Serpientes a bordo

This movie has been re-titled "Sea Snakes." Maybe it had a name change to dodge a bad reputation. Anyways, it's a movie about snakes on a submarine. " Aha," you say. "The crew will simply isolate compartments, wear breathing equipment, and turn the compartment oxygen off." Well, we all know that would make for a 15 minute movie ... So pretend that it's not a real submarine, a real submarine crew, or real snakes. Oh yeah, the scientists aren't real either. I guess this is my beef with this flick, no suspension of disbelief. Most of the stuff looks fake, and it's hard to care or get engaged. There's a lot of technical errors and they are annoying. One teeny example: in one scene the ship's corpsman (the medic) puts some anti-venom next to a bunch of glass containers, all sitting on top of a cabinet. That's OK if the cabinet is affixed to a building in a non-seismic zone. All those glass jars would have fallen off the cabinet and shattered once the sub went to sea. If you want to see bigger technical errors or learn lessons in careless movie making, watch the flick. Just don't expect to be entertained.

O. K., now atomic mutant, vicious, and sneaky, half pit viper, half diamondback. So, you can imagine if that was Krista Allen, what the snakes are like.

On Manku Island The east of the China Sea. A hybrid snake strain was created supposedly by a covert Chinese bomb nuclear test. As with all hybrid snake strains, they eventually get loose.

Before the credits are over Kimo Keoke gets eaten by a big mother in one gulp. Eventually, there can be an electrifying climax.

In any event, the story might be lame, but the props are realistic, and the dialog is o.k. For this type of movie. You can add it to your disaster collection.

Of course, being on a sub, we could not have the standard flame thrower.

*************** Warning may contain spoilers *******

What is not to like about this film? Cheesy effects, rather wooden acting, a silly plot line, and SNAKES! On a SUB! Why they couldn't get Luke Perry to echo Samuel L Jackson's famous line about snakes on a plane, I'll never know. I guess it just would not fit the military image - even though Perry was playing a Navy Captain! A mildly entertaining fun romp with nary a pit viper to be seen (but plenty of albino boas, corn snakes, rat snakes, and some fake overgrown diamondbacks), some very hokey special effects of Big Momma and the usual stupid plot holes.

My wife and I enjoyed it, as we are fans of this sort of ridiculous trash. It was better than some we have seen, worse than others. If you have some time to kill, it might be worth your time. At least it had sub titles, and the submarine action was pretty good.

Two scientists are working on an island with poisonous snakes, testing various types of venom. When a submarine picks them up to take them home, they are taking the most deadly species with them. As you would expect in a thriller, the snakes get out of their boxes and start to kill the submarine crew. To make the situation worse, the submarine is chased by the Chinese navy, since their mission took them into Chinese waters.

For a very low budget movie, 'Silent Venom' is fast paced entertainment, naturally with cheap effects, but never boring. Luke Perry (as Commander O'Neill) plays the captain of the boat, Krista Allen is the scientist Dr. Swanson, and Louis Mandylor whom I remember from 'Relic Hunter' plays her shady assistant Goldin whose greed causes most of the trouble.

"Snakes on a Sub" (or "Recoil" or "Silent Venom") was on my list of films to see, simply because I had to know why some (once mighty) actors would want to appear in a Fred Olen Ray (or whatever name he's going by this week) movie... The answer is (obviously) money.

The film wastes no time in letting the audience in on what to expect. Really (and I mean really, painfully) bad CGI snakes, that the average 12 year old kid could do a better job with on his home PC. It makes you wonder if they even tried? Yes, they look like cartoons of the worse kind. That being said, the story is not all that bad... Once the premise switches over to the what (and why) a submarine is involved, it actually pulls you in, and you begin to forget about the stupid snake storyline. There is an underlying war-themed adventure about an out of commission sub (and crew) that accidentally wanders into enemy waters. Very well acted by both Berenger and Perry, this part of the film really worked for me, and I became engrossed in the story. The dialog appears to follow proper Navel protocol, and you begin to feel for the characters. Unfortunately, we are soon reminded that this is "Snakes on a Sub" and the B-Movie resurfaces. I think it could have made a decent war drama on it's own, however not many people would likely rent (buy) it for that.

"Horror Sells!!!"

Thus, we are left with good acting and really, painfully, horribly, cheesy FX and an hour and a half of our lives gone forever...

Enter at own risk.