It's a maudlin day to have a Curse. Today's film is Curse II: The Bite. First, let's address the obvious- this is no Sequel. Its only real connection is Ovidio G. Assonitis, the Producer of both films. Speaking of him, he has his Egyptian hands all over a bunch of Horror Films and other Sequels. His IMDB Profile includes such 'gems' as Beyond the Door III, Piranha II: the Spawning and both American Ninja 4/5. What a Producer! So what is this film about? It's about a radioactive snake that bites a guy, turning him into Snake Man. Well, some of that is true. Unfortunately, the funny pay-off is the part that isn't true. This is really a film about a guy who gets bitten on the hand by a snake and it mutates. It takes nearly an hour of screen time to actually do this, so enjoy the slow, bloated middle of the movie. Enjoy this movie's 'insert fat guy joke here.' To find out if the rest of the film is worth your while, read on...
The film begins with a P.O.V. Snake out in the Desert. I guess it's mutated due to radioactive exposure or something. Do you really care?
This guy- with the super-punch-worthy face- is our lead, a man on a cross-country trip with his girlfriend. I...didn't care much about him in any way. That's not a strength of this film, especially since he's the lead.
The couple take a short-cut and run across some snakes. Alot of snakes!
I have a couple of shots of this scene, but was a bit picky. You see, I found no 'No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of this Film' Message in the Credits, so some of this may be involving real, live snakes.
The mutant snake from earlier bites our hero, but they're sort of in luck. A Traveling Salesman- Jamie Farr!- gives him a generic anti-venom.
This is a plot point to, since Farr spends the latter 2/3 of the film trying to catch up to them, since he'd apparently be liable if he died from the bite (since he didn't give him the exact right anti-venom). Insert Tort Reform joke here, Conservatives.
The film's lead slowly begins to change due to the bite. He starts out weak and moody, but eventually gets violent. They *refuse* to show you the transformed hand at all though. Enjoy slogging through this part of the film to get to the 'Oh shit- here's the Budget' Finale.
In fact, he actually chops off his mutating (or so we're told) hand in a bathroom and they show NOTHING. You couldn't throw us a gross-out bone?
This is a snake hand. Do I need to say any more than that?
FINALLY, the movie delivers on the pay-off as our hero attacks the possibly-German family that was hiding him and indulges in some gross-out effects. He wasn't a fan of the milk, apparently.
Seriously, this shit just gets crazy in the last ten minutes! Where was any of this for the last forty-five minutes?!? I had to sit through off-screen violence and implied death just so you could make this seem better? Ugh.
Who's the hero that takes out the creature? Is it Sheriff Bo Svenson (yeah, he's here...and in Beyond the Door III)? Is it our lead heroine?
No, it's a Shotgun-wielding Jamie Farr. Yeah, even he seems surprised by this. The End.
This could have been so much more. There is a certainly a case for having a slow build in a film. Don't get me wrong- I don't think that you have to get immediate pay-off for films like this. I don't mind a slow build if it really feels like a build. It also helps if the story is interesting and if there are good characters. Sadly, none of that is in Curse II: The Bite. Incidentally, the film *works* as a Sequel if you try to pretend that Wil Wheaton's teen grows up (a bit) to be the guy in this film. I'm very sure that's not true, but let's pretend! The film's strong points are its ridiculous gore effects. You get a brief bit of a creature early on (see below), but otherwise must wait for the climax for much of anything else. If you can muster through the rest, it's a crazy finale. It's somewhat illogical how the whole thing escalates so dramatically just because the film has a set run-time, but I digress. How does the bite make your whole body turn into a snake and cause you to spit out snakes again? Regardless, the Ending makes up for alot here, so it has that going for it. Besides, it is the only film I've seen (so far) with a mutant snake dog in a garage...
Next up, a film I've had to wait 7 years to see due to some rights issues. Will all of the Boys Love this long-litigated film? Stay tuned...
I have a couple of shots of this scene, but was a bit picky. You see, I found no 'No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of this Film' Message in the Credits, so some of this may be involving real, live snakes.
This is a plot point to, since Farr spends the latter 2/3 of the film trying to catch up to them, since he'd apparently be liable if he died from the bite (since he didn't give him the exact right anti-venom). Insert Tort Reform joke here, Conservatives.
In fact, he actually chops off his mutating (or so we're told) hand in a bathroom and they show NOTHING. You couldn't throw us a gross-out bone?
This movie had me saying "why?Why?Why?" over and over again...until the ending with them cool fx, I think the effects were done by a guy called Screamin Mad George, the same effects guy who made The Guyver so watchable.
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