Customer Reviews

Mega Snake

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This has got to be the most indescribable movie I've ever watched. It's a Sci-Fi channel production, and while they hit the mark on a lot of their original series, they kind of fall short with movies. Seriously, though, Mega Snake is FUN. Definitely not the best movie ever, but when you have partially digested goats, cheesy plot devices, and MICHAEL SHANKS, the only answer is to get yourself a copy of Mega Snake, invite half a dozen friends over, order a pizza with everything, and just... marvel. It's one of those movies you can sit there and make fun of through its entirity, and when you get to the end, you haven't really missed a thing. Of course, if you're looking for meaningful and memorable, it's probably a good idea to look elsewhere.

I bought this movie for one reason, and one reason only - Michael Shanks! However, having said that, both times I've watched it, it's been with like minded friends, snacks and alcohol - the ONLY way to watch it really LOL We had an absolute balst - loved the two hillbilly types who set off to kill the snake, but Michael Shanks was the draw :)

giant snake eats town leaving nothing behind.this movie is so cool i saw it on sci fi at 8 it was awasome becouse its big its bad and it bites

"Megasnake" is a truly awful film even by the standards of the Sci Fi Channel. The film opens in a backwater church where parishioners are in the throes of snake handling. A family is there, and one son is particularly affected when his father gets bitten but refuses medical treatment. ("Have faith!") Since they don't call a doctor the dad dies, casting a shadow across the Daniels family. Twenty years later the scars still run deep with one brother (Les, the smart one, played by Michael Shanks) abhorring snakes while the other (Duff, the not so smart one, played by John T. Woods) still handles them. The tensions are never far from the surface though ("If prayin' couldn't save Daddy, maybe a little medicine could've!") and only their mother can stop the squabbling.

The dumb brother goes into town to see an Indian named "Screamin' Hawk" (Ben Cardinal) to buy the poisonous "Carolina Pigmy Snake," (presumably the Carolina Pigmy Rattlesnake, Sistrurus miliarius miliarius) but quickly finds something more to his liking, a snake described by the Indian as uber-ravenous and the most deadly snake on earth. Duff is there allegedly buying the snakes for his local Church of Christ (a church, by the way, that does not handle snakes) but when the Indian refuses to sell him the baddest of the bad, he steals it.

The Indian says that the snake has three rules, the first of which is "never let it out of the jar." I'm sure you are surprised that the first thing that happens when he gets it home is that it gets let out of the jar, and instantly starts growing through the magic of fantastically bad CGI. The snake escapes. A kitten is the first victim, the chickens next, and it moves quickly on to Mom. There is a lot of bogus science about snake regurgitation, and after hunting the snake, Duff kills it with a crowbar and buries it. I was hoping this was the end of the movie. Unfortunately I was only about a third of the way into it.

There's a ludicrous romance subplot involving two cops and Les in the least likely love triangle in recent movie history. Problems and symptoms that emerge include the old hackneyed standbys of the inability to commit, the Vietnam war, an extremely lame bar fight, and a murder charge. Fortunately when all the romance drama is just about to lull you to sleep, a thunderstorm comes along, lightning strikes the snake's burial mound, and he comes back to life whereupon he immediately eats twenty goats and the stupid brother in a ridiculous drooling chompfest.

The new boyfriend cop, Big Bo (Todd Jensen,) who has the IQ of asphalt, is jealous of Les, who used to date his now-girlfriend Erin, so he arrests him for killing his brother. Unfortunately for Big Bo, the killing continues as megasnake goes on a picnic, a picnic where Dad is heroic and Mom is completely ineffectual. At this point Erin (Siri Baruc,) the cop reveals that she has a Ph.D. in Zoology (!) and thinks the problem is a giant snake. It doesn't trouble her in the least that it would have to be sixty feet long to do what she thinks it's doing, she just knows.

I'm afraid to report what happens next. If any of you happen to have seen "Jaws," feel free to fast forward through the next talky part of the movie. Mayor Artimus Kornferry arrives and asks Big Bo if he needs help. He says no, it's all under control. Erin recommends canceling the county fair tomorrow, and the mayor, of course, says no on social and economic grounds. What could possibly go wrong?

The snake sheds its skin as it grows, so Big Bo and a couple of deputies take off on a hunting expedition. It isn't long before the other two cops get eaten and Bo gets his arm bitten off. Bo manages to stagger to a cabin where two rednecks (one with a Confederate Civil War hat on) join the fracas as Bo dies. ("He's dead?"..."Extremely.") Erin and Les pursue the snake more intelligently: they go find Screamin' Hawk and ask him how to kill it. He gives them a very longwinded mystical answer about how you have to kill it from the inside. Meanwhile the two rednecks are hunting the snake using loud country music, a pickup truck, a flamethrower, and a grill. As it turns out, this is an unsuccessful strategy. It also turns out that the snake is a constrictor.

