Customer Reviews

Vipers

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

 

 

I'm not really sure what to make of this movie. It's always at the very least, something of a relief when a sci-fi channel original turns out to be something other than an uninspired, formulaic monster movie. This was definitely different.

The main drawback is ironically derived from a positive. It's not often the Sci-Fi Channel makes a movie with a likable cast, and in this case likable characters were getting killed off left and right while a bunch of extras were milling around unscathed for most of the movie.

On the other hands it good that the movie had likable characters at all.

On another note, this movie festures masses of snaks, not the usual insect swarm or giant animal. And in something of an oddity for the Sci-Fi channel, there's no giant snakes in this movie.

On second thought, 3/5. In my original review I rated it 4/5, but I'm not sure it was quite that good.

These movie is so fake thay should of used snakes from the dollar store thay would of looked a lot better.If you want to see these movie wait until you can Rent it for 50 cents. I took mine to a video store so thay could put plastic wrap and i took it back to the store and got a Refund thay charged me 75 cents to wrap it for me but the good thing is that i got my $15.00 back.

Vipers (Bill Corcoran, 2008)

I'd like to offer my congratulations to Bill Corcoran who, with Vipers, has done something I previously thought impossible: he almost managed to put me to sleep in the middle of a movie I was watching at two o'clock in the afternoon.

Do you really need a plot summary? Well, here you go: genetically-altered (and badly rendered) vipers. Small town. Commence bloodshed.

With the exception of the mildly entertaining Incubus, it's been a pretty good rule of thumb that Tara Reid's name connected with any movie project since Cruel Intentions has been a recipe for disaster. Vipers is no exception. Add the presence of Corbin Bernsen, who hasn't made a good movie in even longer (I think you have to go back to Major League), and you can feel the black hole sucking you in. The best way I can think to describe it is "soap opera with snakes". Except that no one involved in this mess can act even as well as the perennial stars on your favorite soap opera.

Not a single redeeming quality to be found here. Avoid at all costs. (zero)

About 30 minutes into the movie, Tara Reid actually calls herself (or at least the character she is playing) a trainwreck. Self-parody intended or not, that was worth a star all by itself. Otherwise, the movie lurches in the gutter (it is comparable to some of those dreadful Masters of Horror movies). The story is not that bad (although predictable) but the fake snakes take the cake. They appear so fake that they don't even blend in with the scenery. It looks as if someone has drawn them onto the screen (animated snakes would have actually been MORE credible). And by the way, snakes don't feed that way, either, nor do they travel in packs like wolverines - they need to check their facts. But at that point, it is only a minor criticism. The movie is redeemed at times by scenes of unntentional amusement. If they gave acting awards out for being able to make an audience howl without trying whatsoever to be funny, Reid and Bernsen would be right up there with the best of them.

Hearing your toothless uncle talk politics at Thanksgiving dinner might be more intertaining than this.

It's hard to make a snake monster movie.

It's not that snakes aren't scary, it's that they really don't need anything to make them even scarier. The favorite snake du jour is the horned viper, presumably because the horns make it look evil.

Snakes are primarily menacing because they are poisonous. So its more the threat of being poisoned that makes snakes scary, with those inch long incisors that pump venom into your veins. Crocodiles are scary because they bite you in half. But snakes? Snakes kill you in a much more slow and painful fashion.

It's much scarier to have the threat of a snake bite than actually see it happen because it's over pretty quickly and then comes the long painful death scene. All that writhing and foaming requires quite a bit of acting and not a whole lot of snake screen time. Remember that scene in Indiana Jones with the king cobra? That's about as scary as snakes are ever going to get.

But Vipers tries hard anyway. It's obvious director Bill Corcoran is insecure about his snakes, because he rarely shows them close up. Instead we get snakes fired like javelins at actors, snakes making odd squealing sounds as they burn, and snakes sneaking around under their victims' clothes. Vipers isn't just uptight about its snakes, it's got intimacy issues too. Remember the serpent in the Adam and Eve parable? He's got nothing on these vipers, who take phallic innuendo to a whole new level by ruthlessly attacking anyone post-coitus.

