Killer Snakes (4pc) (Unrated)

Starring:Various
Studio: Brentwood Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Dr. B. Fry Envenomates this one.

Killer Instincts: Snakes
Starring: Rob Bredl
Director: Vic Martin
Manufacturer: Mpi Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

Nature & Wildlife | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Television | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $14.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( K ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Crocodiles & Snakes
Nature - Reptiles
Austin Stevens, Snakemaster - In Search of the Giant Lizard, Monster Rattler and More!
Nature: Spiders and Snakes
Nature:Reptiles

ASIN: B00009WVP3
Release Date: 2003-09-30

Customer Reviews:

Dr. B. Fry Envenomates this one. .......2006-07-28

My overall thoughts about this documentary is that it is worth watching and will be enjoyable to any snake enthusiast. It is not, however, better than other snake documentaries such as "Snakes and Crocodiles" or "Reptiles" from the Nature series. Rob obviously has a passion for snakes and is excellent with them. The snakes covered in this video are mostly Australian and are covered in pretty good detail. Rob is not the best in front of the camera but does deliver all in all. What makes up for this is that Dr. Bryan Fry is also in the documentary. Dr. Fry may as well come out with his own documentary series about the evolution and natural history of snakes and snake venom, and the hell with anything else. I contemplated giving it 5 stars just for his appearance, but to be honest it really gets just the 4 because it is a little cheesy at times and does not quite live up to other documentaries of its kind. It's only 45 min. and doesn't really give you too much "new" information if you are pretty familiar with the basic info. on australian species such as taipans, eastern browns, and tiger snakes (etc). All said and done, I would recomend this documentary for anyone who enjoys this subject matter, or if not for anything else, because any message discussing snakes from a positive perspective makes it worth all the while.

Average customer rating:

Sheer, unadulterated silliness.
Sssslitheringly Good Fun!
One Great Film

Killer Snakes (4pc) (Unrated)
Starring: Various
Manufacturer: Bci / Eclipse
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

All Deals | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( K ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

4-for-3 All DVDs | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Rattlers (Spec)
Silent Predators
Black Magic (Shaw Brothers Special Edition)
Python II
Venomous

ASIN: B00007G1UP
Release Date: 2002-12-03

Customer Reviews:

Sheer, unadulterated silliness........2007-06-11

Fer de Lance (Russ Mayberry, 1974)

It really is Snakes on a Sub, but without either gratuitous nudity (it was a made-for-TV movie) or Samuel L. Jackson taking charge. If you've seen, or even heard of, Snakes on a Plane, you know exactly what to expect from this--poisonous snakes (Fer de Lances, obviously) get loose on a nuclear sub (the Fer de Lance, obviously) and start stealth-biting people until half the crew is either dead or disabled, causing them to sail into some rocks, from which they have to entangle themselves while still battling the snakes. It has all the hallmarks of the seventies made-for-TV disaster movie--a soundtrack out of a porn film, a budget that couldn't be bothered to put out for a steadicam, lots of overacting, focus problems, the works. It's passable cheese if you're on a nostalgia trip, but won't stand up to repeated viewing. * ½

* * *

Snake Woman (Sidney J. Furie, 1961)

As bad as Fer de Lance is, Snake Woman is inestimably worse. The acting is atrocious; I can't imagine too many movie screens got away without tomato and rotten egg stains during this dog's theatrical run. It avoids the awful special effects by simply not having any; when our title lass changes into a snake, we get a quick-cut. But that's nothing compared to the awful, awful script. If you can make it through the first five minutes of the movie without gagging on the awfulness of the script, you'll survive the next hour, but I suspect you'll have a slightly queasy feeling in your belly for a while afterwards.

Short synopsis: A mad scientist (John Cabazon) has been injecting his wife (Dorothy Frere) with snake venom to cure her insanity. She's worried that the venom injections will affect their unborn child (never mind this couple passed their childbearing years at least a decade ago, even in today's age of rampant fertility treatments). He scoffs. She dies in childbirth. The baby's skin is cold--yet still it breathes! Why, yes, the snake venom injections have turned the baby into a half-woman half-snake beast who, upon reaching adolescence, takes quite a liking to the male populace. A dashing Scotland Yard investigator (Dr. Strangelove's John McCarthy) is sent to investigate the rumors of a snake woman, and, well, the rest is history.

This might've actually been amusing had the writer and director decided to make a farcical romance out of it, and it does seem as if it's headed that way for a while, but as soon as the batty old spinster starts going on about the inspector and his three blessed bullets, you might as will give this one up. (half)

* * *

The Snake People (Juan Ibanez and Jack Hill, 1971)

Another of the rather silly films comprising the Killer Snakes 2DVD set, this one a Mexican flick starring Boris Karloff as Carl van Molder, wealthy landowner. His niece, Anabella (Julissa), comes to stay with him for a bit, and immediately catches the eye of Andrew Wilhelm (Carlos East), a subordinate to Capt. Labesch (Rafael Bertrand), a local army officer who clashes regularly with the natives over their religion. What could have been an interesting tale of power struggles in colonial times never manages to rise above the level of the cheap thrill; the producers, presumably, wanted to get in as many zombies as possible (the title refers to the fact that the natives use snakes in their rather provocative rituals), and reduced the actual living human beings to not much more than stick figures in the process. Karloff, one of the great actors of his time, is utterly wasted; one has a hard time believing he took anything about the production seriously (check the terrible, terrible overacting during the scene when he's giving Klinsor [Quentin Bulnes] a beatdown over being in love with a zombie--a truly, if unintentionally, hilarious bit of work, that. Would anyone get the joke if I said "yep, this was Klinsor's Last Summer, indeed!"?).

