Silent Predators (1999)

A small town deals with an invasion of rattlesnakes.

Director:

Noel Nosseck

Writers:

John Carpenter (teleplay), William S. Gilmore (teleplay) (as William Gilmore)

Stars:

Harry Hamlin, Shannon Sturges, David Spielberg

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Harry Hamlin	...	Vic Rondelli
Shannon Sturges	...	Mandy Stratford
David Spielberg	...	Mayor Parker
Patty McCormack	...	Vera Conrad
Beau Billingslea	...	George Mitchell
Phillip Troy Linger	...	Dr. Matthew Watkins
Jack Scalia	...	Max Farrington
David Whitney	...	Ken
David Webb	...	Sheriff Howell
Carolyn Bock	...	Anita Young
Beth Champion	...	Karen
Sandra Bell	...	Laura Holden
Kirsty Boden	...	Tammy Holden
Darce Florio	...	Anita's Friend
Paul Tassone	...	Stranded Motorist

Storyline

In 1979, a delivery truck makes its way up a lonely southern California highway in a storm, bound for the San Diego Zoo with a deadly tropical rattlesnake as cargo. When the truck suffers a blowout, the driver loses control and hits a tree, shattering the snake's aquarium in the back and the window separating the snake from the driver. The snake slithers into the front of the truck, kills the driver with its bite and then moves off into the forest. Flash forward to 1999. The small southern California town of San Vicente has grown from 6,000 to 30,000, and the rattler, which escaped nearby years ago, has bred. There are now 25,000 of these hybrid rattlesnakes, and they are slowly making their way downhill into the town, attracted by the movement of the blasting as the town paves its way toward progress. Progress, in this case, brings terror, in this tale originally penned by John Carpenter.

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Plot Keywords:

town | rattlesnake | snake | small town | roadblock | 

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Taglines:

The hunt is on. You're the Prey.

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 June 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Angriff der Klapperschlangen

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Von Zerneck Sertner Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

This was based on "Fangs", a script John Carpenter did back in the 1970s when he wrote as a gun for hire. In the original, according to Carpenter himself, there were scares and jumps all over the place. One scene included a man who hears a rattle, thinks it's his infant, and finds a rattlesnake in the crib.

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Goofs

There are numerous pythons obviously mixed in with rattlesnakes.

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Connections

Referenced in Best of the Worst: Playing Dangerous 2, the Exterminator, and the Deadliest Prey (2013)

User Reviews

Silent? I beg to differ.

Twenty years ago there was a car accident one night in a small southern California town San Catalano where a crate of tropical rattlesnakes escaped into the area. Now the area is experiencing a boom in housing development, and this has disrupted the nest of these deadly predators. Vic Rondell the new fire chief has just arrived, and when one snake attack after another occurs. He goes about trying to discover why the sudden attacks, but the greedy property developer Max Farrington doesn't want to start a panic and tries his best to get Rondell on the wrong side of the community. So it's left up to a tainted Vic and Farrington's business associate Mandy Stratford to put a stop to it.

Routine, repetitive and lame creatures run amok TV b-feature. Not that I think it's the complete pits, but everything that happens here has been done to death. Even in the film itself! It's always the same actions occurring over and over again. Not helping out is that it's not bad enough to be hilarious, of course stupidity fills nearly every moment and everything about it is clumsy. However it doesn't have that schlock presence or any sense of fun. The low-rent script (supposedly written by John Carpenter in the 70s) throws a bit of everything into the contrived premise, but in the long run it's a poisonous venture that's witless and incredibly textbook stuff. Director Noel Nosseck does a real nothing job with it, and makes sure you're in for something of extreme blandness, poor pacing and tired false jumps. While the deaths are mostly random there's no suspense, nor thrills. Nothing is sustained or delivered, because they are poorly staged and too goofy to have any sort of effect. While the obnoxious score gets in the way. A special mention though, at least they didn't succumb to digital effects for the snakes. We even get some snake vision, using a red filter. Strange the title actually makes no sense, since we're talking about rattlesnakes here. The no-frills performances are your standard mould found in these features and so are their stock characters. A dopey looking Harry Hamlin is here to save the day! Dominic Purcell and an animal loving Patty McCormack also feature in minor parts.

Formulaic and unexciting is what it ends up being.