There's no acting that could save a monster tale this lame. Tara Reid mumbles her way through some lines and woodenly recites others. The rest of the cast isn't much better.

When Vipers finally runs out of excuses to keep its panicky victims stuck on the island, the survivors decide to go back to the snake pit with the Worst Plan Ever Conceived. Why? Because "if the snakes escape the island they could spread all over the world!"

Really? Seriously? The snakes, which are vulnerable to cold and repelled with fire extinguishers, are going to take over the world? Which part of the world exactly? And is it too much to ask that writer Brian Katkin include a reference to the snakes being able to swim? Because with the island under quarantine and the snakes unable to swim, it sure doesn't seem necessary to go back into a greenhouse with fertilizer, pot, and a blowtorch.

The late Don S. Davis sums the plot up as Dr. Silverton, "I don't know which of you idiots is sleeping with who and I don't care."

Me neither.

The Sci-Fi Channel produces as many films as there are weeks in a year. Are any of them good? Not really. But that notion has probably created a stigma on the channel, so when one comes along that is decent; people just flat out dismiss it. I mean, you do know what you are going to get when one says "it's a Sci-Fi Channel" movie. As in the case with Vipers, who cares? I'm glad I knew what I was going to get. I watched it with only one frame of mind: snake carnage.

To my surprise, I got actual good acting and a decent story, with characters I was rooting for not-not-to die. And yes, I got my snake carnage.

As with these types of films, we start with a researcher with a good plan on using the snake venom to cure cancer or something but these scientifically-enhanced snakes break loose onto a hapless, calm, quite island called Eden Island. These snakes don't just bite, they eat and devour! Blood, gore, all of that good stuff is here and on any late night beer and pizza run, this would be ideal. Luckily, director Bill Corcoran gives us something a bit more, despite some fun B-movie moments.

Tara Reid stars as Nicky, a fiancée of a dead soldier from the Iraq War. She's angry, bitter, and flirty, all of that good stuff Reid is known for, but somehow she's quite good here. Cal (Jonathan Scarfe) is sent to Eden Island to replace a retiring doctor. He's soon forced into numerous quarrels of ex-lovers and other island drama, all the while falling for Nicky and saving people from killer snakes. Scarfe is really good, perhaps too good for a TV movie-of-the-week, but as such, gives the film a foundation to establishing characters we will care about. Some of the drama gets a tad soap-y, but hey, I dug it all. That's the oddest thing too, it's written better than it should've been, I keep saying this, but for a Sci-Fi movie, it needed to be whatever, just have science stuff and killer CG animals, but it had more.

Even if the snakes were minimal and little blood, I would've still enjoyed the flick. Now the snakes are cheap looking, low CGI effects, and the typical crap they use in these Sci-Fi films. I wish they would use this sparingly or mix it with practical effects. Granted something like Anaconda has better effects, but they also have 10 times the budget Vipers did. I'm actually surprised at the level of gore and tits in this film, being it were made for TV. Oh well, with my beer and pizza at midnight, I get snakes, gore, tits, and a decent snake movie that I enjoyed more than any of the last handful, I say bring it!

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Vipers: DVD Review

Grade: C+

Vipers was one of those Sci-Fi channel original movies that premiere on Sci-Fi Saturday; it's basically were they put their best movies. I love Sci-Fi's Saturday movies--some of my favorite Sci-Fi channel movies have come from there, like Sea Beast and Wyvern--and they almost always have some pretty awesome plots.

Vipers is no exception--the plot may not be original, seeing that it is close to Guy N. Smith's Snakes--but I love plots like these. A group of genetically altered vipers--and by genetically altered, I mean made about 100 times more vicious than normal, and they now have an appetite for human flesh--are accidently set loose on a town called Eden. Since the town is on an island, the snakes have nowhere to go, and start feasting on the locals.

