[Vipers]
Plot:A set of vipers taken by scientists hoping to create a cure for cancer, manage to escape and begin attacking the residents of a small town called Eden Cove.

Cast:Tara Reid, Jonathan Scarfe, Claire Rankin.

My Thoughts:Tara's had enough of these motherfuckin' snakes!

Review:Going into "Vipers" I really thought I'd be lambasting this film, it was after all a SCI-FI original picture. But in all honesty, I judge sci-fi channel films on how much I can tolerate. If I can make it through a sci[fi channel original picture without a migraine, then guess what...it's a success! Or atleast a modest one. "Vipers" succeeds in being a modest success, a film which if you just watch for the sheer outrageousness of it all, and don't expect anything spectacular from it...you should enjoy little bits and pieces of it like I did.

The film follows a biotech research company which is experimenting on vipers hoping to come up with a cure for a certain type of breast cancer. Some people show up to steal the vipers though, and during the melee of gunfire...the deadly snakes escape. They then follow the A-typical horror film rule, which is to find a small town in the middle of nowhere to terrorize...which is exactly what they do. The only difference here is, Tara Reid happens to live in this particular town. If you're seeing "Vipers", it's for Tara Reid...who has played some interesting albeit unbelievable characters in the past few years.

An archeologist assistant in "Alone In The Dark" for example. In this movie, she plays a character we can more buy into...a marijuana plant grower who can throw a mean right hook. Tara's not dealing throughout the movie though, they do clean up her image in the film as a "medical marijuana" seller...not a typical stoner supplier. Although we don't exactly know that for sure, considering the scene where she sells a bag of pot to an old woman comes after a previous scene where she had just broken out of the town jail, aka a small wooden room with a chair.

The snakes are another reason to see the film, and they pretty much live up to expectations, Biting the crap out of people in vicious fashion, killing hundreds, and of course being CGI creations. Although in "Vipers" the director manages to hide the cgi a bit better than in most sci-fi originals. The basic object of the film quickly breaks down into the stereotypical archetype, where the snakes kill a bunch of unlucky peeps, Tara Reid manages to escape danger over and over again (because she's the star, you see), a half naked Mercedes McNab is killed (sadly she never lives in a horror film), and of course the snakes creators eventually show up with a formula to stop the snakes...or atleast temporarily.

Their formula only freezes them for a short amount of time. And of course rather than e-vacing the area, they get tangled up in an arguement over who's at fault with the townspeople, and that wasting of previous times allows the snakes to unfreeze and go on to kill more innocent people. Gotta love sci-fi channel movie logic huh? There are some good cameos in the film however...besides Reid, and Mcnab, Corbin Bersen also makes an appearance...and he has some good on-screen moments as well, the best one coming at the end of the picture.

But one of the really bad things about "Vipers" is the character logic. It amazes me how they can never write these characters smart. Tara Reid is the smartest character in the film when it comes to what to do and what not to do in the moment of split-second danger. Not sure if that's a coincidence, or if she was purposely written that way, but she even manages to outlast the stereotypical "mercenary-for-hire guy", and the equally stereotypical "shady company man". Go figure. But don't get too excited guys, Reid doesn't show any skin in the movie.

So if you're planning on renting "Vipers" tomorrow hoping for any "skintimate" shots of Tara, forget about it. She does however have atleast some small character development, with her character being the ex-girlfriend of a soldier killed by an IED in Iraq...and in some moments, grieving over her loss because she never agreed to marry him. So hey, while it's not the "positive" most guys would've wanted...it's a positive nonetheless.

"Vipers" is a good film for a SCI-FI Channel original that is...which means basically that if it were a straight-to-dvd film from a well-known indie horror director, I'd give it 1 star...because from that end of the horror genre spectrum, I'd expect better...a whole lot better. But with a sci-fi channel original, you can only ask for barely subpar filmmaking because in the most likely event...you'll get ultra-bad filmmaking. Ah...the world of lowered expectations.

Positives:A few good snake kills, Reid does a decent job in her performance. Mercedes McNab cameo.

Negatives:CGI Snakes always look bad, character stupidity reached astronomical levels yet again.

Overall:Two out of four stars.





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