La malédiction du cobra

JAWS OF SATAN begins on a train carrying dogs for the new dog track, and one snake. What sort of snake? Why, a cobra. What kind of cobra? A devil cobra! We know this because of its powers. Powers, I say! Powers that kill! Kill! Killll! By the time it gets off the train, it's all alone.

Enter Father Tom Farrow (Fritz Weaver). At a party, a psychic named Evelyn Downs (Diana Douglas) is busy "picking up vibes", and knows a lot about Father Farrow's family history. His lineage has made him a prime target for Satan! This means he's doomed!

DOOOMED!!

Enter Dr. Maggie Sheridan (Gretchen Corbett), who's investigating the killer-devil-snake deaths. Of course, there's political tension, due to the opening of the pivotal dog track, so no one wants the bad publicity associated with killer-devil-snake deaths! Dr. Sheridan calls in an expert. More k-d-s deaths occur, causing mayhem.

Indeed, the Evil One has come to town by train, and taken the form of a cobra, in order to kill people. He's also recruiting other snakes to do his bidding. Just like in the bible! Even Dr. Sheridan is attacked, and wails like a banshee-on-fire, causing romance to bloom between her and the snake expert.

The absurdity increases exponentially, as Farrow discovers the terrible truth of his family tree. He must now face off against The Serpent, or the dog track is finished!

Watching adults pretending to take all of this seriously is a joy to behold! Norman Lloyd nearly steals the show, during his heart attack scene! Luckily, he's already at the cemetery! This all leads up to the slithery, slippery, snake-den showdown, complete with organ accompaniment.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS: Snakes are eeevil tools of Satan, and must be destroyed!

THE IMPORTANT QUESTION REMAINS: "Why doesn't Satan like dog racing?".

My friends, much mirthful fun is contained herein...

A carnival train lets loose a snake (or snakes) near a small Alabama town, which is just about to open a dog track as a hopeful economic booster. When people start turning up dead with strange bites, and others report seeing unusual snakes, most of the town can't put two and two together, but Dr. Maggie Sheridan (Gretchen Korbett) becomes suspicious (nothing gets by her!) that something weird is going on and wants to alert the town. She's excited enough about it that she'd also probably like to call in the National Guard, and maybe even nuke Alabama just to be safe. The Mayor, Grady Thorpe (Jack Gordon), and the dog track developer, Matt Perry (Bob Hannah), will hear nothing of it. Meanwhile, the local Priest, Tom Farrow (Fritz Weaver) comes to believe that the snakes just might be Satan, at least after the local witch looks at his coffee grounds. On the other hand, maybe it has something to do with that discussion he has with a church member about acid.

Although I can find no literature related to the film to confirm this, it's virtually impossible for me to believe that Jaws of Satan (aka King Cobra) wasn't intended as a horror/comedy. Much of the dialogue and plot is simply too ridiculous to have been taken seriously. In any event, Jaws of Satan is a delight to watch, even if it is a poor film by traditional criteria. It was enjoyable enough to earn my coveted 5 out of 10 "so bad, it's good" rating.

Within the first five minutes, director Bob Claver shows us what an amusingly confusing mess he has in store for us. Two men are on a carnival train that seems otherwise unpopulated. For some reason (either it wasn't stated very well or I was already falling asleep) one leaves to check on a crate. It moves in mysterious ways. The lock on the crate opens itself, and our carny is surprised to see a cobra appear. It bites him. Some invisible force then pushes him off the train (invisible forces are always a sign that you're in for a doozy or a film). Meanwhile, his buddy is bitten in the face by the same or another snake, or at least the snake bumps into the really dirty plexiglass they had in front of the camera, then the buddy dies on the spot. We cut to an outside shot of the train, which suddenly slows and stops. We're never shown the engineer or what happens to him, but presumably there was an engineer, something happened to him, and he stopped the train gracefully. Cue the audience jumping out of their seats.

