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.

A tour-boat operator (Crawford) inadvertently leads his horny human cargo into the den of an island inhabited by ferocious snakes. Party member and author (Katt) discovers that not only is there an over-abundance of snakes on the island (a fact that should have obviated from the name of the resort, which shares the film's somewhat conspicuous title), but a hex on any human who has trespassed. So, after some sight-seeing (an elephant threesome being the highlight), a disco-party complete with drunken three-way striptease and some sexual content (butt-in-the-moonbeam-walk), our peripheral characters become prey, and Crawford, Katt and Connor are left to contend with the aggressive asps.

Director, producer, co-writer and co-star Crawford dons many hats for this picture, which looks like it's shot on a hand-held home video camera. Despite some apparent TV-movie production values, the dialogue is mostly realistic, the core cast is professional and the special effects aren't bad. Post-production editing effects create the "illusion" of the plethora of snakes converging on characters, and is done effectively. There's an occasional shock, and some mild gore (is that a tongue protruding from that cadaver's gaping orifice? – no, wait, it's just a baby snake waking up), and perhaps more critically when faced with tired ideas and cheap-looking set design – nudity.

When everything else is dear, there's still inexperienced actresses willing to bare all for the sake of art, and their career. Most of the female cast here reveal themselves to some degree, and actor, director, producer, writer Crawford, naturally, scores some residual benefits of such titillation. One could only postulate that Katt was lured into this production with the promise of the African safari holiday, and although the picture was shot on location, the savanna isn't always realistic looking, but perhaps that's the Super-8 camera lens cheating the eye of natural wonders. Aside from the occasional lame joke (the snake hallucination scene is admittedly quirky and unexpected, but ultimately, it's a dud gag) and plot hole, "Snake Island" delivers on its promise of lots (and lots) of snakes, cheap thrills and a conventional narrative to satisfy the average punter. Noteworthy, is the surprisingly clean screenplay with not an f-bomb in ear-shot (nevermind, it's the T&A that earn the R-rating, anyway).

2002 was not a great movie year, being a big ol'nerd I like analytics and 2002 is right down there on the yearly rankings.

This was a pick and mix movie and I was happy to immediatly see William Katt on the credits, this is an underrated actor who is among my favorites.

It tells the story of a group of tourists who get stuck on "Snake Island". And in a really unpredictable turn of events they gradually get picked off by *Drumroll* snakes!

It's main flaw is the lack of consistency, is it a horror or a comedy? It flits from serious to silly within the space of a single scene. In fact some scenes are so ridiculous it pretty much flatlines the entire film.

The wildlife shots are great, Katt is on form and the film certainly has its moments but I'm left feeling they perhaps should have just gone all out and made this a comedy film.

Forgettable nonsense.

The Good:

Some fantastic wildlife footage

William Katt

The Bad:

Gets a bit silly in places

Cliched to hell

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

If you have a phobia of snakes it makes perfect sense to go to a place called Snake Island

It's not a party until a girl randomly takes her clothes off

If you need to hunt and kill innocent creatures to get a happy, start with yourself

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.

A group of tourists, resort workers & guides in South Africa struggle to survive after getting stranded on an island with a profusion of deadly snakes. William Katt (Malcolm), Wayne Crawford (Jake) and Kate Connor (Heather) emerge as the main protagonists. Crawford also directed and co-wrote the script.

"Snake Island" (2002) is a low-budget South African production with a few American actors; it probably cost half of what the typical SyFy flick costs. But it gives you what you pay for (although I hope you watched it for free): a plethora of snakes, authentic African locations, a mildly entertaining survival situation with an okay cast, a subdued sense of humor and some decent horror. It helps that most of the snakes appear to be real rather than CGI.

But it's overall pedestrian, unfortunately. I guess it doesn't help that I don't find snakes particularly frightening. Director/writer Crawford tried to perk things up with a tiki party sequence wherein the group lets their hair down and some of the females start dancing topless. But the women, while okay, aren't anything overly alluring, although Kate Connor eventually won me over.

The film runs 1 hour, 30 minutes and was shot in South Africa.

GRADE: C/C-