Morsures mortelles

Twenty years ago there was a car accident one night in a small southern California town San Catalano where a crate of tropical rattlesnakes escaped into the area. Now the area is experiencing a boom in housing development, and this has disrupted the nest of these deadly predators. Vic Rondell the new fire chief has just arrived, and when one snake attack after another occurs. He goes about trying to discover why the sudden attacks, but the greedy property developer Max Farrington doesn't want to start a panic and tries his best to get Rondell on the wrong side of the community. So it's left up to a tainted Vic and Farrington's business associate Mandy Stratford to put a stop to it.

Routine, repetitive and lame creatures run amok TV b-feature. Not that I think it's the complete pits, but everything that happens here has been done to death. Even in the film itself! It's always the same actions occurring over and over again. Not helping out is that it's not bad enough to be hilarious, of course stupidity fills nearly every moment and everything about it is clumsy. However it doesn't have that schlock presence or any sense of fun. The low-rent script (supposedly written by John Carpenter in the 70s) throws a bit of everything into the contrived premise, but in the long run it's a poisonous venture that's witless and incredibly textbook stuff. Director Noel Nosseck does a real nothing job with it, and makes sure you're in for something of extreme blandness, poor pacing and tired false jumps. While the deaths are mostly random there's no suspense, nor thrills. Nothing is sustained or delivered, because they are poorly staged and too goofy to have any sort of effect. While the obnoxious score gets in the way. A special mention though, at least they didn't succumb to digital effects for the snakes. We even get some snake vision, using a red filter. Strange the title actually makes no sense, since we're talking about rattlesnakes here. The no-frills performances are your standard mould found in these features and so are their stock characters. A dopey looking Harry Hamlin is here to save the day! Dominic Purcell and an animal loving Patty McCormack also feature in minor parts.

Formulaic and unexciting is what it ends up being.

"Silent Predators" uses every single cliche from countless other horror movies which have "nature vs. the greedy interests of capitalism" as a theme e.g. "Empire of the Ants" Although this formula is tired, sometimes two big heaping scoops of banality is just what the doctor ordered. Rating: 6 out of 10

Silent Predators a made for TV movie came out in 1999, looking as cheesy as ever, showing us from the very start who is the good guy, the villain and of course the love interest.

Now was it a good movie? No. But did it manage to excite a little with its premise and execution? Also no. So unless you saw the movie back then, I could recommend it for the simple fact that it does manage to bring on some nostalgia. A time when horror productions and Sci-fies had the courage to be raw, dark, with no other consideration but to come out exactly the way the director visioned it.

So is it campy, cheesy and solves itself with no real climax. Yes, it is and does all that. For harmless fun, you may try out Silent Predators.

Cheers!

When I first saw this movie, I only caught the first half hour of it, but it was enough. I had seen enough of these formulaic, made-for-TV movies to know how it was going to end. Two months later, the curiosity of the accuracy of my predictions got the best of me, so I rented the movie and finished it this time. And I can say that with my guesstimation abilities, movie companies should hire me to write formulaic, made-for-TV movies. Everything happened that I anticipated: the progression of the plot, the introduction and killing off of characters, the role each character plays in the movie, it all was there.

If you've seen one of these movies, you've seen them all. Movies like this one, Marabunta, The Fury Within, Nightscream, Burial of the Rats, they are all the same. Watch one movie, replace the aggressive animal with a different animal, and enjoy.

Scott says: For a movie of silent rattlesnakes, the snakes sure broke script a lot.

This movie was well acted and well directed. The storyline was good and the ending was surprising. I was hoping that the snakes could have been kept for more observation. It was a really good movie and I would like to see it put on TV again or released to video.