Due to the overabundance of snake movies, distributors had improvising their own method of flute chanting to enthice people, in this case by slapping on the cover Pat Morita’s name, and with special effects curated by the Chiodo Brothers of Killers Klowns From Outer Space and Critters fame.
Well, that sure would have gotten my attention, but even the funny Erik Estrada cammeo wouldn’t properly mask how this is the squintillionth Jaws rip-off.
That’s literally it.
I know i did eventually described the same plot over and over since lots of b-movies ripped off Jaws in everything, you wanna know the context that lead to a giant snake hybrid breaking loose? Fine.
A douche scientist figured he could do better and faster than his superior regard their research on snake venom and possible applications as means to reduce aggressive tendecies in humans, so he locks the main scientist out of the lab, only to cause a chemical fire that destroy the lab and sets free the hybrid snake, Seth, which grows giant by roaming free for 2 years in the countryside.
Just swap the shark for a giant hybrid of rattlesnake and king cobra, the shark expert for a snake expert, and switch the beach summer season for a microbrewery festival as the specific event that brings in cash so the Major won’t evacuate the town. You can easily guess the rest without needing to see a single frame of the movie, if you’ve seen more than 5 b-movies made for TV you absolutely can predict with fairly good accuracy what’s gonna happen in King Cobra.
Same goes for the acting, dialogues and characters.
This is by the numbers/book as it gets.
And sadly this is one of those that’s kinda of a snoozefest, as it has some enjoyable stuff on it, but the funny or entertaining bits are so far apart you’d wonder if it worth slogging through some awful dialogues (like the non-committment spiel the doctor character makes at one point), plenty of kills scenes where you don’t get to see jackshit, not only as it cuts away before or after for most of the movie, but there’s barely any blood or gore.
Pretty sure this is due to most of the budget going to the effects for the snake itself, which it’s both untentionally funny looking when he pops up AND honestly looks better than usual, sure as shit it beats the crappy CG seen a year later in Python or similar stuff, shame the snake prop it’s hard to get a good look for most of the first half, where is shown in darkly lit scenes.
The Estrada cameo it’s funny, intentionally so, not quite the case with Pat Morita, he clearly wants as little to do with this movie as possible, and at least this wasn’t his final role or some cursed shit like that (it was for singer and actor Hoyt Axton, here playing the rotund town major), heck, just a year after he had a small part in Takeshi Kitano’s Brother, so…
Also, i find it funny that at one point you see posters in a shop for Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and they make sure you can’t but notice them, i dunno why, there’s no connection as far as i known. XD
This tickles me pink because it feels so random, it’s this a mistake they left in as they didn’t wanna edit around it, figuring New Line wouldn’t sue them or anything, since everybody else was laughing at them anyway..and this it’s not even a dig or any kind of statement aside from that movie existing?
See, that little thing in itself it’s far more interesting than this movie, even though it’s one of those that somewhat avoids being a total bore thanks to the final scenes, the snake itself looking fairly good, and how it get sillier as it goes on, hard to hate a movie where they dropkick a giant cobra.
Maybe you’ll get more enjoyment out of it than me, but still, King Cobra it’s pretty submediocre and incredibly forgettable made for TV b-movie refuse, there’s worse ways to kill 90 minutes, i guess. Just skip to the last 20 minutes, if you must.
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