Vipers (2008)

What makes it different from others?

one of my absolute favorites!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The residents in the tiny remote community of Eden Island find themselves in great jeopardy after a bunch of lethal scientifically enhanced snakes escape from a nearby lab research facility. Director Bill Corcoran, working from a rather trite script by Brian Katkin, relates the familiar and predictable, yet still enjoyable story at a snappy enough pace, draws the main characters with real depth, and delivers plenty of pretty graphic (albeit fairly tacky) gore, but alas fails to generate much in the way of initial suspense and gets bogged down a bit too much in tiresome small town melodrama. Worse yet, the cruddy and unconvincing CGI snakes prove to be utterly laughable instead of scary and threatening. Fortunately, this movie improves as it goes along, with an especially tense and exciting last third complete with some rousing and well staged set pieces. Moreover, the competent acting by the capable cast keeps this picture on track: Tara Reid as the feisty Nicky Swift, Jonathan Scarfe as likable and resourceful ex-Marine Cal Taylor, Stephen E. Miller as the amiable Hank Brownie, Corbin Bernsen as nefarious and duplicitous corporate bigwig Burton, Don S. Davis as the genial Dr. Silverton, and Mark Humphrey as the no-nonsense Sheriff Hendricks. However, Genevieve Buechner seriously grates on the nerves as whiny teenage brat Maggie and Mercedes McNab is wasted in a nothing minor role. Both Thomas Burstyn's crisp cinematography and Lawrence Shragge's lively rattling score are up to par. An acceptable time-waster.

From the short description I read it sounded like some Anaconda rip-off made for TV, it turned out, that is exactly what is was, just with more snakes. Basically a large amount of vipers have been taken by scientists to be experimented on to find a breakthrough, it all goes wrong when some criminals unintentionally break the glass and the snakes escape. At a big meeting, Burton (The Dentist's Corbin Bernsen), who is in charge of the research, explains that these vipers have been genetically enhanced in order to create a cure for breast cancer. Now slithering their way to a near isolated lake town, the residents, including Nicky Swift (American Pie's Tara Reid) who works at the hotel, are unaware of the danger. One or two people fall victim to the terror these venomous mutated creatures bring, but the townspeople are still not sure what is going on, only that some people have snake bites that need antidote injected. Soon enough everyone is on the run from the vipers, trapping themselves in the hotel, and trying to get help or escape the danger. Burton does find out about the snakes escaping from the medical research facility, and he does get in touch with one of the people caught in the chaos, but he dismisses the problem for the benefit of the research. In the end the vipers are all blown up with a combination of light and gas in the hotel, and Burton gets what coming to him too when the meeting people overhear his earlier conversation. Also starring Jonathan Scarfe as Cal Taylor, Genevieve Buechner as Maggie Martin, Stephen E. Miller as Hank Brownie, Jessica Steen as Dr. Collins, Don S. Davis as Dr. Silverton, Mark Humphrey as Sheriff Hendricks, Aaron Pearl as Jack Martin and Claire Rankin as Ellie Martin. It is shame that Reid, one of the fittest of the girls in the great teen sex comedy has gone so downhill, she is rather dull, and Bernsen doesn't do much either, all the other cast members are silly and predictable too. The blood amount is fair, but the special effects involved for making the snakes look deadly and terrifying is just terrible, it isn't scary, it feels like something made for TV, and it is just an overly boring and awful horror thriller. Poor!

The tagline says 'First Comes The Slither, Then Comes The Slaughter', but it could easily be changed to 'Then Comes The Yawner. Because that is what this film exactly did. It bore me to death.Yeah, people could argue that B-movies aren't suppose to stimulate you, and the only reason directors direct these kind of films is to kill your time on a Sunday morning is just wrong. I mean, there are other B-films that is as good as the mainstream films, except that these films are produced on a smaller budget and not as widely promoted.But I digress.I spent an hour or so watching this film, hoping that it will get better. Sadly, it did not. I was disappointed at the plot dynamics (or the lack of it), the annoying snakes, and the unreal storyline.I am hoping that others will watch other films instead, or if you have watch the other films, maybe cleaning your backyard and/or planting new trees on your garden is not such a bad idea.

