DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Tibor Takács
Starring Michael Shanks, Siri Baruc, John T. Woods
Release date 21 April 2008

Whatever you do, don’t feed it…

Mega Snake begins with a flashback to hero Les’s (Shanks) childhood, as he watches his father die of a snakebite in church. Cut to the here-and-now, and Les is still scared of snakes - but his brother Duff (Woods) has gone the other way and now foolishly keeps them. Add to that a backstory of Les being terrified of commitment – hence his break-up with ranger girlfriend, Erin (Baruc), who conveniently happens to be an expert on snakes – and that’s pretty much all the background you need to know.

Duff, naturally, steals a very rare snake despite dire warnings from Native American Screaming Hawk (Ben Cardinal), and proceeds to do the three things he was warned never to do: feed the snake flesh, let it out of the jug…and, most important of all, don’t fear the heart of the snake (is anyone else reminded of Gremlins?). Of course, the poorly CG-rendered snake escapes, eats the cat, and starts to grow. Man, does it grow – as it gets larger and larger (turning into a ‘mega snake’ if you will) it starts eating livestock, then people…

Michael Shanks is the only name of note in this movie, and you have to wonder why he accepted the role. The story is very poorly constructed, the finale laughable and the characters bland. Shanks is the one actor to achieve any level of credence, which is more a measure of his acting ability than what he was given to work with.

Thankfully, there are no extras. Marie O’Regan

VERDICT: 2/10
Inferior ‘monster’ movie, which is almost unwatchable.