Ah yes, the classic “go-to” choice when you and fellow shlock film makers have done every possible killer animal b-movie… doing another one by straight up mixing animals like Frankenstein if he was that desperate (and bored out of his skull) to bring something from the dead, regardless if it existed or not.
So pretty much like his incarnation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole.
Sadly there’s no Moral Orel cameo to be found here, just good old Jym Wynorski doing what he knows best: making cult creature features for SyFy and/or home video releases.
If you’ve seen any of his movies, you’ll be right at home, especially since right away this look filmed exactly where he did Komodo VS Kobra, and it has the same amount of AV actresses recast in non-porn roles, it really doesn’t matter if you put glasses and a crappy wig on them, it’s SO immediatly obvious some of the actresses are regulars from the other kind of movies Wynorski pumps out by the bucketloads.
I’m not even being prudish or judgy, it’s just you can’t help but notice this casting style, regardless of how clad are the actors and actresses.
It just adds to the already generous shlock factor, after all.
Among the breasted cast members you will find the more recognized, famous actors roped in by American World Pictures, this time it’s Michael Madsen (before his military shark shenanigans for The Asylum) tagging in to give Eric Roberts a chance to breathe before its time to voice a cat or something. What does Madsen do? He plays “Professor Lovegrove”, which arrived in a remote island to document and retrieve eggs of a rare mutant species of snake, believed to be an invention of Polynesian folklore, and eventually dubbed “Piranhaconda”.
Because it has the body of a snake but the head and color patterns of a piranha, you see.
Yeah, this time it’s not a lab experiment, which makes even less sense, so about as much as having not only a film crew shooting a crappy fictional slasher flick called “Head Chopper 2” and a random abandoned refinery thingie (very videogamey) where people with guns storm off in order to kidnap people and get rich by asking ransom money, all on the same island.
And some random girls searching for a specific flower, i don’t know why THIS it’s a recurring thing in these giant killer snake movies, but apparently it is.
Almost forgot, there’s also a fanboy of one of the actresses (with his girlfriend-wife in tow, which technically pushes this into pure sci-fi territory), we gotta keep the snake well fed all through the 80 minutes (plus credits) runtime of this shlockfest. Well, the snakes, there’s two of those, but you could have guessed that easily, there’s always more of these absurd giant creatures roaming about.
On that matter, YES, of course Michael Madsen it’s billed as the star but of course it’s a lie and he actually has very little screentime or actual shit to do when the camera is on him, aside from being captured, sitting or carrying an egg. “Classic”.
But in their defense the piranhacondas have some table manners, they rarely leave obvious fake legs and “foot stumps” when chomping, their “digital bite” usually leaves no blood or trace of the victims, and honestly i expected worse in terms of CG for the creatures. But watch out for the editing cutting to stock footage of real jungle or beach animals, it can happen at any moment.
I’ll say this, Jym Wynorski knows what he’s doing in terms of made for TV shlocky creature features (he learned from one of the best shlockmeisters after all), he knows he’s making crap and ok with that, he’s having fun with it, and there’s a sense of humour to the overall shlockery that doesn’t feel obnoxious or grating.
So the result is it’s kinda cute, enjoyable utter trash with all the usual stuff that it entails (bad acting, ect), and a surprisingly enjoyable surf rock soundtrack.
And that concludes #snakesofjune, we’ll start with the killer sharks and crocs movie reviews in a few days, taking a small break of sorts to better prepare things.
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