Random Horror Movie Review: Boa vs. Python (2004)

Horror Sub-Genre: Monsters, Wildlife Gone Wrong

Year: 2004

Country: USA (um, it was filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria...

     yeah, Bulgaria as well)

Language: English

Runtime:  92 minutes

Tagline:  Two Reptilian Killing Machines Face Off To Fight To The Death--With Humanity As The Prize

Watched: via Amazon Prime

Bonus: There aren't any, sorry!

Recommendation: For David Hewlett fans only (maybe). Or for fans of cheesy CGI, you know who you are, and that's cool!

[There are spoilers...sort of, not sure this film could be "spoiled"]

To properly understand where this film fits into it's place in history, one needs to remember--even if some of us have tried to forget--that Hollywood made a number of giant snake films, starting with Anaconda in 1997, before the general sense that a silly film like this could be tossed off "for fun."  Those films "gifted" us giant snakes that do impossible things like defy their own weight and making lightening fast moves no big snake could ever pull off out of water; of course this film takes those "rules" and runs with them. To give it some credit, this was one of the first "versus" films in a LONG line of many others (at least for American markets, the Japanese, after all, invented them in the 1960's: here is one of the very first and the very best!). It is also director David Flores' freshman outing and it shows. The film is intended to be a tongue-in-cheek all out creature-feature monster mash up. Forget the snakes, it pretty much fails to even deliver a proper fight between humans. It stars Adamo Palladino billed here as Adam Kendrick (see "Friends"), Jaime (Mrs. David Boreanaz) Bergman and the above mentioned David Hewlett of Stargate series' fame (Hewlett has also appeared in other science fiction horrors of note--including: Cube and Splice, and most recently, Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water). He plays a good-hearted scientist who is trying to come up with a "universal anti-venom" for all venomous snake bites (a laudable concept itself more science fiction than the giant snakes). For some reason never explained, this endeavour involves working with a giant bioengineered boa constrictor. That's the general back-story. Before we get to actually meet Emmett the scientist however, we are first forced to endure Palladino's casino-owning/big game hunting character Broddrick and his cheeky girlfriend Eve (Angel Boris Reed)...who we really get to see a lot of! Next, we meet Bergman's Monica Bond, who is some sort of "dolphin scientist"--she apparently designs marine tracking implants for the water bound mammals. (The fact that I know her character's last name proves I actually watched this turkey...more than once!).  So there are our cast of characters....

Three more characters...the only one that matters is Agent Sharpe (Kirk B. R. Woller) seen just below on the right

Agent Sharpe with a cheeky-on-purpose reporter 😫 One of Sharpe's lines is...I kid you not..."This is big and big is nice!"

Then, there is this guy....who cares who he really is--his appearance is just 😧. Actually he is supposed to be an former Navy Seal or some such; he helps us viewers understand that Monica can hold her breath under water...for like A REALLY LONG TIME!

...on to the monsters. As already alluded to, Dr. Emmett works with a giant boa (who is female-by the way--and named Betty); but where does the python come from? Well, from the big game hunter of course. Broddrick has brought in a giant python for the purposes of a staged sport hunting event. Now, I have to stop here and point out just a few real world things...just two. 1) there are NO 100 foot pythons (!!); 2) I am a Floridian, I know what snake hunting in the everglades for the purposes of removing real invasion pythons from the wild looks like...almost NO ONE hunts them for sport...hell you can barely pay folks to do it! So the idea of bringing in some uber snake for sport hunting is just so ridiculous it's beyond laughter (the much more enjoyable Frankenfish, also a 2004 film, employs the same concept to better effect). Predictably, the python escapes before it even reaches it's destination, setting up the need for some sort of "official" government intervention to really "hunt" the thing. Said dolphin scientist helps snake scientist fit up the big boa with some tracking implants, and hey, presto--they are ready to hit the python trail. Meanwhile, Broddrick has decided to bring in his game hunters anyway... What could possibly go wrong? Actually, film-wise, a lot. We never get much human on human strife out this plot device, and since the film is short of decent special effects, this is pretty much the only chance the viewer has to expect a real fight. And about those hunters....

Betty getting her implants...

Anyone who has even glanced at this blog will know that I have a thing for horror vehicles, but even I nearly laughed my ass off (in an embarrassed kind of way) taking in the scene where the hunters make their appearances....oh so woofy!! It really does kind of have to seen to be believed! To make matters worse, these guys get a "hero walk." You know, The Right Stuff style (the Sharknado films do this SO much better to comic effect). And, please don't get me started on their accents....

