Back-of-the-box synopsis:
Under a powerful Mayan curse, snakes are hatched inside a young
woman, slowly devouring her from within. Her only chance for survival
is a powerful shaman who lives across the border. With only hours to
live, she jumps on a train headed for Los Angeles. Unfortunately for
the passengers aboard, they are now trapped, soon to be victims of
these flesh-eating vipers.
With that as the synopsis for the movie, how could I resist? Add in the
tagline, "100 trapped passengers, 3000 venomous vipers" and you have a
movie that can't be described as anything but a winner. That's like
fifty vipers per person, well over the regular viper allotment for
commercial trains.
Plot Synopsis: The back of the box was pretty much solid in describing
the plot. It starts off with a woman who has a curse which causes
snakes to flow from her body, at which point they must be reinserted
into her body, or she'll die, or something. Weren't too clear on what
goes on with that whole deal until the very end. The protagonist spends
a good deal of the movie trying to save his girlfriend by putting
snakes back into her mouth, taking snakes out, and feeding her what I
believe were ruffled potato chips. her condition grows worse as the
movie continues, while several pointless subplots (see below) are
worked through. At the end of the film, the girlfriend consumes all of
the remaining snakes. AFTER THIS POINT, NOTHING IN THIS MOVIE MAKES
ANY SENSE. She then transforms into a giant snake, eats the
protagonist, then exits the train. She begins eating the train while
all the remaining passengers run to the last car and jump out. One
passenger pulls out a talisman that the protagonist was using earlier
in the movie, then uses it to summon a giant tornado that kills the
giant snake. Cue credits.
List of subplots:
1. Mexicans being smuggled across the border.
2. Girls having to be coke mules in order to get money to live in Los Angeles.
3. Crooked sex offender Narc struggling against straight-arrow narc.
4. Relationship buds between male and female passenger.
5. Teenagers are trying to make it to a surfing contest in LA.
6. A mother and father of a small girl are having a rocky period in
their relationship.
Which are resolved thusly:
1. They die.
2. They lose the drugs, make it out alive.
3. They die.
4. Not tied up in the end.
5. They die.
6. They die.
My thoughts:
If any of you are familiar with Asylum entertainment, they're the
company responsible for every knockoff of a big-budget movie in the
last 3 or 4 years. "The Da Vinci Treasure", "Battle of the Planets",
"When a Killer Calls", all their work. I've seen every one of their
movies (and a few others), so i was fairly steeled for what was to
come. Fast and loose acting, 2-dimensional characters, and a script
whose first half was written in 5 days and whose second half was penned
in fifteen minutes. With all of that in mind, this movie pretty much
served up what I expected.
I remember a line from the movie that pretty much sums up the quality
of the writing, so I'll let the film speak for itself:
"Your mother's cvnt smells like carpet cleaner!"
Interpret that however you'd like to.
On the subject of camerawork, lighting, and set design, the movie
followed a pretty similar path. Cameras were pretty much always
straight on, except for one "action shot" of a man calling a train
station on a phone. The camera swooped above him, then took the shot
from below. This was by far the most "exciting" use of film technique
that I'd noticed. Lighting was sloppily done, with every area being
very brightly lit without explanation. In a notable scene, a cowboy
delivered a line, lit only by a campfire, put out the campfire with his
boot, then delivered another line, his face again lit by the
supposedly-extinguished fire. Way to go, champs.
The only notable thing about the movie was the ending, really. The rest
was a mishmash of footage of people running through a train, a couple
of shots of the same boa constrictor, a shot of a little girl being
eaten by a giant snake puppet, and stock footage of a train and train
tracks. The ending really did blow me away, though. A fvcking tornado?
What? Since when has a snake's downfall been a giant tornado? Not
simply a giant tornado, either, by a glowing red, supernatural tornado.
I understand that even that is more plausible than the summoning of a
giant mongoose, but come on.
Oh yeah, one other thing. Since when has LA been a focal point for
shamans?
The snakes thing is getting redundant. The next person who posts such a thread, is getting slapped by one.