In an interview about the film, producer Bill Wilson said that the film was inspired by a true story circa 1955 that happened near Springfield, Missouri. A carnival train derailed, loosing countless snakes in the countryside. Many people were bitten and died. The way the incident is shown in the film is an indication of the kind of budget and technical finesse we're dealing with. Since Wilson and company obviously couldn't afford to have a train derail or crash, it simply stops, gently. We've only seen one snake up to that point, but within minutes, after just one more snakebite, Dr. Sheridan is ready to hit the panic button.

Much of the film has the same non-sequitur logic and low-budget sensibility, making for some very funny scenarios. It should be clear from the title--and it's implied very early in the film--that Father Farrow ends up being right--Satan has something to do with the incidents (and there is a long, convoluted backstory about Father Farrow's family and some druids). However, the film's logic is so loose that it's never clear just how Satan is involved. Snakes that should be possessed are easily killed--often through methods such as blowing their heads off with guns. There are a number of different snakes, although not enough to ever create much suspense, and certainly not enough for the big blowout that you might expect for a finale. Is it a collective possession? We end up with a battle against one particular snake, so that doesn't seem to be the case, but then what was the deal with all of the other snakes in the film?

It's best not to worry too much about this shady storytelling, and simply chuckle at the bizarre scenarios--such as an "assassin motorcyclist" who tries to chase down the whistleblowers to rape and/or murder them, or a mad chase through a cemetery where humans cannot outrun a slowly slithering beastie, or our heroes in peril because they have chosen to simply lie down, unbound, beneath the main villain in his lair, and so on. None of it makes much sense, but most of it is funny, especially when you add the consistently ludicrous dialogue.

And yet, unbelievably, there are flashes of brilliance in the film. Cinematographer Dean Cundey finds a number of beautiful, symbolic shots. That probably had something to do with his extensive experience--prior to Jaws of Satan, Cundey had already been a cinematographer on films such as Halloween (1978), Rock 'N' Roll High School (1979) and The Fog (1980); he's understandably had a long, successful career since. Weaver is a delight as Father Farrow, being humorously irreligious as he tells off-color jokes, drinks, smokes and regularly refers to his faith as "a bunch of superstitious nonsense".

I'd certainly recommend Jaws of Death, but only for fans of low-budget cheese and unintentional humor, despite its few intentional highlights. It's obvious that the producers were trying to cash in on a combo of two popular 1970s genres--religious (and especially possession) horror and nature run amok films. Obviously, there are many better examples of each genre to watch from the era, but none may be quite as funny as Jaws of Satan.

Aside from being Christina Applegate's debut, there is really nothing notable about this failed attempt at combining religious hokum with animal life on the attack. Fritz Weaver guts it out and turns in a decent performance as a small town priest whose ancestors are responsible for a curse being brought upon his parish. It seems that hundreds of years prior, his ancestor stamped out a druid cult and now their spirit is reborn in the form of a king cobra! And this king cobra happens to have jumped off a circus train after killing the crew just as it passes through this small Alabama town!!! YES You heard that right!! Now, the cobra casts its spell on other snakes in the area and causes them to randomly attack anyone they encounter! All this while a new dog racing track is about to open. And the mayor and the guy building it of course won't let anything delay the grand opening! No matter how many people get bitten! It's up to the priest to re-discover his faith and drive out the evil snakes!!! As you can tell from the above paragraph, this film is laughable. At least Snakes On a Plane apparently knew not to take itself seriously. (I've never seen that one, but that's what I understand) But Jaws of Satan plays it straight and only generates unintentional laughs! So many goofs! Plexiglass between the snakes and cast members is clearly visible in some scenes. In one scene, the sheriff is called to stalk a dangerous snake in a hardware store. The snake is clearly just a harmless gopher snake, but they try to make it seem like its attacking him!! We hear a gunshot, even when he clearly did not fire the pistol. Then, the snake just kind of slumps onto the floor... clearly not dead or harmed! The music is absolutely wretched, the film is filled with padding like people driving or taxiing down a runway in a little plane. Thought I was watching R.O.T.O.R. for a moment with all that padding! Lots of ancient clichés abound. We get a morgue attendant who leaves food lying around dead bodies and acts casual while eating next to corpses. Seen that one in so many others.... We see an expert brought in from out of town, but he doesn't amount to anything. Just serves as a love interest for a female town doctor. I don't know where to stop with my criticism, so I'll just do it here. Awful film! 2 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Jaws of Death (1981)

