Snake Island (2002)

Director:

Wayne Crawford

Writers:

Wayne Crawford
Arthur Payne

Genre:

Action | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

There's terror in paradise.

Plot:

Tourists become endangered species while stranded on an island.

Plot Keywords:

Snake | Corpse | Shower Scene | Skinny Dipping | Female Nudity

Cast

William Katt	...	Malcolm Page
Wayne Crawford	...	Jake Malloy
Kate Connor	...	Heather Dorsey
Russel Savadier	...	Eddie Trent Jones
Dawn Matthews	...	Lisa
Milan Murray	...	Carrie
Jason Kennett	...	Lance (as Jason Kennet)
Japan Mthembu	...	Righteous
Nicola Hanekom	...	Ronnie
Seth Zweli Zimu	...	Ramalo
Rohan Coll	...	Estate Agent
Jonathan Taylor	...	Client One
Ben Kruger	...	Client Two
Bob Miles	...	Running Man (as Robert Miles)
Amo Naudé
Philip Moore	...	Lloyd
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Roberto Concina	...	Running Man

Directed by
Wayne Crawford

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Wayne Crawford
Arthur Payne

Produced by
Wayne Crawford	....	producer
Olena Doroshenko	....	executive producer
Johan Heyns	....	producer
Arthur Payne	....	producer
Gregory Small	....	executive producer

Cinematography by
Buster Reynolds

Film Editing by
Marc Wehner

Production Design by
Barry Horne

Set Decoration by
Rika Horne

Costume Design by
Era-Marie Heyns

Makeup Department
Kerry Skelton	....	key makeup artist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Marc Biart	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Anton van der Linde	....	sound mixer

Stunts
Michelle Colborne	....	stunts
Douglas McGill	....	stunts
Candice Smith	....	stunts
Tyrone Stevens	....	stunt coordinator

Camera and Electrical Department
Shawn Campbell	....	gaffer
Alan Faber	....	focus puller
Mark Rowlston	....	key grip

Other crew
Terry Fletcher	....	script supervisor
Arno Naudé	....	snake wrangler
Mona Saungweme	....	production coordinator

Distributors

• Alpha Filmes (2003) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Alpha Filmes (2003) (Brazil) (VHS)
• DEJ Productions
• Fusion International Sales (non-USA)

Also Known As:

MPAA:

Rated R for language and sexual content

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

South Africa

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:M | USA:R | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

South Africa

How do you spell crap? S, N, A... well, you get the idea

Snake Island is one of those films that, whilst one sits and watches its amazing level of stupidity, makes one wish the film camera had never been invented. The real reason why Plan 9 From Outer Space will hold onto its honoured title of Worst Film Of All Time for a while to come is not so much because of how bad it is. It is because of the fact that it is the most entertaining bad film you will ever see. Snake Island is the other kind of bad. Snake Island is just so bad that it is excruciating. A stupid premise combines with a script that was written by monkeys tapping one-key typewriters onto transparencies that were then overlapped in order to resemble dialogue to make the most obvious problems here. Filmed entirely on location in South Africa, the environments in which the film takes place are about the only element that can truthfully be considered well-realised. Many shots involving snakes consist of close-ups so surreal in appearance that one begins to wonder whether said snakes are CGI, puppets, or real snakes that have been fed really hard drugs.

William Katt stars, if you can call it that, as an author traveling to an island resort on what appears to be a river ferry. Coming along with him is an assortment of very generic, poorly-defined characters. It is all a matter of random screen writing as to who survives to the end, but Katt certainly appears to be contemplating firing his agent. The rest of the cast seem to be from the Home And Away acting school, where any contemplation of an unpleasant plot point is accompanied by open-mouthed gaping and darting one's eyes about in every direction. The foley effects are often worse, with one memorable scene where a double-barreled shotgun sounds like the rather flat sound effects that used to accompany gunshots in such games as BioForge. Meanwhile, snakes continually explode or jump about at random. It would have been more accurate to call the film Snake Holocaust.

Of course, no Z-grade horror or sci-fi film is complete these days without gratuitous scenes of nubile women in a state of undress. As every woman in the cast, almost, gets their clothes off, the film starts to become less Snake Island and more Snake Island Orgy. But like all the worst piles, all there really is in this case is a lot of setup with no real payoff. The sex scenes never eventuate, and the deaths of characters are so flat, so uninteresting, that the entire film becomes pointless. Unless you consider watching William Katt running through a muggy forest wearing ill-fitting cricket gear and smashing snakes in all directions with a cricket bat a payoff. For the record, I don't. I used to think that Anaconda was the worst film ever made about predatory snakes. I was so very, very wrong. At least Anaconda had a snake one could be afraid of if they suspended disbelief for quite some time. Some of the snakes shown killing the human cast are no bigger than the shoelaces from some pairs of combat boots I have worn.

So we so far have the checklist for bad horror films running along nicely. The unrecognisable, lame cast are accounted for, as are poor audio and visual effects. The dialogue is so wretched, so ill-timed, that I have seen better writing and delivery during some of the school plays I have acted in many moons ago. Unfortunately, where Snake Island falters in this respect is the area fatal to all bad films. In essence, it forgets to be so bad that it is funny. It is so bad that it stops being good after the opening credits and becomes painful the second that the cast start to speak. Compared to William Katt's performance in Snake Island, Jon Voight's performance in Anaconda was as Oscar-worthy as Russell Crowe's in Gladiator. Not that Voight or Katt are necessarily bad actors, but with material like this, you're hard-pressed to say a single word naturally. Listening to some of the lines here was like being the victim of a violent crime. One's mind tends to blank out the experience, primary as a self-defense mechanism.

Because of the aforementioned failure to be entertainingly bad, I gave Snake Island a two out of ten. My special score for films that are so bad they cannot possibly be good, but not bad enough to entertain. It is all just so boring or pointless that one might as well be watching the test pattern. The proper way to spell "crap" is S-N-A-K-E-I-S-L-A-N-D.