As the Crockett family rally to celebrate the 4th July as well as the birthday of their ecologically inconsiderate patriarch, they are set upon by spiders, snakes and reptiles galore. Oh and there are some noisy frogs, too…
Big spoiler people! If you have even the teensiest look into what this movie is all about, it won’t take you long to discover that it has not a single frog-related death to speak of. That said, the fact that your average frog isn’t actually deadly at all is about the only thing that this movie keeps it real on. They’re a bunch of big, fat, loud fuckers but they’re hardly a patch on that beast from Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). Still, you can’t complain too much. They are everywhere all the time and when you can’t see them you can almost always hear them. Like oranges to The Godfather (1972) they are simply an omen of death.
Speaking of death! You have got to be pretty fucking stupid to die in a movie as weakly constructed as this. And I must say this has to be the dumbest bunch of motherfuckers I’ve ever come across. And that’s coming from someone who has enjoyed and suffered through a shitload of slasher movies! The sheer amount of bad decisions that are made here is beyond the count of absurdity. For example: When you are walking in a certain direction and you happen upon deadly snakes, you run in the opposite direction. What you do not do is carry on walking straight into them! And if for some dumb-fuck reason you manage to shoot yourself in the leg and find yourself lying on the ground as poisonous spiders descend upon you, you do not just lie there and scream like a bitch. You either get rolling or you get up and you hop for your motherfucking life!
For the most part this is a handsome, classically shot movie. It’s only when danger is afoot that either the director or cinematographer, who knows which, has no idea what they are doing. As one moronic character dies of poisonous fumes, they try to unease us with extreme in and out close-ups of lizards’ faces. Mostly it just reminds me of those horrendously bad, super-corny heavy metal music videos from the early to mid-80s. And their technique at tension-building is just non-existent. I dislike spiders but I fucking loathe snakes of all shapes and sizes, but here everything fails so miserably that I may as well be watching the world’s most boring nature programme…
LAST WORDS:
For a movie this lame, for a movie this tame it begs the question of how it managed to earn its ‘suitable for 15 years and over’ certificate. Even if you like your schlock this is rather joyless. But if still want to do the whole ‘man versus whatever’ thing then in this case you’d be better off just watching Jaws (1975) for the hundredth time.