WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t have a fear of snakes when I was young because I definitely did! Like most people I’m sure, I saw them as these slimy creatures which actually isn’t the case. I’ve touched one, I know better now. However, because of the number of poisonous species, and the idea of being suffocated by a Boa Constrictor, I can understand the fear…
Vipers
You can always tell a TV movie by the dodgy CGI! However, I will say this much – the acting isn’t as dodgy or cheesy as you would expect. I think this film really needed to learn from the incidents during Deep Blue Sea – never use a dangerous animal when dealing with cancer. Especially when it comes to enhancing the genetics of the creature. Honestly, scientists never learn! I guess that isn’t completely accurate as the enhancement was unknown to the scientist in question. I don’t care how enhanced these snakes are, I don’t believe for a minute they’ll be able to knock down doors. I also think I may have miscounted the snakes in the box at the start because I’m sure there are way more than there should have been.
Megaboa
When you see the title of a film having ‘mega’ in it, you instantly think it’s going to be some cheesy straight to TV film, especially when you see it has the tagline ’50 feet and ready to eat’ and then the helicopter company being called Ofidio – a little on the nose don’t you think? Now I can’t seem to find if it was a TV Movie but it definitely isn’t cheesy! I don’t know if the story line was intentional but as soon as Joaquin mentions about the special orchid to save Dr Malone’s leg – it automatically made me think of Anaconda: Hunt for the Black Orchid.
Snake Hotel
Now, I have watched some weird films in my time but there is something disturbing about this film. It seems that the main aim of the snake hotel is to get rid of female criminals so it makes me think of Cube a little just a bit weirder. I also had a strange feeling that Miss Fang was part snake as she seems to hiss when speaking with Warren. The CGI is a little off on the snakes but surprisingly the acting is much better than I was expecting – couldn’t really get much worse in comparison to some of the other films on here though…
The only thing that bothered me is that I didn’t quite understand the point of Linda and Mia being descended from St George.
The Lair of the White Worm
Now the title may be misleading when referring to a film about snakes but as mentioned by James D’Ampton during the film, they have derived it from viram meaning snake. Interestingly, my suspicion of Miss Fang in Snake Hotel is actually true in terms of Lady Sylvia Marsh because she is the snake of this story, doing what she can to resurrect the White Worm slain by D’Ampton’s ancestor. The whole film actually centres on Lady Sylvia making sacrifices to the snake god Dionin. For a good film based loosely on a book by Bram Stoker, it does have some weird scenes! I’ll say this much though, when we see Dionin for the first time at the end of the film, it really does remind me of the creatures from Tremors
King Cobra
Now, this film is a little like Vipers in that scientists are once again stupid enough to experiment on already pretty deadly animals, but these guys took a little further – King Cobras are not to be messed with! Also, this works more along the line of 28 Days Later in their experiments as they are working on controlling aggression instead of curing people. I want to know if the cobra survived 2 years on its own. For a moment I actually didn’t think we were going to see the snake at all, until Jo seems to have a nightmare about it. I don’t know how they made the Seth (that’s the name of the cobra by the way) but my god he looks realistic!
Snake Island
This may actually be the only film in the list where the snakes haven’t been enhanced or messed with in any shape or form. The horror is based around genuine snakes in the wild. The film doesn’t feel overall scary but it is a little creepy when the baby snake slithers out of Fricky’s mouth. It seems instead that the snakes are protecting their territory as they arrived on the island first. I actually think this is a darker idea than any hybrid or enhanced snake. The weird thing is, the film doesn’t feel cheesy at all until about 20 minutes from the end – especially when Carrie starts hallucinating. The ending actually starts to lead you to believe that everyone is going to die, and I’ll be honest – I wish it had ended that way…
