Hiss

Hisss (2010)

Hisss is what happens when you take what would be a B movie in the US, send it to Bollywood where it is taken seriously and given a good budget. It’s set in modern day India, but deals with an ancient myth of a snake goddess, the Naga, who contains within her a magical stone, the Nagmani, which grants eternal life. Many have tried in the past to obtain this sacred stone and all met a rather gruesome end. George States is a white guy that has heard the story and believes it. He seeks out and captures the snake goddess’s mate and plans to hold the male cobra captive until the snake goddess trades the Nagmani for the release of her lover.

After George and his hired thugs capture her lover, the snake goddess takes human form and travels into the city to seek him out. Along the way she has run ins with several bad men who find out they tried to mess with the wrong woman. Their poisoned bodies leave a trail which Vinkram Gupta, a local cop, begins to follow. Vinkram is not a superstitious man and refuses to believe that these murders are supernatural in nature. There are a few other minor plot threads that make the story more interesting, but the man focus of the story follows the snake goddess as she tracks down her lover and his captor and Vinkram as he follows the trail of destructions he leaves behind.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this movie. I got it thinking it would just be another random B movie that might be fun to watch, but wouldn’t really be that worthwhile. Instead I got to see a unique film that showed what might happen if ancient religious stories from India were brought to life in the modern day culture there. Hisss focused more on telling a story than just providing a backdrop for cheesy special effects. However, the effects it did have were pretty good! It looked to me like it was some fairly good practical effects enhanced with touches of CGI here and there. The acting was great and you could tell that the movie was being taken more seriously than most of it’s type. The actress who played the snake goddess, Mallika Sherawat, was very convincing and even though she did not speak throughout the entire movie she was able to convey the emotion her character felt while retaining an inhuman quality that really sold the role.

I would definitely recommend this movie. It’s something that you don’t see often and can be a nice change from the norm. I wish more people were making flicks like this it would give the whole genre a boost.

3 out of 4

reviewed by Scott Schwarzwalder