There is not much else to really say about the film, other than it's laughably boring and incomprehensible in spots. Good example: the tossed-in scene of a couple "doing things" to each other in a car...the woman somehow mistakes a giant snake for her boyfriend's tongue--the most hard to understand part of this gratuity is that the snake apparently somehow leaves only parts of their bodies at the scene...snakes can't bite things in half...though I am quite sure some wish they could! (See act 3 for more of this sort of WTF snake voodoo). Other plot elements are so useless they don't bear mentioning. Owed to the bad CGI, there is actually precious little boa fighting python in any capacity; to spice this up a bit the screenwriters decided to introduce a girl versus boy element as well. Female boa....I mean Betty...and male python. Needless to say, this does precious little to advance the plot and literally does nothing to add to the action. It just makes things more confusing...and painfully obvious that the authors of the script write like Liv from iZombie on frat boy brains. 

Snake versus DJ!!

Gratuitous rave torching!

Despite that this is shockingly a Columbia Tri-Star production--straight to video to be sure, but still a Columbia picture--it's obvious that it was made to be shown on the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy). That explains it's cheesy nature; I mean, amongst other things, it's listed as a "horror comedy;" and the film was made on a shoe-string FX budget. Still, films intending to be horror comedies are not supposed to be funny because they are actually so badly written that viewers are laughing in places where comedy is not intended and cringing at the parts that are. The full film as it was shot actually contains nudity, something I am certain was NEVER actually shown on the Syfy channel at any time (George W. Bush's FCC would have been ALL over them big time!!). So, while the film is cheesy, be aware that it's not intended as some "low budget family fun." It's obvious that it was actually intended mostly to be shown as a re-run on television cut to pieces (guess the general idea was to sell you the DVD copy if you wanted to see what they cut out). All of this to simply say...this isn't really Boa versus Python, it's hacks versus decent film making.

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Random Weekly Horror Review: The House On Haunted HIll (1999)

Horror Sub-Genre:  Haunted House/Hospital, Ghosts

Year:  1999

Country:  USA

Language:  English

Runtime:  93 minutes

Tagline(s):  There are several, but my two favorites are "Evil Loves To Party" and "Are You Dying To Be Rich?"

Watched:  DVD From My Collection

Bonuses:  Griffith Park fire access road, flying roller coaster complete with Spike from "Buffy" [with Lisa Loeb thrown in for good measure], and silent movie style ghost appearance [by the recently birthdayed Jeffery Combs.]

Recommendation: High Recommendation

[All weekly reviews contain spoilers! Of course, aside from the trailer, that includes any embeded clips.]

Anyone who looks frequently at this blog will notice that I often play this on repeat in another room on Friday's, such as I did this past Friday for example.  I figured why not just make this my selection of review for the week.  It's the first title I have reviewed from my own collection.  Also, as I have stated in the past my favorite genre of horror are ghost stories, and I have a particular fondness for haunted hospital affairs--problem with that is for every 1 decent haunted hospital film out there, there are like 9 more that are just lame!!  Obviously, I do not think this one is lame given my recommendation above, though I am aware that a lot of people just hate it.  I'm definitely on the other side of that spectrum; I love the film.  Famously, it is a remake of William Castle's film of the same name made exactly 40 years earlier which starred the late GREAT Vincent Price (I am also a huge fan of the original; and of William Castle's work in general.).  A lot of people question why a hospital, especially a psychiatric one at that, would be called a "house," but it is made very clear in the film that a few floors were fitted out to be a home of the dreaded Dr. Vannacutt (Combs).  It's a bit creepy to think of the uber bitchy Evelyn (Famke Janssen) [in the Annabelle Lorin oringinal part], wife to party thrower billionaire Stephen Price (Geofrrey Rush) sleeping in Vannacutt's old bedroom, while his ghost is on the prowl silent movie style!  And, yes, the last name Price is an homage to Vincent Price, who played the millionaire Frederick Lorin in the original Castle film.  A  point of trivia:  Geoffrey Rush was written in the script, despite his last name deliberately referring to one of the most famous horror actors of all time, as looking like an ordinary business man; Rush thought that was lame and suggested that his character by dressed up to resemble film director John Waters.

This was part of planned series of William Castle re-boots, by Dark Castle Entertainment, the intention being that all of Castle's horror gimmick films would be remade, all the help of Castle's daughter Terry to come up with ideas for both update her father's movies, and to make suggestions as to how to make them scarier; she has a producer credit on this as well.  In the end, only two were made, this one and Thir13 Ghosts.  I like them both, but this far and away my favorite.  It has a thoroughly solid cast, a great big spooky as hell set, solid cinematography (Rick Bota) and the dark humor is timed in just the right places against a backdrop of some solid scares, a nicely here-and-there serious gore.  Another thing that I like about the film is that when the shocks come the music and sound effects are not over-whelming.  So many ghost films these days are ruined by their loud soundtracks and give away "gotta ya" far too loud sounds when something is about to happen.  The point behind a solid ghost film is "less is more," even for a film like this that is made more like a funhouse, than say a Changeling (1980).   This gets away with some sound effects that wouldn't work in a straight forward ghost film, simply because it's campy remake of a film made by a man who used to do things like put buzzers on theater seats, unbeknown to any theater goer sitting in it.

