Mega Snake

I am at a loss to understand why The Sci-Fi Channel keeps running these cheap giant snake movies. Oh, what ANACONDA hath wrought! MEGASNAKE has a large reptile roaming the Tennessee countryside (actually Bulgaria), picking off one unfortunate resident after another. Bullets bounce off it, of course. There was just enough gore to keep me reasonably happy, but the snake is badly composited and the generic cast doesn't help one bit. The filmmakers even steal a plot element from JAWS, involving an upcoming county carnival that wiser heads feel needs to be called off but of course the mayor wop't hear of it. Otherwise, the snake would have little to do outside of picking off an occasional individual. Pass on this one.

I never have really thought much of SyFy's resume as an overall whole. Some are tolerable, but most are garbage. Fortunately Mega Snake is one of the tolerable ones. It does have a lot of noticeable and obvious flaws, first and foremost the effects of the snake, which are not the worst from SyFy but still atrocious. The characters, especially the Sheriff, are cardboard clichés on the whole, and some like the shopkeeper are annoying. There is too much overlong exposition with the family as well and hampered further by hackneyed dialogue. However, the story is mostly not too bad. It didn't feel dull, and there are actually some good scenes like the attack on the lake and the forest chase which do have some tension as well as some fun and inventive killings. There are some scenes that do get rather ridiculous though, which was kind of expected. Other than the snake effects, Mega Snake does look good, the scenery is striking and the photography is at least above slipshod level. The acting is above average as well, John T Woods is especially fun. In conclusion, I'd be lying if I said this was a good movie but there have been far worse from SyFy. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Its not like were watching a huge budget production here, but they did well with what they had. Granted, the Sheriff with a Phd was a little too convenient, a hobby in snakes would have been better. BUt this is a classic monster flick like 8 Legged Freaks or Lake Placid. It doesn't need to have an Oscar quality script, its meant to be fun. I was glad to see Michael Shanks in it though, I had missed him after Stargate was over. The acting in the movie was varied. Several of the performances were WAY over the top. I did originally watch this hoping for a superhero flick starring feedback, and was disappointed that he was just a cameo. I enjoyed the movie as a whole, found it pleasantly hokey and entertaining.

In my mind the Sci-Fi Channel makes made for TV movies that rank right up there at the bottom. Mostly. But this one was better than most of what they serve up. Most of the players? Don't look for Oscar alerts. But ... Michael Shanks is a fine actor and played his part well. Ben Cardinal was also a bright spot, he came off VERY well given the character he played. And, dare I say it? There was one portion of the flick that contained, well, very positive Feedback. That part was just fun. One thing that stood out, as with any Sci-Fi Channel movie, for its poor quality was the computer generated special effects. All their snakes look alike and this one looked like some sort of picture laid on top of another picture. But the plot and characters were kinda cool, so, over all ... Thumbs up for a change. Shocking feedback, huh?

Dismal script with even worse direction that bounces between being random and clichéd. Improbable characters (the police deputy that JUST HAPPENS to "have a PhD in zoology") plus completely stereotypical plot devices (the Indian with a secret passed down from "his people", and the clichéd County Fair that no one can close because it's too important even though The Evil Monster is rampaging in the countryside) with some of the worst acting and casting seen on American Basic Cable (accents for residents of this Tenn. community are all over the place) and a good measure of sub-par special effects and poor dubbing equals this complete waste of time. And "Feedback's" appearance is barely more than a disjointed and forced cameo in the last half hour... if you're watching for that, save your time. If you are watching for some other reason, what's wrong with you? OK, there are a few so-bad it's funny moments (especially the reaction of the mother of the family at the beach as soon as she sees the, erm, "Mega Snake"... we rewound and watched that scene half a dozen times...) but still...