"Ruth Hopkins" (Cornelia Sharpe) is looking forward to a vacation in Rome with her husband and leaves her asthmatic son, "Phillip" (Lance Holcomb) with his grandfather, "Howard Anderson" (Sterling Hayden) to look after him in their London apartment. What she doesn't realize is that the maid, "Louise Andrews" (Susan George), the chauffeur "Dave Averconnelly" (Oliver Reed) and a German criminal named "Jacques Muller" (Klaus Kinski) have made detailed plans to kidnap the boy for a huge ransom. Unfortunately, their plans go awry when a policeman comes to the door and Dave mindlessly shoots and kills him. This results in the police surrounding the house with the kidnappers holding both Phillip and Howard as hostages. Now, while this might sound like a mediocre kidnapping movie, what gives this film some added excitement is that by complete accident Phillip has recently brought an extremely aggressive and deadly snake home with him and it has just gotten loose. To that end, the directors (Piers Haggard and Tobe Hooper) manage to keep the film somewhat suspenseful by utilizing some shock value and music to pretty good effect. In short, while this film certainly won't win any major awards, it still managed to pretty much keep my attention from beginning to end. That said, I figure it deserves at least an average rating.
