A documentary premiering Wednesday covers the 1992 trial of Glenn Summerford, a snake-handling preacher from Jackson County, Alabama, and his trial for attempting to kill his wife with a serpent.
“Alabama Snake” will broadcast on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. CT on HBO’s linear TV channel and will be available for streaming around the same time.
Summerford is currently serving 129 years in prison for attempted murder after his wife, Darlene Summerford, testified that he forced her to place her hand in a cage where poisonous snakes bit her.
″He took a pipe and hit the cages real hard so the snakes got real mad and then grabbed me by the hair and said he would push my face in if I didn’t stick my hand in there,″ she testified at the trial, according to a story from the Associated Press.
“Alabama Snake” comes from director Theo Love and producer Bryan Storkel. Love previously directed the documentary “The Legend of Cocaine Island” for Netflix.
The Summerford trial garnered national media attention and was the subject of an acclaimed 1996 book.
HBO’s documentary on the subject “features local historian and folklorist Dr. Thomas Burton, who spent his life studying the culture, beliefs, and folklore of the Pentecostal snake handlers, as he paints a Southern Gothic portrait of Summerford and his tale of demon possession,” according to a release on the channel’s website.
Those seeking to stream “Alabama Snake” over the internet will be able to access the film on the HBO Max streaming service. It will also be available on the older HBO app still used on the Roku platform and older versions of other streaming devices.
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Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.
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