Les sables de l'enfer

Sand Serpents. No one died in this Syfy Original Movie until the 6 minute mark. Impressive.

A small combat unit overseas that ends up dealing with giant underground worms or snakes.

You're probably thinking what I'm thinking. Dune meets Tremors. Sure, because it's basically just that.

The difference is that the writing is much better than the usual Saturday Night Original fare on Syfy and if you have nothing better to do, it passed the time rather well.

There are some obvious holes in the skit as they skipped some scenes where special effects could have been used, but we know what happened. Who really needs to see a giant snake blow up anyway? My guess, they were saving money.

When the worms feed on Taliban, they kind of reminded me of giant Slinky's with teeth.

Overall, 1-10, I'd say a 5, maybe a 6 if you were drinking.

The writing was better than most of their Saturday Night Original movies, the effects weren't bad but there were holes in some of the cinematography. Who ever edited the final product may have been the one that created some of the disjointed scenes.

The ending for me got lame as I feel there was a much smarter resolution at hand aside from the one that took place. Then again, if he was stupid enough to have taken his course of action aside, then I guess this scene, that was reminiscent of Reign Of Fire, is fine.

You'll know what I mean when / if you see it.

Sand Serpents (2009)

** (out of 4)

American soldiers are making their way through the Afghanistan desert when they come under fire by the Taliban. The soldiers are eventually captured, tied up and about to be executed when they hear a loud noise and before they know it all the Taliban are dead. It turns out that an earlier explosion had awaken several large worms that are underground and can respond by the noises made on land. This "Creature Feature" advertises giant worms but what we're pretty much got is a rip-off a TREMORS and the weird thing is that the horror elements are actually the least interesting thing. It's uncommon for my girlfriend to watch movies with me and especially films like this but half way through she turned to me and said this wouldn't be too bad if those worms would quit coming up. In many ways she was true because the worms just look too silly and they actually had zero to the film. If someone wants to watch giant worms then TREMORS is masterpiece of horror, monster, comedy and just all around good fun. This film here can't come close no matter how hard the filmmakers try and it's amazing that Universal didn't go after this picture due to the familiar monsters. The stuff with the soldiers dealing with being away from their families and the way they maneuver through their operators were actually the most entertaining thing in the film. I thought there was some nice suspense early in the film when they're walking through the desert just waiting for their targets to come up. One of the soldiers is having a breakdown from not seeing his family and another is hiding some deep secrets. This drama works a lot better than the horror elements and that's weird to say because in most of these monster movies it's the boring melodrama that kills things. The performances aren't too bad with Jason Gedrick leading the way. The special effects are extremely cheap and really don't add anything. I think fans of the genre will probably want to check it out if they must see everything out there but others should just rent TREMORS.

While out on a routine assignment, a group of soldiers in Afghanistan find they have awoken a swarm of gigantic worm-like creatures and must fend off both the creature and the Taliban in order to get out of the situation alive.

This one here wasn't all that bad of a creature feature. One of the better features here is that there's a rather fun and frantic pace here that comes off exceptionally well as there's some fine action scenes within here. This is mostly apparent in the first twenty minutes which is the ambush gunfight at the mine with the insurgents which is a really blazing gunfight that results in their capture only to be rescued by the worms ambushing the other terrorists leaving them alone. This continue on into the fun chopper attack as the sudden-ness of them appearing and generating the attack on the chopper is a nice surprise as well as leading into the chase back to the camp where there's plenty of fun to be had from that, a thrilling chase in the desert as they race away from several burrowing creatures that has some nice moments from some ingenious tactics being utilized in a second chase away from the refugee camp that comes off really well with the race to get into the bunker before the worms can get to them. Other fun action comes from the grand shootout with the reinforcements back at the hideout where the worms come into play with their inadvertent rescue which is all in line with the final half here as the big series of chasing and encounters throughout the tunnels which gives this some really fun action here in their encounter with the worms as they run into the tunnels, their underground adventures coming across the traps and supplies while the escape to the surface brings some really tense moments here with the final attack on the terrorists at the campsite and the race to get into the rescue plane gives this one some really fun times here. Along with the overall fun creature design, these here offer this a lot to really like here over it's few minor flaws. Among the biggest issues here is the fact that the film continues harping on the one character labeling the entire nation as terrorists despite plenty of times that he's saved their lives in the line or duty or given them access to something they shouldn't have in their condition, which is done so often in here that it becomes utterly annoying and rather racist. This also manages to come through with a rather puzzling flaw here in that there's the return trip to the mine, as that's where the creatures are known to be so that doesn't make any sense why they return. Even considering this facet is the fact that this is their base which would've been another reason to leave, and even then they could've brought the radio along anyway which gives this whole section some really wrong decision-making. Along with very little blood and gore in the kills here, these hold this one back somewhat.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and children-in-jeopardy.

I wasn't expecting much but I found this movie well written with none of the clunky lines that make me wince. There is genuine suspense and some interesting inter-cultural parallels.

The CGI and monster logic are not great but the characters are well done. It's not Aliens or Terminator 2 but I'd say it's more memorable than most.

I thought the Afgan characters were interesting with thought provoking stuff about what it's like to be in the middle of a civil war. The tension around the "are they on our side or not" was very effective.

The US army characters were a bit stereotypical but well written and acted.

I really liked the ending but others might find it a bit grim. Thought provoking to me.

I was rather dubious of seeing Sand Serpents. The premise seemed hokey but somewhat interesting, but what turned me off was that it was airing on the SyFy channel who to me seem to have a notoriety for showing and making films that range from just tolerable to bottom-of-the-barrel quality.

Luckily for Sand Serpents, it is one of the more tolerable efforts to air on the SyFy channel. I wouldn't go as far to say it was good, it's not, but it was entertaining in a way. Apart from the special effects, the production values are a step above what I usually see on SyFy, with better than expected photography and editing and the scenery/settings is somewhat striking. The acting is also much better than anticipated with the two leads quite good, the sound effects are more authentic and incorporated better than they can be and effort is done into developing the characters and making them likable. The scenes with the monsters of the title of the film are entertaining and done with a decent amount of build-up and suspense, again a big improvement, but there could have been more of it.

Production-values wise though, what cheapens Sand Serpents are the effects. I've seen much worse, but some of the effects do look fake and crude. The story didn't gel for me either, interesting but also rather hokey. I liked the idea of merging war drama and monsters, but the execution of the idea didn't come off as successful. The scenes with the monsters are some of the better scenes of the film, but the war drama scenes are clichéd and pedestrian in my opinion. The script is often laughable, with dialogue that does come across as unintentionally funny, the music has its moments but can be over-bearing and predictable and the direction while not a complete hack job was rather unimpressive. There is also one very irritating character, but he does get killed off in an ideal way in one of the more fulfilling scenes of the movie, so that didn't harm the film as much.

Overall, uneven and silly, but it did have some entertaining moments, so I can't be too overly hard on it. Besides, I could have been watching another Titanic II, 2010:Moby Dick, Dinocroc vs. Supergator, The Apocalypse and Alien vs.Hunter, which was what I was prepared for, in short a movie so bad you contemplate suicide, however while not great by all means it was actually quite tolerable. 5/10 Bethany Cox