as a man who truly believes in his faith, and talk of demons taking over him by Darlene, various acts of violence, and a prison escape that may have been intended as a possible way to ascend to Heaven (it didn’t work) make for a fascinating if somewhat forced attempt for HBO to perhaps duplicate the unexpected strangeness of Tiger King. If that was what HBO was trying to do (somewhat off-brand for the network), it was only so-so successful. That said, Alabama Snake isn’t a bad documentary. It just comes across as more over-the-top ridiculous than we normally see from the network.
Grade: B
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