The locals, including an extremely annoying Tara Reid playing an even more annoying character who is growing pot in her garden, join up with each other to try and stop the snakes, along with save their own lives. Then--of course--the government comes in, and wants to wipe out the whole town, getting rid of the menacing snakes before they can reach the mainland.

Yeah, it sounds cool, but Vipers just has too many problems to keep it from being cool. First of all: the characters. They are all stereotypes, and are all annoying. (You just want them to die at the hands of the snakes...) I think the only person that convincingly played their role without being annoying was the lady scientist who helps the townsfolk. Second, the snakes look terrible. They are all CGI, but they look worse than a typical video game's graphics. Third, the plot, as great as it is, is way too predictable. Couldn't they have thrown in something more original once in awhile?

Fourth is the most important one: they need to get their facts straight. The vipers don't act like vipers, and every action they make is something that vipers don't do. (The vipers start eating people--I don't think vipers literally take bites out of people....) And when a boy is bitten by one of the vipers--before the town even knows about them--they immediately have the right anti-venom at hand. The doctor didn't even know what kind of snake bit the boy--the mother just said "he got bite by a snake!" Don't you have to know what specific type of snake before you administer the anti-venom? Because if you don't, and you have the wrong anti-venom, aren't you just putting a new venom into the body?

So in the end, if you don't mind wrong facts, bad CGI, a good but predictable plot, and annoying characters, than you'll enjoy Vipers. It had some fun moments, which sort of redeemed the movie, but I couldn't give it anything higher than a C+. Still, it's a way to pass a Saturday afternoon...

The animation of the snakes was terrible, but if you're into SF then watch the movie, but it's not a movie you'll want to watch again.

This was one of those movies that just happened to be on tv so I decided to watch it, but it turned out 20 minutes in to be so bad, but like a trainwreck, I just couldn't turn away. Snakes have always been a weakness of mine. I don't like them, in movies or in real life. As the description from IMDb states, it's about mutated vipers. Not only do these slithering beasts strike innocent people, but they continue to devour them. So much so, that in some cases all that is left are clothes and in an early killing a wedding ring.
The cast is pretty much made up of unknowns, except Corbin Bernsen & Tara Reid. While the snakes themselves look pretty good, the animation and effects could use some work. When the snakes strike and attach onto victims, like leeches, I found it was over computerized and made for those parts to appear quite cheesy. Towards the end, the small number of survivors use everything from fire extinguishers, flares and even shotguns to fend off the snakes. They eventually lure them all into a greenhouse, turn on some propane tanks and set it ablaze.
It comes to an end when the main scientist who was trying to protect his own name, finds himself in the back seat, proud of how he was trying to keep the whole ordeal under wraps. He then hears a growl and a hiss, looks down and is face to face with one of his own creations. The screen fades to black.
The story I found alright, but with the computerized animation overused, I am going to say this is definitely a movie that is ok to have in the background as noise, while you are doing something else.

[...]

I liked this movie. As the other reviewers point out, the snakes are pretty bad CGI and the story is pretty basic. Bad businessman wants to make money off mutant snakes. Snakes get loose. A town full of soap opera characters gets attacked. But all the characters--as sappy as they are--are kind of pleasant. But when I watch this, instead of watching it as the story of Tara Reid's character, I watch this as the story of Maggie, the young girl, one of the side chatacters. She's a "troubled teen" played by Genevieve Buechner. Her mother looks exactly like a young, attractive Susan Sarandon and her father is a big dope in love with some blonde girl who runs a motel. Or something like that. Anyway, Maggie is pissed at her parents for breaking up and she tries to run away. She tries to run away right when the snakes attack. So the snakes attack and Maggie has to deal with her parents and watching her parents try to deal with the snakes and, of all the characters, at least she has an interesting story arc. So, the movies pretty awful, but if you watch this movie as "Maggie's Snake Adventure" as least there is intense emotion and a bit of fun, in all the horrible stuff.