"Vipers" qualifies as a genuinely exciting horror chiller that will make your skill crawl about genetically enhanced snakes that invade an isolated vacation resort island in the Pacific Northwest and turn half of the residents into luncheon meat. Tara Reid of "American Pie" stars as a savvy blond horticulturist who grows pot when she is not selling bonsai trees to tourists and Jonathan Scarfe plays the new guy on the island who has come to take over for the old doctor who plans to retire. Happily, this Sci-Fi Channel creature feature from producers Robert Halmi Jr., and Robert Halmi Sr., surpasses their other schlocky made-for-cable outings like "Grizzly Rage." Although the computer-generated-imagery of hundreds of snakes run amok has elicited jeers galore, the serpents do not look that cheesy. Of course, you can tell from the start that the snakes are fake, but you have to approach this epic some suspension of disbelief if you want to enjoy it, and "Vipers" is entertaining.Director Bill Corcoran, who has done a little bit of everything in terms of television shows, knows enough to never let the momentum flag in the preposterous Brian Katkin plot. Elements of Katkin's screenplay movie recall "Deep Blue Sea," where experiments were conducted on genetically enhanced sharks to yield a cure Alzheimer's disease and "Jurassic Park" where replicated dinosaurs broke out of an island research facility and swarmed into California to raise havoc. Corbin Bernsen has a minor but important role as a villain bereft of a conscience who is prepared to sacrifice lives so that his company can reap millions for their stockholders.Universal Bio Tech Industries has achieved astonishing results in the containment of breast cancer by using the venom from horned vipers. Indeed, idealistic Dr. Collins (Jessica Steen of "Armageddon") is gratified that she helped save one 28-year old woman from the ravages of the disease. Her celebratory attitude dries up when she learns from amoral company CEO, Burton (Corbin Bernsen of "Major League"), that a disaster has occurred at a remote island research laboratory that may endanger their successes. It seems that the horned vipers, which were supposed to be destroyed, have gotten off the island. These genetically enhanced reptiles are stealthy, extremely lethal, and agile. In the opening scene, a crook security chief tries to steal the snakes but he is thwarted. A shoot-out ensues and the glass container that houses these evil snakes shatters when bullets strike it. The nasty snakes slither out and start biting scientists. Immediately, we know that these hideous snakes represent a terrific challenge that our heroes are going to have to use their "MacGyver" like ingenuity to overcome. These evil things not only bite but they also dine on the flesh of their victims. Somehow, these snakes escape to Eden Cove and all Hell and hysteria breaks loose. Burton dispatches Dr. Collins to Eden Cover to assess the situation. Little does she know that Burton only wants his men to retrieve a snake and then have the island destroyed using Homeland Security to eradicate a possible plague.The cast is first-rate and you feel sympathetic toward them. For a change these victims show some sense. They figure out a way to distract the scores of snakes surrounding them to go elsewhere while one group rushes to a boat and flees the island to stop Homeland Security from obliterating Eden Cover at sunrise on the following day. The camaraderie that develops between the contentious factions in this group so that they band together to help each other makes this an above-average horror movie. Romance blossoms between the new guy doctor and Tara Reid because he was with her boyfriend in the Gulf War when the unfortunate fellow died. He tells her at one point that her boyfriend and he used to quote Pink Floyd lyrics to keep from going insane and the night that he died they were doing this when their Humvee struck an improvised explosive device. When the group that plans to distract the snakes so the other group can make it to the boat sets off on their mission, the two shared Pink Floyd lyrics. You can see that "Vipers" amounts to more than a schlocky science fiction saga. People who abhor snakes should avoid this shiver-inducing saga.