Traveling to California together, young lovers are warned away from going through a restricted area to take a shortcut, but when he gets bitten they discover that it was a mutated snake which was responsible and begins to mutate into a deadly creature from his hand forcing them to help him.
As far as cheesy 80s creature features go, this one isn't that bad. The biggest aspect of this one is the really abundant cheese provided here from all sorts of factors. This comes from a variety of features, including the fact that the monster's origins are goofy enough and far too much for most to take seriously which is what's asked here, as well as the few early confrontations showing him being affected by the change as they go about their journey. For the fans, though, the slimy prosthetics are prime cheesy creations and have the goods to back it up, as this is nowhere more obvious than during the two transformation scenes which come off great. Both are really fun scenes and really go all out in providing some great work as the snake comes off really well and is aided by the fact that both occur during the big action scenes, another factor in helping them get over in the film. Both scenes, the house massacre as well as the final confrontation at the end, feature these as the centerpiece and are therefore full of other facets that make them fun. The body count is also upped slightly compared to the past, and there's some good kills in here as a result of some strong gore throughout here. The last big factor is the film's fast-paced finale, which is simply loads of fun from the brutal massacre at the house, the chase to the car and the ensuing fight that leads into the construction zone and the final confrontation there is all meshed together into a spectacular series of events that leave a fantastic lasting impression. These here are the film's good points. This one here isn't that bad, except for the cheese being the biggest factor. That is a huge turnoff and is perhaps the biggest flaw here. The make-up on the snake transformation is perhaps the most glaring, as there's plenty of obvious rubber parts used especially once the transformation begins. The snake is rarely shown and when the change happens there's a little more seen but it's still a really hard to tell what it is since the few times it is the plasticity of the face is so obvious that there's no way around how bad it looks. The snake-head coming out of the hand whipping and thrashing about makes for unbridled laughter more often than not when it comes on-screen as the concept of what's going on really sells that. It's not so much the fact that what's going on looks cheesy, but also the fact that this one has a really easy time discerning the fake-ness of the creature in its scenes. There's even a few other problematic scenes, including the one in the bathroom where he cuts his hand off in the hopes of ending the curse. That leads to a scene which looked like it was intended for suspense but only comes off as goofy. The lame insurance salesman following everything is rarely better, and the scenes here are pretty bad. As it stands, though, the cheesiness is the main thing keeping it down.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and a mild sex scene.
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