The Snake Woman

Dr. Horace Adderson used snake venom as an experimental treatment to control his wife Martha's severe mental illness. Years of treatments had stabilized her condition, but when she became pregnant and could no longer receive the injections, her mental state deteriorated, ultimately leading to her death during childbirth.

Earlier scenes show the doctor carefully extracting venom from snakes in his laboratory, establishing his expertise with serpent venom.

Midwife Aggie Harker believed the newborn was cursed because the baby did not blink and felt cold to the touch, unnatural traits she interpreted as signs of demonic or devilish origin. This superstitious belief drove her to attempt killing the infant with scissors before the mob intervened.

The midwife's immediate reaction to the newborn establishes her role as the primary source of supernatural belief in the village.

The film implies that Atheris inherited her serpentine nature from her mother Martha, who was repeatedly injected with king cobra venom during pregnancy to treat her mental illness. This exposure appears to have transformed the child into a being capable of transforming into a lethal cobra.

The use of king cobra venom on the pregnant mother foreshadows the cobra-themed deaths that occur nineteen years later.

Dr. Murton, who had saved the baby nineteen years earlier, became convinced that Atheris was responsible for killing a village boy with snake venom. He confronted her on the moors with a shotgun, intending to stop what he believed was a murderer. Atheris killed him in self-defense when he fired at her.

Murton's earlier connection to the baby and his departure for Africa to study snakes creates the tragic irony of his death at her hands.

Atheris appears to kill instinctively when threatened or provoked. She has no malicious intent toward the villagers, her killings of Murton and the boy's father were acts of self-defense when attacked with weapons on the moors. The venomous nature is part of what she is, not a deliberate choice.

Atheris's cold, unblinking demeanor and inability to be touched without discomfort establish her as fundamentally other.

The Inspector destroyed the report not to suppress belief in the truth, but to prevent the truth from being believed and causing widespread panic. He understood that the official record must remain clean to avoid drawing unwanted attention to the village's dark secret and potentially triggering more fear among the populace.

The Inspector's initial skepticism about supernatural causes gives way to a protective secrecy at the end.

Aggie Harker used a voodoo doll ritual to break what she believed was the curse, instructing Charles to shoot the doll three times. She then insisted he shoot Atheris three times as well to ensure her death, believing three was the sacred number needed to defeat the snake woman's supernatural nature.

Aggie's superstitious guidance runs throughout the film, from declaring the baby evil to prescribing the ritual killing.

Atheris was irresistibly drawn to the tune Charles played on the snake-charmer's flute because her serpentine nature made her instinctively respond to the traditional snake-charmer's music. This connection convinced Charles that she was indeed more than human.

Wynborn's gift of the flute to Charles seems deliberately calculated to draw out the snake woman.

After Murton's death, the boy's father, grief-stricken and drunk, ventured onto the moors seeking vengeance against whoever killed his son. He encountered Atheris and she killed him in self-defense when he attacked her, just as she had killed Murton.

The father's intoxication and determination to avenge his son create a tragic chain of deaths.

Aggie's early attempt to kill the newborn stemmed from her belief that the child was the devil's offspring and a curse on the village. Years later, she believed she could control and break the curse through ritual, using Charles as her instrument, not from redemption, but from a changed approach to dealing with what she still considered evil.

Aggie's consistent belief in supernatural evil drives both her violent and her ritualistic actions.

Atheris possessed serpentine physical characteristics, cold blood temperature and transparent eyelids that did not blink, as a result of her unique origin from snake venom exposure in utero. These traits marked her as fundamentally non-human despite her beautiful appearance.

The description of the newborn as cold to the touch and not blinking directly foreshadows Atheris's adult characteristics.

The deaths began approximately nineteen years after Atheris was born, when she had matured and apparently began wandering the moors. The lethal king cobra venom found in each corpse matched her nature, suggesting she was either deliberately killing or that her mere presence caused fatal encounters with snakes.

The nineteen-year gap aligns with Atheris reaching adulthood, explaining why the curse suddenly emerged.