Still, it's better overall than the first two of the movies from the set I watched, and so has to get a higher rating, if only by default. **

* * *

Black Cobra (Joe D'Amato, 1976)

I saved the best (relatively) of the four Killer Snake films for last--softcore maestro Joe D'Amato's Black Cobra (known by various other names, most notably Black Cobra Woman), starring the delicious Laura Gemser (Black Emmanuelle) and a noticeably down-in-the-dumps Jack Palance, along with various other folks you've probably never heard of unless you're an expert in Italian exploitation flicks. Unlike the other movies in this set, Black Cobra never has any pretensions to being a horror movie; D'Amato tries to give it a veneer of validity by tacking on a kind of silly revenge-thriller plot towards the end, but it's a Joe D'Amato film and it stars Laura Gemser, how can it be anything but softcore? Gemser fans won't get quite as much bare flesh per square inch as they did in the classic Black Emmanuelle, but should be satisfied anyway; the woman seems allergic to clothes most of the time. A couple of the other actresses in the film (Sigrid Zanger, Salon Kitty's Michele Stark) also spend a decent amount of time wearing little or nothing, though in grand softcore tradition, no one actually does much of anything except stare at one another. (There's a rather hot fantasy sequence involving Gemser, and what she's doing while fantasizing is pretty juicy, as well. Unfortunately, it comes all too early in the film. Everything else is, if you'll pardon the pun, an anticlimax.) If you're looking for such subtleties as plot, character, theme, etc., look elsewhere; that said, one doesn't go into a D'Amato film looking for them. If you want naked chicks, look no further. ** ½

Sssslitheringly Good Fun!.......2003-10-15

Disc #1- SNAKE PEOPLE- A cool movie with Boris Karloff about voodoo, zombies, cannibals, black magic, and of course, poisonous snakes. A brutal police captain decides to rid a carribean island of it's "superstitious" inhabitants by intimidation, torture, and finally, explosives. The voodoo folks strike back with curses, venomous snakes, and the "cannibal girls", a group of flesh-eating temptresses. I loved every minute! Next, SNAKE WOMAN- A boring, lifeless movie about a girl who can turn into a snake, seeking vengeance on those who tried to kill her as a baby. Zzzzz... Disc #2- FER DE LANCE- A 1970's TV flick about a submarine infested with (you guessed it) poisonous snakes. Scream! as Frank Bonner (aka: WKRP IN CINCINATTI's Herb Tarlick) brings death and destruction aboard the sub! Thrill! as David Jansen and Hope Lange lament their flickering careers! Gasp! as pearl divers save the day! A cheesey must see! Last and certainly least- BLACK COBRA WOMAN- A desperately dull snoozer about Laura Gemser's need to get naked every fifteen minutes. Oh yeah, there are poisonous snakes in this one too. I'm not against steamy scenes. I AM against movies that merely space out the sex scenes, with no decent plot or direction. This flick drug on and on. I found myself rolling my eyes and fast forwarding through the nudity! That's downright wrong! Unfortunately, it's just THAT monotonous. I still recommend this collection for snake lovers everywhere...

One Great Film.......2003-05-26

SNAKE PEOPLE is the only reason I give this set 5 stars. If you can afford Something Weird's Snake People/Rattlers double feature I would recommend that instead. But for the low price, even only getting one film that is this much fun is still worthwhile. The picture quality on Snake People is great; quite close to Something Weird's, so you know it couldn't possibly get much better. See my review for the Rattlers DVD for a description of the film itself.

SNAKE WOMAN is the second best film in this collection. It concerns a woman who can turn herself into a snake getting revenge upon the villagers who tried to kill her when she was an infant. Not much goes on, but this is tolerable given the film's short running time of 1 hour. It is not unlike an episode of the original Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. Unfortunately enjoyment is diminished by the picture quality. There is a slight ghostly double-image throughout the film rendering viewing uncomfortable.

FER-DE-LANCE is a terrible TV movie from the 1970s about a submarine crew trapped at the bottom of the sea facing the additional problem of half a dozen deadly poisonous snakes slithering around on the loose. Way too long and boring despite being produced by Leslie (Outer Limits) Stevens. Good picture quality though for an old TV movie.

Last and least is BLACK COBRA WOMAN. It is directed by "Joe D'Amato" and stars Laura Gemser, so people who like their Emmanuelle movies should enjoy this (I'm surprised it is not called something like "Black Emmanuelle and the Snakes"). I personally find this (and most of the Emmanuelle films) to be boring, unexciting sleaze. Basically, a bunch of people have affairs with each other and eventually start killing each other off with the help of Jack Palance's private collection of poisonous snakes. Not really a horror film, but there are "killer snakes" involved. Surprisingly, the film is letterboxed and appears to be the uncut version. The picture quality is okay (it is very watchable), but is not the cleanest, and does not have particularly sharp colours.

Customer Reviews:

Pretty much the worst wildlife DVD I've ever seen.......2006-02-07

No direction, too much face time for the host, bottom-of the barrel animal footage, and it was fairly boring. Stick to Nature, Discovery Channel, or National Geographic. I will never buy another independently made nature DVD again, especially not from this guy

DvD of Rob Bredl.......2004-03-09

Great dvd if you love Rob Bredl or want to discover im.