Snake Island

Snake Island is one of those films that, whilst one sits and watches its amazing level of stupidity, makes one wish the film camera had never been invented. The real reason why Plan 9 From Outer Space will hold onto its honoured title of Worst Film Of All Time for a while to come is not so much because of how bad it is. It is because of the fact that it is the most entertaining bad film you will ever see. Snake Island is the other kind of bad. Snake Island is just so bad that it is excruciating. A stupid premise combines with a script that was written by monkeys tapping one-key typewriters onto transparencies that were then overlapped in order to resemble dialogue to make the most obvious problems here. Filmed entirely on location in South Africa, the environments in which the film takes place are about the only element that can truthfully be considered well-realised. Many shots involving snakes consist of close-ups so surreal in appearance that one begins to wonder whether said snakes are CGI, puppets, or real snakes that have been fed really hard drugs.

William Katt stars, if you can call it that, as an author traveling to an island resort on what appears to be a river ferry. Coming along with him is an assortment of very generic, poorly-defined characters. It is all a matter of random screen writing as to who survives to the end, but Katt certainly appears to be contemplating firing his agent. The rest of the cast seem to be from the Home And Away acting school, where any contemplation of an unpleasant plot point is accompanied by open-mouthed gaping and darting one's eyes about in every direction. The foley effects are often worse, with one memorable scene where a double-barreled shotgun sounds like the rather flat sound effects that used to accompany gunshots in such games as BioForge. Meanwhile, snakes continually explode or jump about at random. It would have been more accurate to call the film Snake Holocaust.

Of course, no Z-grade horror or sci-fi film is complete these days without gratuitous scenes of nubile women in a state of undress. As every woman in the cast, almost, gets their clothes off, the film starts to become less Snake Island and more Snake Island Orgy. But like all the worst piles, all there really is in this case is a lot of setup with no real payoff. The sex scenes never eventuate, and the deaths of characters are so flat, so uninteresting, that the entire film becomes pointless. Unless you consider watching William Katt running through a muggy forest wearing ill-fitting cricket gear and smashing snakes in all directions with a cricket bat a payoff. For the record, I don't. I used to think that Anaconda was the worst film ever made about predatory snakes. I was so very, very wrong. At least Anaconda had a snake one could be afraid of if they suspended disbelief for quite some time. Some of the snakes shown killing the human cast are no bigger than the shoelaces from some pairs of combat boots I have worn.

So we so far have the checklist for bad horror films running along nicely. The unrecognisable, lame cast are accounted for, as are poor audio and visual effects. The dialogue is so wretched, so ill-timed, that I have seen better writing and delivery during some of the school plays I have acted in many moons ago. Unfortunately, where Snake Island falters in this respect is the area fatal to all bad films. In essence, it forgets to be so bad that it is funny. It is so bad that it stops being good after the opening credits and becomes painful the second that the cast start to speak. Compared to William Katt's performance in Snake Island, Jon Voight's performance in Anaconda was as Oscar-worthy as Russell Crowe's in Gladiator. Not that Voight or Katt are necessarily bad actors, but with material like this, you're hard-pressed to say a single word naturally. Listening to some of the lines here was like being the victim of a violent crime. One's mind tends to blank out the experience, primary as a self-defense mechanism.

Because of the aforementioned failure to be entertainingly bad, I gave Snake Island a two out of ten. My special score for films that are so bad they cannot possibly be good, but not bad enough to entertain. It is all just so boring or pointless that one might as well be watching the test pattern. The proper way to spell "crap" is S-N-A-K-E-I-S-L-A-N-D.

This film essentially begins in a remote region of Africa with a boat carrying several tourists up a river in the wilderness. However, when they stop at a small place known as Snake Island to gather supplies, the crew notices that there is nobody at the dock to greet them. Curious about this, three of the crew go ashore to find out what has happened with instructions for the passengers to remain on the boat. Unfortunately, when a cobra makes its way onto the boat, a novelist named "Malcolm Page" (William Katt) accidentally punctures the gas tank in an effort to kill it. This leaves everybody stranded on the island where it soon becomes clear that the snakes are quite plentiful--and extremely aggressive. Now rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film started off well enough and appeared to have some potential. At least at first as there were a couple of scenes which had some decent suspense here and there. Likewise, both Kate Connor (as "Heather Dorsey") and Nicola Hanekom ("Ronnie") certainly added some nice scenery as well. Unfortunately, after the first 30 minutes or so, many of the scenes became somewhat repetitious which caused my interest to wane a bit. That being said, while this wasn't a bad film by any means, it wasn't necessarily that good and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Snake Island (2002)

