And what a lot of movies, we have to choose from. Amongst my favourite reptilian relicts is Nagin (1976) with Sunil Dutt, the late lamented Feroz Khan and the ever-beautiful Rekha in a supporting role – she will also feature later in this article! The plot is a simple one – two mating cobras in human form (Jeetendra and Reena Roy) are dancing in their human forms in the moonlight when the male is shot by some hunters. “Those rascals have changed our mating night into a mourning night,” he says poetically before passing away. The rest of the film is essentially a revenge movie as the Nagin demonstrates why it’s not a good idea to deprive a woman of her satisfaction when she’s feeling up for it. What makes this movie stand out is the way in which the characters of the hunters are fleshed out and become entirely believable. It’s also clever the way the character of the Nagin becomes more and more obsessed and deranged so that your sympathies, which originally lie with the snake, slowly slither in favour of the declining body of hunters. A real triumph!