There are many interesting updates to gags from the first film that didn't show in actual ghosts, obviously this one does..  The house actually makes the list for one thing--not the Lorin character.   Price's wife Evelyn tells him that she left a list guests on his office desk, which great acting aplomb Price growls "I've got you guest list right here" as he's shredding her list (reminds me of a similar performance of Rush's later on in the Coen Brother films Intolerable Cruelty that involves a "Lifetime Daytime Achievement Award....")  Price, though gets outdone by the house, that promptly remakes the list.  Another fun update is the funeral procession up to the house on the fire access road of Griffith park, complete with Marilyn Mansion's cover of The Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams" playing in the background (Mansion, actually, was an early consideration for the role of Dr. Vannacutt).  In the house, there is a full blown bar, put in we are told after a series of rather deadly renovations.  The little coffins the conceal the guns are floating on a bed glowing gel.  Chris Kattan puts in a very funny and convincing performance in the part of the drunk house owner Watson Pritchett (played by Elisha Cook as "Watson Pritchard" in the original).  There are no caretakers and Price has a gag man ready to attempt to scare the hell out everyone hid away in a room (things don't work out so well for him!).  Another interesting update is is a display of the dissected plasticized body of a horse complete with any equally plasticized human rider (actually there are several such specimens). Having Stephen Price being a personal owner of a chain of seriously thrilling amusement parks, is clearly some sort of poke at Walt Disney, which amuses me, because Disney wasn't exactly the kind old man inventor that he wanted the public to believe he was! As another point of trivia, the roller coaster that Price is "debuting" at the beginning of the film is located in the Universal Theme Park, not Disney...because Disney does lame roller coasters!!  And finally, we get an explanation as to how such a birthday celebration location was selected in the first place--there is a wonderful set up in the beginning of the film with Evelyn sipping a Bloody Mary (fitting choice) in a bubble bath watching a fake show Terrifying But True, hosted, as himself, by Peter Graves.

Perhaps the best update to the film is the manner in which Evelyn fakes her death.  This being an old psychiatric hospital "for the criminally insane," of course it has a seriously outdated shock therapy room.  We suddenly hear some god awful electrical sound start up, and Pritchett tells everyone it's coming from that room in the basement, all of this while Eveylyn is supposed to be asleep upstairs in the good Doctor's room.  When everyone (those actually left of the cast at this point) hurries to the location, sure enough, there's Evelyn being shocked to death.  It is at this point, since Price has already told the "revelers" earlier in the film that he's never heard of any them, that we find out which one of these people is Evelyn's accomplice (Annabelle Lorin has one as well in the original film).  We already know that Vannacutt is not the only doctor in the house; one guest is a Donald W. Blackburn M.D.--and as a doctor, he is quite qualified to revive Evelyn after her shock.  The remaining guests later find out that they are all there because the house chose them to get back at the seven people that survived the original lock down that killed Vannacutt in the first place...they then rightly wonder why Blackburn's name is not on the list.  The house doesn't care though, and apparently neither does Evelyn.

Before

And After....

I've encountered several comments in other reviews that complain about the building itself being such skyscraper edged on a cliff, and the fact that it huge maze like basement (because why would such a building that tall need one??).  For me, that just adds to the whole zany, "William Castley" aspect to the whole thing, this a dark humoured horror funhouse affair with real spooky scenes along the way, and some truly effective gore. "Oh Miss Mar!"  [Castle did pull some stunts at the premier of his House On Haunted Hill in the theater in 1959.]

As for extras, there is an awesome "silent film" like surgical scene after the end credits finish running that is not to be missed!  There is a deleted scene from the beginning of the film available in in extras on the DVD that is useless, skip it if you like, it adds nothing of note to the story.  The commentary track on this by director William Malone, is one of the best I've heard on a horror movie.  All in all, this is a film that is meant to be fun above all, but it's got some truly great gore, and genuinely creepy moments and imagery--skin crawling bits.  Worth a look.  One of the few horror remakes (or remakes of any genre) that I really like and think has respect for the original, after all Terry Castle was sort lording over it all!

Castle gag from 1959 premier.  The man LOVED a good horror joke!