Serpientes en el tren

Bad acting, the same 'oh! let's bite a fake blood or goo capsule every 5 minutes for special effects' kind of trash. We sat through this mess because it was like watching a train wreck...

The cover illustration isn't a lie, in fact. In case you've never witnessed a movie in which an entire train (and not a small one, I may add) gets eaten by a preposterously humongous and pathetic looking CGI snake, here's your chance! Before you experience this, however, you'll have to struggle yourself through one of the most miserable and embarrassing pieces of trash ever made. There honestly aren't any words to describe how awful "Snakes on a Train" actually is. The script doesn't contain any coherence or logical development, the characters (as well as the actors and actresses depicting them) are pitiable morons and the special effects & action sequences are amateurish beyond comprehension. A female Mexican refugee and her lover illegally board a train from El Paso to Los Angeles. The woman has been cursed by her family, however, and she constantly barfs up thick green pea soup with little serpents in it. She needs to keep the serpents with her in order to survive, but some of them nevertheless slither away to the next carriages. Then, for some inexplicable reason, the little black snakes mutate into various species of enormous colorful snakes and begin to feast on the rest of the passengers. This is embarrassing, bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, quickly made to cash in on the unexpected huge success of "Snakes on a Plane", and I'm pretty sure the Mallachi Brothers improvised the script as they went along filming this nonsense. The handful of characters (100 passengers, my ass… More like 12 to 15) don't have a clue what they're doing or saying and one of them even mistakes a giant snake for an iguana. And it's boring. Don't ask me how a shoestring-budgeted film revolving on snakes in an isolated setting manages to be boring, but it is. The last couple of minutes are fun, but only if you're severely intoxicated.

I happened to come across this movie by sheer blind luck, and of course this is a produced by The Asylum, who else would blatantly cash in on another movie with a similar plot, name and concept? After all, that is the trademark of The Asylum, is it not?

"Snakes on a Train" is, no surprise here, a low budget cash in and rip off on the other just slightly better movie "Snakes on a Plane", also from 2006. You know, the movie with Samuel L. Jackson. However, "Snakes on a Train" takes places on a train - doh!

The story is about two border jumpers from Mexico who are trying to get to Los Angeles in order to find a remedy for the ancient curse that is afflicting the woman border jumper. She is spewing out snakes, and these snakes turn rampart on the train, spreading havoc and mayhem.

I will say that the storyline, with its subplots and attempts to incorporate various themes, failed ultimately more horrible than the fail in "Snakes on a Plane". The story in The Asylum's "Snakes on a Train" was just all the more laughable and badly executed. And it didn't really help the movie along in any sense that the characters were as hollow and wooden as the acting skills of those attempting to portray them.

"Snakes on a Train" is bad through and through. And not for a single moment did I believe that the movie was actually taking place on a locomotive train. Not even once did you get to look outside the windows in the train to see the passing by landscape and scenery. All windows were, oddly enough, semi-glossy and non-transparent.

This movie is one to stay clear off, and it was a test of will to sit through this and keep watching it. I must admit that I eventually gave up and didn't finish the movie, because it was just that awful.

Under a powerful Mayan curse, snakes are hatched inside a young woman, slowly devouring her from within. Her only chance for survival is a powerful shaman who lives across the border. With only hours to live, she jumps on a train headed for Los Angeles.

Could this be one of The Asylum's worst films and yet one its biggest money-makers? I think so. While most of their films are bad, this one seems to be among the worst. And yet, it is possibly the most noteworthy ripoff they had. I can see hundreds and thousands of people renting this... (though I am not exactly sure how rental money gets back to creators).

Others have complained about dangling subplots, such as the drug smuggling and Middle Eastern man. Really? If anything, give them credit for trying to have more complex characters... even if they failed.

So I was energized during my Snakes on a Plane weekend, after the movie we craved some more. Why not Snakes on A Train? How bad could it possibly be, its snakes probably killing people on trains. The snakes were supposed to be rattlers. First off me and my buddies thought the snakes were harmless garden snakes and pet snakes with the same cheesy rattling sound clip. We actually sat through the entire thing completely ready to turn it off (we're too lazy to walk over and hit eject). Next thing we knew we don't know what the heck was going on but something amazingly funny happens at the end. It's one of those endings that you'll rewind a few times just to squeeze the laughs out, because you suffered for so long.

Last 10 min a "8", rest of the movie a 2.