Snakes on a Train

Director: Peter Mervis
Year released: 2006

THE CHARGE: Taking a bad movie and making it even worse by utilizing a budget probably found under the producer’s couch cushions.

THE EVIDENCE: In the realm of b-movies, there are films so bad that they end up being remarkably entertaining. This is not one of those movies.

Then there are films so utterly terrible, that you actually hate yourself for watching them for more than five minutes. This is not one of those movies.

Finally, there are films so stupefyingly awful that they’re not just a train wreck, they’re a train slamming into the hull of the Titanic which has just been set on fire by the Hindenburg... and you become so mesmerized by the sheer atrociousness on display that you just can’t turn away from it. Snakes on a Train not only falls into this category, it may very well define it.

Obviously made as an attempted cash grab after the popularity of Snakes on a Plane (duh), Snakes on a Train opens with a Mexican man and wife illegally crossing the border to get to Los Angeles. At least, I assume this is the case because they say “Los Angeles” a lot even though the rest of their dialogue is in Spanish with no subtitles. L.A. is where the man’s uncle lives, and he can break a curse that causes the woman to spew snakes from her mouth. It’s later explained that these snakes are actually parts of her, so, presumably, she’ll die if she spits out too many of them. This makes as much sense as anything else in the movie, so let’s just roll with it.

After entering the U.S., they hop on a train, hobo-style, after which we meet the other passengers and learn that the train’s interior is a few rooms garishly painted in various shades of maroon with seats apparently scavenged from a local junkyard. But at least the cameraman has the courtesy to shake the camera once in a while to try to mimic train movement.

So, we have snakes and we have victims. They potential for mayhem thus firmly established, the film then decides to ignore it for nearly an hour and focus mainly on subplots involving other illegal aliens bullying the couple introduced at the start of the film, as well as a drug mule and a counterfeit cop. This last subplot provides the film’s requisite female nudity and looks like an extract from a cheap 70’s porn film. If you’re too young to remember what 70’s porn was like, just imagine grandma naked. You’re welcome.

This is the opposite of sexy.

When the snakes are finally let loose, we’re treated to scenes of them sluggishly slithering across peoples’ laps while blood trickles out of their victims’ mouths. I guess these snakes are supposed to kill by osmosis. One notable exception occurs when a young girl is swallowed whole by a sleeping bag made to vaguely look like a snake.

It tickles! IT TICKLES!

Then we come to the ending. It’s been a really bad movie to this point, but the events that occur in the last five minutes take it beyond bad and into legendary “Ed Wood would wipe his ass with this script” status. I usually try not to give away spoilers in my reviews, but I really need to describe what I saw here, to get the images out of my head before they burrow in like spiders and burn festering holes into my brain. So to those of you who don’t want to read spoilers: stop reading now and go rent this movie at your own risk. Just don’t buy a copy. Please. For the love of God. Just... don’t.

Still here? OK then, gather around and learn what demented hell the makers of this film unleashed unto the world...

The cursed woman morphs into an enormous snake that eats the entire train. Not just everything in the train, but the actual train itself. One of the train’s survivors then holds up a magic necklace which glows and makes a giant white tornado appear, sweeping the snake up into the sky and shooting it into space. Or maybe to Oz. It doesn’t matter, the snake’s screwed either way because it doesn’t have feet to wear ruby slippers.

And there you have it: Snakes on a Train, a semi-sleazy snoozer of a film capped off with an ending that looks for all the world like it was written by a five-year-old with ADHD whose Kool-Aid was spiked with cocaine. And yet, this is exactly the bizarre quality that actually makes it worth watching once.

But ONLY once.


THE VERDICT: Snakes on a Train is GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY… but given a commuted sentence on the condition that the movie never appears before this judge ever again.