AnandTech Moderator
Under a powerful Mayan curse, snakes are hatched inside a young
woman, slowly devouring her from within. Her only chance for survival
is a powerful shaman who lives across the border. With only hours to
live, she jumps on a train headed for Los Angeles. Unfortunately for
the passengers aboard, they are now trapped, soon to be victims of
these flesh-eating vipers.
With that as the synopsis for the movie, how could I resist? Add in the
tagline, "100 trapped passengers, 3000 venomous vipers" and you have a
movie that can't be described as anything but a winner. That's like
fifty vipers per person, well over the regular viper allotment for
commercial trains.
Plot Synopsis: The back of the box was pretty much solid in describing
the plot. It starts off with a woman who has a curse which causes
snakes to flow from her body, at which point they must be reinserted
into her body, or she'll die, or something. Weren't too clear on what
goes on with that whole deal until the very end. The protagonist spends
a good deal of the movie trying to save his girlfriend by putting
snakes back into her mouth, taking snakes out, and feeding her what I
believe were ruffled potato chips. her condition grows worse as the
movie continues, while several pointless subplots (see below) are
worked through. At the end of the film, the girlfriend consumes all of
the remaining snakes. AFTER THIS POINT, NOTHING IN THIS MOVIE MAKES
ANY SENSE. She then transforms into a giant snake, eats the
protagonist, then exits the train. She begins eating the train while
all the remaining passengers run to the last car and jump out. One
passenger pulls out a talisman that the protagonist was using earlier
in the movie, then uses it to summon a giant tornado that kills the
giant snake. Cue credits.
List of subplots:
1. Mexicans being smuggled across the border.
2. Girls having to be coke mules in order to get money to live in Los Angeles.
3. Crooked sex offender Narc struggling against straight-arrow narc.
4. Relationship buds between male and female passenger.
5. Teenagers are trying to make it to a surfing contest in LA.
6. A mother and father of a small girl are having a rocky period in
their relationship.
Which are resolved thusly:
1. They die.
2. They lose the drugs, make it out alive.
3. They die.
4. Not tied up in the end.
5. They die.
6. They die.
My thoughts:
If any of you are familiar with Asylum entertainment, they're the
company responsible for every knockoff of a big-budget movie in the
last 3 or 4 years. "The Da Vinci Treasure", "Battle of the Planets",
"When a Killer Calls", all their work. I've seen every one of their
movies (and a few others), so i was fairly steeled for what was to
come. Fast and loose acting, 2-dimensional characters, and a script
whose first half was written in 5 days and whose second half was penned
in fifteen minutes. With all of that in mind, this movie pretty much
served up what I expected.
I remember a line from the movie that pretty much sums up the quality
of the writing, so I'll let the film speak for itself:
"Your mother's cvnt smells like carpet cleaner!"
Interpret that however you'd like to.
On the subject of camerawork, lighting, and set design, the movie
followed a pretty similar path. Cameras were pretty much always
straight on, except for one "action shot" of a man calling a train
station on a phone. The camera swooped above him, then took the shot
from below. This was by far the most "exciting" use of film technique
that I'd noticed. Lighting was sloppily done, with every area being
very brightly lit without explanation. In a notable scene, a cowboy
delivered a line, lit only by a campfire, put out the campfire with his
boot, then delivered another line, his face again lit by the
supposedly-extinguished fire. Way to go, champs.
The only notable thing about the movie was the ending, really. The rest
was a mishmash of footage of people running through a train, a couple
of shots of the same boa constrictor, a shot of a little girl being
eaten by a giant snake puppet, and stock footage of a train and train
tracks. The ending really did blow me away, though. A fvcking tornado?
What? Since when has a snake's downfall been a giant tornado? Not
simply a giant tornado, either, by a glowing red, supernatural tornado.
I understand that even that is more plausible than the summoning of a
giant mongoose, but come on.
Oh yeah, one other thing. Since when has LA been a focal point for
shamans?
The snakes thing is getting redundant. The next person who posts such a thread, is getting slapped by one.
AnandTech Moderator
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