1/2 (out of 4)

It's common knowledge that THE EXORCIST and JAWS made a lot of money at the box office. It's common knowledge that both films had countless, needless rips that would follow throughout the decade. What isn't common knowledge is why it took so long for someone to try and take both films and mix them into one. The film starts off on a train as a large snake breaks free and lands in a small Alabama town where it starts to kill people. We then flash forward to a Priest (Fritz Weaver) whose father happened to have been fighting Druids or something and it turns out that Satan himself has taken over the body of this snake. This true excitement leads to a dingy cave where the Priest must perform an exorcism on the snake. I'm fairly convinced that Satan's an evil guy but if The Rolling Stone's Sympathy for the Devil thought me anything, it would be that evil Satan would be ashamed to be associated with this film. There are bad movies then there are movies like this that make no sense at all and will leave you scratching your head every few minutes. It should be noted that Dean Cundy (HALLOWEEN, THE FOG) did the cinematography here and Christina Applegate made her screen debut. With that out of the way, this movie gets off to an incredibly bad start. We're on the train when a number of stupid events take place and not a single one of them makes any sense. The second man the snake goes after has a shot of the snake where we can easily see the glass between it and the man. What's worse is that this piece of glass is not only seen but it's extremely dirty from previous takes The story itself is all over the place as it's never quite clear what's going on as we got Satan taking the body of a snake but then we have the Druid plot thrown in for whatever reason. As in JAWS, we have the evil mayor who wants to keep the story on the quiet side so that a dog track can come to town. The performances are all bland to poor but we don't necessarily come to a movie like this for the performances. For the most part the snake attack scenes are rather tame but there are a few quick shots of blood. We get one stupid scene after another but in the end there's no doubt that this here is one of the worst rips of either JAWS or THE EXORCIST.

A king cobra being transported by train to a carnival supposedly becomes the resting place for Satan himself. And in this form, Satan has the ability to command other slithering reptiles to do his bidding. This company of snakes arrives in a small town to disrupt the lives of the locals, among them irreverent priest Father Tom Farrow (Fritz Weaver, "Creepshow"), dedicated doctor Maggie Sheridan (Gretchen Corbett, "Let's Scare Jessica to Death", 'The Rockford Files'), and herpetologist Paul Hendricks (Jon Korkes, "Syngenor").

"Jaws of Satan" certainly wears its influences right on its sleeve, including the naming of the Hendricks character. It plays like a cross between "Jaws" and "The Exorcist", except without the level of craftsmanship in those two classics. It's directed in very workmanlike fashion by TV veteran Bob Claver, in what appears to be his only feature film. The shocks aren't anything special, nor are the suspense scenes, but at least the animal action is well executed. If this low budget production at least *looks* very good, that's due to the contributions of the great cinematographer Dean Cundey and camera operator Raymond Stella, two guys who did some of their best work for the director John Carpenter. The music score by Roger Kellaway ("Evilspeak", "Silent Scream") is quite good, and the movie does have an atmospheric opening. The similarity to "Jaws" itself is quite obvious in the way that the mayor (Jack Gordon) and businessman Matt Perry (Bob Hannah) don't want public fears about snakes to interfere with the operation of their brand spanking new dog racing track.

Some of the supporting cast is rather nondescript, but things are held together by a highly engaging Weaver. Diana Douglas, whose son Joel was the production manager, co-stars as the doom sayer Evelyn Downs. A very young Christina Applegate makes her film debut here, playing the daughter of her real-life mom Nancy Priddy's character.

This viewer found "Jaws of Satan" agreeable enough. It's not a great movie, or even a good one, really, but it's passable schlock for lovers of Animal Attack cinema.

Five out of 10.