** (out of 4)

Another "nature strikes back" flick this time set on, you guessed it, Snake Island. A group of strangers get stuck on the island when they learn that it has a reputation of being infested by various deadly snakes. One by one the guests are picked off. This certainly isn't a masterpiece of the genre but if you're a fan of these nature movies then you'll probably want to check this one out. I'm personally terrified of snakes so that causes me to be creeped out by movies like this whereas others might just roll their eyes and move on. Overall this isn't the best movie out there but there are several pluses to be had here. For starters, the performances are all rather good and makes for some nice characters. Director Crawford is good as the tour guide and William Katt turns in fine work as an author. Both men are clearly the best of the cast but the supporting players aren't too bad either. Real, rubber and CGI snakes are used throughout the film with the real ones working the best. The CGI ones are incredibly fake looking but they're certainly more realistic than those seen in something like PYTHON or its sequel. The attacks are all rather tame in terms of lack of violence and gore but I didn't have a problem with this as the director at least tries to build them up around suspense instead of the red stuff. What doesn't work with the film is its 95-minute running time, which was a tad bit long as the film starts to wear off its welcome after the hour mark. Another negative is an incredibly stupid snake dance half way through the picture. The director does throw male viewers some nudity, which I'm sure plenty will enjoy. If you're not a fan of this genre then I doubt this movie will turn you into a fan.

I really don't think it's necessary that I write a review on a movie with a title as derisory as "Snake Island", but even in the abstract confines of its own genre, this hit a new low, so my anger must be known. The only reason why I even bothered to watch this unbelievably bad movie is because I knew it was going to be bad, it was really late at night, I could not sleep, and in the past, really bad movies would drain the energy out of me and make me long for slumber. It became very quickly very early on that this movie was going to be awful, but it condescended below even those expectations.

The movie was directed and written by Wayne Crawford, who also stars in the movie as a tourist guide on the African river, who ends up having to strand his team on a remote island called Snake Island until another boat comes down to pick them up. They hang out, get drunk, and then become subject to the onslaught of poisonous snakes who are on a mission to purge their island of human beings.

If your jaw dropped at the last sentence of my second paragraph, don't bother to reread it, you got it right the first time. Frankly, I prefer my creature features when the creature(s) just attack the nonsensically dumb humans out of hunger, not because they have some kind of a mission. These aren't mutant snakes. They're not giants like what you see in "Anaconda." They're just ordinary, everyday African snakes like mambas and vipers…only they have the brains to form armies, take up causes, work together to trap people, understand our language, and even dance! Did your draw drop again? Well, it's going to drop further. Amount midway through this awful B-movie, about the part where I'd already given up, the human characters start drinking around a campfire and then all of a sudden, they break down into some kind of an orgy. And while they dance nude and such, the snakes hunting them all of a sudden stop and start jamming along to it. The combination of this scene and the scene where we discover that snakes, some the most roguish creatures on the planet, have formed an alliance against human beings for some oddball reason, proved just too much for my poor brain. And just when I though the filmmakers couldn't take it to an even lower level, the snakes started to sing.

The people in the movie? Well, let's just say that never before have I rooted for the creatures to kill everybody off so quickly. I just could not stand it any longer.

I really don't think I need to keep going on; you get the picture. If there is anything that makes "Snake Island" any different from its other rivals, it's that it does dare to try to be even dumber and that's not a complimentary achievement. Why—just why—I continue to subject myself to these really bad movies, I guess I'll never really know. But "Snake Island" hits a brand new low. It's a cheap, trashy excuse for a motion picture that makes "Anaconda," a brainless snake movie, look as brilliant and sophisticated and thrilling as Steven Spielberg's "Jaws." You have been warned.

I usually like movies about animals or reptiles turning against the mean old humans who threaten their environment, but I have to say Snake Island was a major letdown.

The premise is interesting, a group of people, including a writer numbly played by William Katt, goes to an island called, duh, you guessed it "Snake Island", and quess what the island lives up to it's name. That is one thing I will give this movie, there are snakes, LOTS and LOTS of snakes of all sizes and kinds. So that part of the movie in fairness lives up to its name, but the writing, acting and directing is SOOOOOOOO lame it is almost painful to sit through.

The characters are so unlikeable I was begging for the snakes to finish these horrible people off to put us all out of our misery. There are a couple of scenes that are so surreal and ridiculous they have be seen to be believed---snakes gyrating to really horrible disco music while 2 women dance seminude together and a scene with a snake holding some inane dialogue with one of the actors, it's beyond absurd. I think the writer was trying to be funny but this just came off like some weird LSD trip...

I remember William Katt years ago back when he starred in "Carrie", what a hunk he was..not that he was ever a major star, but to be reduced to this garbage, I feel for him.

Avoid this movie like the plague unless you are really into movies that feature lots and lots of snakes and really horrible humans.