Vipers

There is a break in the Universal BioTech laboratory and vipers escape. The CEO Burton (Corbin Bernsen) seeks out Dr. Vera Collins (Jessica Steen), who is researching the healing of breast cancer using the vipers' venom, and tells that the secret facility was researching enhanced vipers to produce more venom.

Meanwhile in the peaceful island Eden Cove, in the Pacific Northwest, the vipers attack the residents. The newcomer doctor Cal Taylor (Jonathan Scarfe), who has come from the army, leads a small group of survivors to attract the vipers and save the locals from complete destruction and they discover an evil plan of Burton and his chief of security John Staffen (Michael Kopsa).

"Vipers" is a silly B-movie with a terrible conclusion. After the death of most of the residents, Nicky is happy in love with Cal and the annoying Maggie, who has just lost her parents, is smiling with Dr. Silverton. This is enough to qualify this movie as stupid and ridiculous. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "O Ataque das Víboras" ("The Vipers Attack")

This was my sixth title I have viewed from the Maneater series. I wasn't expecting much at all except a way to waste a Sunday morning. However I was shocked. I was expecting them to use National Geographic footage of vipers lunging at people, but instead found a cool movie that I really enjoyed.

Now some people just can't appreciate b-movies simply because they seem to actually care for the mainstream stuff and don't even want to give such stuff as Vipers a chance. If you want something award worthy your in the wrong place.

However this is a fun little movie, I was into the characters and I'll say it's the best title I've seen from the Maneater series overall.

A set of vipers has been taken by the scientists, and they have mutated them to make a cure for cancer... then their experiment goes awry, and all these vipers escape into the woods, and they are not only biting people, they are actually killing people, in a little town.

I had low expectations because of Tara Reid, but frankly she was no worse than anyone else in the movie and may actually have even been good by comparison. I hate to almost say a good word about Reid, but there it is, the closest I may ever come.

The problem with this film is easy to point out: the special effects. Snakes that take over an island and eat people (apparently including their clothes, bones and tents)? Sounds pretty good, like a classic 1950s sci-fi movie. Well, not this time. The snakes look so poor, they just ruin every scene they are in (which is most of the movie). SyFy has made a lot of poor special effects decisions, but this may be their worst.

The acting isn't terrible given this ridiculous script. I don't know how you mutate a venomous snakes venom but apparently I'm doing so five snakes miraculously turn into hundreds of fully grown vipers. And apparently these snakes eat people in bites like a canine or lion or bear.

This movie would have been better had they not tried to amp up the situation by turning to the ridiculous. The Pacific Northwest is not known to be a haven for snakes since it is quite cold there.

Finally, the budget on SFX was abysmally wasted. The digital snakes sometimes move like a snake would but more often than not the snakes are just too damned fast and (especially ridiculous) move in a linear manner like a child's toy being pulled on a string. Oh yes, did you know that dying snakes cry out like an injured dog? Neither did I.

There are points where you can see how it might have been better, but more often than not it's just laughably bad.

Pretty sure this movie had the slowest car chase in the history of movies. Most of the movie consisted of a few seconds of people talking followed by a few seconds of slithering snakes. Just over and over. It was insipid.

It didn't start out bad: Had a decent set-up, there were some good actors in it, and the location could have been fantastic, but was completely under-utilized. Overall, not a good effort and forgettable.

Survival Lesson: Do not fill up radio space with inane banter, especially during an active operation.