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Released by: The Asylum
Released on: 8/15/2006
Director: The Malachi Brothers
Cast: Nobody interesting, really.
Year: 2006
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The Movie:
At this point in time, anyone who is anyone has heard of Snakes On A Train, New Line's Samuel L. Jackson vehicle that has turned into an internet sensation before even reaching theater screens. With all that money put into TV commercials and a fairly massive online marketing blitz, it's hard not to have been exposed to it somehow - at least that's what the Malachi Brothers are banking on with their latest film, Snakes On A Train, a straight to video schlock fest that touts '100 trapped passangers, 3000 venomous vipers' on the front cover which features a massive snack eating a train. It worked - it got this reviewers attention.
So how does the movie hold up? It's obviously a knock off, but is it any good? Well, no, it's not good at all in the traditional sense but it's surprisingly gory, fun, and reasonably fast paced and on that level alone it makes for an amusing time killer. It's also got gratuitous nudity, subplots that don't really go anywhere, bad dialogue and Playstation era CGI effects. Combined, those elements usually add up to a good time, and here the theory holds true.
The film begins with a Mexican shaman guy and his wife, Alma. She's obviously sick and they're in the desert trying to get into the United States by way of crossing the border into Texas where they hope to hope on a train and make it to Los Angeles where the Shaman guy's uncle will be able to cure Alma of her ailment - an ancient curse that causes snakes to come out of her body! After some bickering with a few smuggler types they manage to get on the train when a childhood friend of Alma's pops up and pays the bad guys off. Also on board are three stoner/surfer dudes who talk about weed a lot, a pair of cute girls, a creepy cowboy guy, an equally creepy Middle Eastern guy, an engineer with a Lemmy moustache, and a completely unsuave electronics engineer who is macking a nice looking middle aged lady to reasonably successful effect. Oh, and there's a man, his ladyfriend, and her daughter on board too. That doesn't really add up to a hundred passengers, but it's close enough.
At any rate, once the train stars a rollin' Alma's condition gets worse and soon enough she's puking out snakes. At first it's not as big a deal as you'd expect as they're tiny snakes and her shaman hubby is able to wrangle them into little jars. Apparantly once they make it to his uncle's place he's going to put them back into her properly but as to why this is the case, well, that's up to you to decide because it's never really explained - just accept it as fact and move on. Soon though, her condition worsens yet again and bigger snakes start coming out of her and she starts spewing green jelly everywhere.
While Alma is puking up snakes, the two cute girls have got a problem of their own to deal with - it seems that the blonde has decided to smuggle a big old bag of cocaine across state lines and that the dirtbag looking cowboy guy onboard is a Narc. He's not opposed to making a deal with blondie, however, and for the money she's been given for the job and a chance to play with her funbags it seems he'll let her walk. Unfortunately for him, the creepy Middle Eastern guy is also a cop and he busts Cowboy Dirtbag just as he's about to do the deed. Oh snap! They start shooting at one another and the snakes start eating everyone and the guys who were smuggling the illegals onto the train prove to be the first victims but certainly not the last. Alma starts puking out more snakes and her shaman husband starts going batty and before you know it giant rubber snakes are eating little kids, garder snakes are ripping through people's wrists and into their insides and the conducter with the Lemmy moustache is trying to stop the train before it's all too late.
This movie is retarded. It works, but it's retarded. There are all sorts of little subplots that are never really developed and that don't really go anywhere, the final manifestation of the giant CGI snake at the end is completely ridiculous and comes way out of left field, the acting is bad, the dialogue is bad, and the characters are also bad. But you know what? Throw in enough snakes and enough gore and none of that matters. While there are hardly three thousand venomous vipers on board (more like a few boas and a bunch or garder snakes… all of whom make rattle snakes noises for some reason) there are lots of small to medium sized snakes running around, slithering between people's legs and tearing into people's wrists only to make their way through their arms and into their chests and hearts. The gore is a bit on the low budget side but there's lots of it and some of it is surprisingly nasty - at one point a guy gets his heart ripped out, another guy is shot in the head, and the snake on wrist scenes (of which there are a few) are rather grisly as well. There's also the completely unnecessary gratuitous nudity that appears for no reason but is very welcome just the same - if only there had been more of it!
The biggest problem with the movie is that it tries to develop the characters a bit before the snakes versus passengers action gets moving. This results in the first twenty minutes being a little on the slow side. Once that's over with, however, the carnage begins and hilarity ensues. Malachi Brothers, I salute you.
Video/Audio/Extras:
For a shot on DV production, Snakes On A Train doesn't look half bad. Expect to see some aliasing and some line shimmering throughout but that's the worst of the problems here. Color reproduction is strong, black levels are deep and only show some mild mpeg compression artifacts in a few scenes. Skin tones look lifelike and natural and detail levels are fine. Not a reference quality transfer by any means, but for a low budget movie the feature looks quite good on this release.
You've got your choice of watching this epic in either a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track or in a fancy Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound option. If your hardware will permit it, the 5.1 track is the one to go with as it is considerably more aggressive and it does add some nice directional effects during the action and 'snake intensive' scenes in the rear channels. There are a few spots where the dialogue is a bit muffled and where the effects bury the performers but these are the exception, rather than the rule. For the most part, everything sounds pretty good here.
The main extra feature is a commentary track from the two Malachi Brothers who are joined by one of the actors and the director of photography. For some reason the levels are fairly low on this and some participants are louder than others which makes things a little annoying at times. If you can get past that, there's some good information in here including how some of the effects were done, how the actors felt about working with snacks, how the crew felt about working with live snakes, in addition to casting and location information and some interesting technical details as well.
From there we're treated to an eight minute making of featurette were most of the main actors and actresses are interviewed about their work on the project. A lot of these are little more than your typical talking head sound bites but the behind the scenes and effects footage that we see in here is interesting enough to make this worth a look.
Rounding out the extra features are a minutes worth of amusing bloopers where the enginer mispronounces 'runaway train' about a zillion different times, a few minutes of deleted scenes that add a little bit of back story to the cocaine smuggling subplot, and trailers for Snakes On A Train, the 9/11 The Commission Report, Pirates Of Treasure Island and 666 The Child, all fine films available from The Asylum. Menus and chapter stops for the feature are also included.
The Final Word:
While this is an obvious attempt to cash in on the marketing campaign for the New Line release of Snakes On A Plane, this film has a retarded charm all its own that makes it worth a look for B-movie fans. If a Mexican woman puking up snakes and a coke smuggling subplot that doesn't really go anywhere with a token topless lady thrown in just for kicks and wanton CGI monsters sounds like your idea of a good time, this one fits the bill. Snakes On A Train is completely entertaining, even if it shouldn't be.