Swarm of the Snakehead

Puppets really?????? Watch the movie before you release it. The scene with the mayor the dammed puppet didn't even touch her yet she was bleeding. The cops guns look like toy guns. By the end I didn't care for anyone.

I was drawn to Swarm Of The Snakehead because a) I like dumb monster flicks b) It was on Youtube and c) Because the front cover is an awesome Army of Darkness (1992) spoof.

Telling the story of a town besieged by Snakeheads (half fish half snake) and the comedic antics that follow. You see this isn't your standard dumb scyfy original, this acknowledges that it's a comedy.

The SFX are terrible, most of the acting is laughable and the whole movie is shoddily made but I'm embarrassed to say there are a few laughs to be had.

If you just accept that its supposed to be cheesy and look terrible you might find entertainment value here. Not much, but it is there.

The Good:

Critters vibe

The Mayor was a well played character

The Bad:

The monsters look like angry hand puppets

Things I learnt from this movie:

There is a pop song based on Winona Ryder

The creators are NOT animal lovers

The inhabitants of a small Maryland fishing community is terrorized by air breathing snakehead fish in this low budget comedy of horrors. I had the good fortune to see the world premiere of this film. The audience, filled with the cast and crew and their friends and family, laughed uproariously throughout the entire film. I don't believe other other audiences will enjoy it quite as much, but this film certainly does have its share of moments, if you are willing to overlook some out-of-focus photography and out-of-sync audio and the occasional wonky performance. The film does manage to deliver quite a few laughs and some nice performances. The young actors are all pretty good, as are Lisa Burdette, who plays the conniving town mayor, and co-director Frank Lama, who does an excellent job of channeling an arrogant but cowardly version of Bruce Campbell. "Snakehead" also features a nice soundtrack. I do not know if the filmmakers have found a distributor for this film, but I suspect it will soon find a home on the video shelves. Well worth a look if you taste runs to low budget, tongue-in-check horror films.

The wonderful cover design (which is a riff on NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION) had me thinking this was a proper comedy/horror monster movie, but I had no idea it was an independent production with a very small budget. The result is a film that never breaks out of its amateur hour boundaries, coming across as completely laughable and inept throughout.

The plot is modelled on your usual monster story with small scale attacks leading to an overwhelming onslaught by the swarming snakehead. A typical and annoying family are caught up in the mayhem, but when I tell you that the menace in this film is a mere reptilian hand puppet then you'll have some idea of what to expect. The calibre of the acting is very poor, as are the production values and the direction; elements of humour in the script don't work at all. In a bit to make things work they do throw in some lame and oddly tame gore scenes later on but they're as inept as the rest of the production.

A 2006 film that has the appearance of a 60's flick, Swarm of the Snakehead starts out with a special charm unique to true intentional schlock films. The sense of humor and comedic timing as well as skill of the terrible actors is excellent.

Snakehead fish invade a town. Ordinarily I'd skip a movie like this, but reviews stated it was a satire... one review even stating it was family fare.

It definitely is not. What starts out as a fun satirical romp with some chuckles and over-the-top characters and acting, turns into a bloody gore flick about halfway through. Unless you're entertained by such you're likely to be disappointed that a potential high-schlock festival turns into a typical slaughter film.

It starts out great. The acting is intentionally terrible. The script is purposefully bad, with outrageous lines throughout. This flick had real promise as a top horror satire film. Unfortunately it seems the director forgot it was a satire, turning it into a gore-ror film in which the humor is lost and "bad" truly becomes bad.

I would have given this film a high rating if they'd continued as they started out during the first 20 minutes or so. At the midway point the value of the film dropped like the townspeople as it set humor aside and turned into a splatter fest. If one is into nasty gore flicks and buckets of blood this might be entertaining. Anyone else will just find it disappointingly disgusting and a let-down after the promising start. They should have stuck with a winning concept.