Screamin' Hawk really wants to kill the snake, and along with Erin and Les, they track it to (where else?) the county fair, which is full of townsfolk. By far my favorite moment in the film comes when a young stoner sees the snake, holds out his bag of pot, and says "Here, kitty, kitty." Brilliant! The fair is in the middle of nowhere, and the snake begins his assault by attacking the roller coaster, before moving on to a live stage show on the dangers of electricity. (Really.) The fair is totally destroyed, and while selflessly saving a child Erin is swallowed by the snake. Les, her true love, can still hear her via her walkie talkie and knows he must save her. Screamin' Hawk is injured by the snake, so is ineligible to get swallowed (?) leaving it up to Les, the one so scared of snakes, to get swallowed ("Do not fear the heart of the snake....") Sure enough, he gets swallowed, stabs the snake's heart from inside the snake, then cuts a way out of the side of the snake for himself and Erin. The next scene is presumably about nine months later, as Les and Erin stand on their porch with their newborn as the movie closes. And there was much rejoicing.

This film was made on location in Sofia, Bulgaria, and should have stayed there, although I suppose the Bulgarians suffered enough under communism. Michael Shanks as Les was by far the best actor in the film, and Ben Cardinal did well as a Native American, but no amount of thespian expertise could save this pile. "Megasnake" has awful effects, a ludicrous and wooden script, and is amateurish even by the standards of made for TV horror movies. While I enjoy camp classics that are so bad they're good, this is just plain bad.

Every time I think the SciFi Channel has hit the quality rock bottom they go and prove that there is still more muck for them to bury themselves under. Interestingly, they've managed to drag Michael Shanks along for the ride under the goo, which is a pity because he's proven to be very entertaining in his sympathetic, heavy roles since the Stargate SG1 series.

Apparently violently masticating household pets and way-too-pretty, but otherwise average teenagers has become an acceptable device for the SciFi Channel in lieu of quality acting and/or subplot developments.

Maybe its the absence of a production budget, or the dearth of legitimate sponsors ("do you owe more than $10,000 dollars to the IRS?") that forces SciFi to keep making these movies that aspire to equal the entertainment value of an infomercial, but I wish i had kept my money in my pocket instead of buying this drecht. I just have to learn that if it is associated with the SciFi Channel it has no place in my library.

I was reluctant to get this one, but it turned out to be a very good horror flick. It had plenty of creep factor, it spared no one, kids, women, anybody in it's path, love it. Not a 250 million dollar production, but quite good.

The snake in this movie looks pretty good. Sometimes it's obvious that it's computer-generated but most of the time it looks cool. It's got plenty of action and gore and is thoroughly entertaining.

This could have been one god-awful mess-=a typical Sci-Fi Channel offering where amateur film=making is the rule. Mega-Snake proves to be both witty and well-acted, filmed in an authentic setting with colorful characters. The monster is well-done and used sparingly, which proves effective in that you don't have time to see it's all computerized.

This flick proves that you can make effective and witty entertainment on a budget and for two hours, there are worse ways to spend your time.

The only reason i gave it an extra star is because michael shanks character is believable. other than that a disastrous movie.

It is difficult to take a modest big snake film like MEGASNAKE seriously. Director Tibor Tacacks follows quite religiously the paradigm of others of like ilk. But he has the innovative idea of scotching any scientific basis for the serpent's appearance in favor of one that incorporates native American shamanism. Long long ago a tribe was beset by a humongous snake and succeeded in killing it from the inside. The heroic warrior had to permit himself to be swallowed whole. After that he cut his way out with a sharp machete. This redoubtable warrior placed the snake's tiny progeny in a sealed bottle with a stern warning printed on it that read (translated): DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BREAK THIS SEAL! And that bottle remained unbroken until a foolish young man broke it wide open. And then the fun begins. MEGASNAKE is a typical SCIFI monster film with execrable acting and shoe string budgeting. There is no one in the film (except possibly for the snake) who even remotely acts rationally. The hero (Michael Shanks) has the good sense not to try to upstage the snake as a screen presence. His girlfriend who is a park ranger has, by an odd coincidence, a PhD in zoology, so she is eminently qualified to offer sound advice to the town's obtuse mayor who unsurprisingly ignores such advice. Now if this sounds like a slithering rehash of JAWS so be it. No one had the gall to name the snake Bruce. The bulk of the film lies in the incredible body count that vanishes down the maw of the snake. Just once I would like to see a big snake film in which I would not see one of the town's drunken yokels witness the approach of the beast and act as if it were some harmless worm. In this case the yokel holds out a hotdog and whispers: "Here kitty kitty." Still, no one watches MEGASNAKE for any reason other than the vain hope that this big snake movie might prove worthwhile. No such luck.