Swarm of the Snakehead

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.

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

This is a classic genre film of the 1960s era with a fast moving pace, interesting and some lovable and not-lovable characters, and a great job of editing that makes the movie-going experience exciting and entertaining.

The story is primarily set on Maryland's Eastern Shore and depicts a summer vacation resort that is struggle to maintain financial viability. Pets begin to mysteriously disappear, and then the abandoned car of two teenagers is found on a lonely roar.

The mayor, already involved in some nefarious plot to pad her bank account is faced with a crisis when she discovers mysterious carnivorous fish who can live on land who indiscriminately track down man and beast.

The sheriff wants to report the incursion while the mayor wants to keep it quiet to protect her financial interest while claiming that the town will cease to exist when summer vacationers decide to go elsewhere.

The impact of bloodly scenes is softened by the clever juxtaposition of humor making the film presentable to children in the 8-10 age range.

This film is a lot of fun with some subtle gags and one-liners that are likely to tickle the fancy of some "sohistocated" movie-goers.

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.

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.