User Reviews

Someone else used my "Snakes on a Plain" gag, so I can't do that.

Okay, what we have is a typical Sci-Fi Channel plot. Take the plot from any Zombie movie, set it in the Wild West, replace zombies with (badly done) CGI snakes.

The movie's funniest line is uttered by the corrupt sheriff "Let's tie dynamite to the (prostitute), and when the snake eats her...BOOOM!" The Soup had a lot of fun with this line, and rightfully so.

Still, the acting, action scenes, and even the characters were above par for a Skiffy movie. The weakness was the snakes themselves, poorly done CGI probably done on some nerd's computer before his mother told him to move out of her basement.

A good attempt at making a Western by a foreign film maker. Attention to detail was very good on creating an authentic looking western town. Wardrobe was very well chosen and authentic to the time period being depicted. Props and Set Dressings were very well represented for the era. The Characters were very well portrayed. The Dialog of the Characters was very well written for each part played. I was very disappointed in their attempt at making computer generated snakes though as they were not very realistic looking. However, it was a good movie to just set back with the lights off eating popcorn with good company. Just a good movie to stay up late for and scare each other.

Copperhead actually achieved a level I've never seen before on the Sci-Fi channel: not half bad! Some of the dialog, always a rusty nail in the foot for these films, is actually GOOD, well-thought out, and delivered professionally. The direction and editing give it pace that makes it a slither above its bad brethren. Lorenzo Senatore's camera work is also excellent.

It is not perfect. Holes and gaffs: The dead horse raises its head. The crack-proof safe has drywall you can stick your finger through. The exciting shot of the snakes crushing the fire is spoiled by continuity lapses. Fully loaded guns are handed so you can see that they don't have any bullets in them. I suspect Nathan Furst had to sprinkle enough Morricone nods to make the producers happy (it's distracting and the score was good enough without it). The world's slowest gatling gun that also doubles as a poker/spear chucker (all without ever being tested). An explosion (nice one!) that rips the top floor of a saloon, conveniently killing every last snake, but barely singing two main characters.

The main weakness is the snakes themselves. The scene in the stable where the first scofflaw gets it would have been done better Hitchcock style: NOT showing it! In fact, if we'd seen the snakes less and more computing power was available to render them, they would have made for more creepy critters.

In conclusion, if Copperhead was on again, I might give it a second viewing, not to make fun of it, but because it was fun. A Sci-Fi first!

OK, I saw this movie on UK satellite! I have to say from reading the preview I had some high hopes for this movie but boy was I wrong! This was right up there with one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen! It was advertised in the UK as "Snakes on a Plane in the Wild West"! Although Snakes on a Plane wasn't an amazing movie, it was so much better than this tripe! A loner travels into a wild west town looking for his friend (who is dead) and soon becomes the local hero! Although he has some bad news for the local residents, he has news of a plague of snakes heading their way! He soon becomes the Posse leader and hatches various plans to defeat the scaled worms! As soon (within 2 minutes) of defeating the snakes, a local resident picks up a (obviously rubber) snake tail and from this he detects that they are babies and that the parent is close! Cue the GIANT 200 foot CGI snake....... Need I say more???? 1/10

So flipping through the channels I noticed Sci-Fi was having a "Bad Movie Night" or something along those lines because ,movies like "SuperGator" and "Komodo Vs. Cobra" were being thrown in with a bunch of other movies. This is one of them. Set in the old west, this movie is about a cowboy riding to warn a town of an impending invasion of copperhead snakes. For those that know nothing of copperheads, please Wikipedia Copperhead and read the article. In short, it says they are docile unless attacked and their venom is only poisonous only if you are bitten by more than one at a time (but don't worry, there's plenty of that happening.

So after a made for Sci-Fi movie defies science, it of course takes place in a time were the most advanced thing was the Gatling Gun, which is in the movie. So anyway, old Wild West Bill (no fooling) final convinces the town of the deadly snakes after about 30 minutes of the movie involves no snakes, but a wild west shoot-out. Grand as it is, the snakes attack, en masse.

Well, not all of them are copperheads at least. In one scene, one of the harlots is clearly holding a python...But the unreasonable size of some of the snakes is revealed later. After much expected death and snake shootin', hat wearin', flame-throwin' man vs. snake action, hey finally blow up all of the snakes.

*SPOILER*

A giant snake eventually attacks the hapless survivors. Oh happy day when the Gatling Gun is turned into a harpoon gun to take down the big mama snake. A 40' copperhead is killed and the movie ends. There, if you haven't seen it, I just saved you 2 1/2 hours. CGI:Bad. Story: Terrible. Acting: Good, but only by one character, the bad guy, who dies halfway into the movie...shame...

For a Sci-Fi Channel movie Copperhead was far better than most. Then again, I'm a sucker for B Westerns and cheesy science fiction.

One complaint I do have was that there not enough Billy Drago as Jesse. I wish the character returned at the end... perhaps in the sequel?

Brad Johnson was his usual competent self as Wild Bill and Keith Stone and the rest of the cast excelled as well.

There was also a fair share of humor that was well played and at just the right moments.

I will be buying the DVD when it come out, I liked the film that much.

By the way, did anyone else notice the character of Will at one point was called Bonney? Billy the Kid maybe? Makes me wonder if Doc was Pat Garret.

"Copperhead" is another in a long line of enjoyable Sci-Fi Channel killer snake films.

**SPOILERS**

Riding into a small New Mexico town, 'Wild' Bill Longley, (Brad Johnson) tries to warn Jesse Evans, (Billy Drago) and his henchmen, Will Bonney, (Keith Stone) Roscoe Burrell, (Gabriel Womack) and Ponciano 'Ponce' Domingues, (George Zlatarev) about a giant herd of poisonous snakes heading toward town. When his threat is mostly ignored and laughed at, they notice that the gang is slowly disappearing. Discovering too late that the threat was real, the other residents of town, Garrett, (Brad Greenquist) Josiah, (Atanas Srebrev) Jane, (Wendy Carter) and Darla, (Sofia Leticia Morales) form up to battle the deadly snakes and drive them away. As the attacks continue and slowly whittle down their numbers, they launch a last-ditch plan to rid themselves of the snakes once and for all.

The Good News: There was a lot to like from this one. The main one is the fact that there's a really fun Western atmosphere. The fact that it's set there is a nice plus, giving it a different feeling than the contemporary ones that are almost always shown, and that it has a lot of authentic details helps out even more. From the realistic card-game, complete with the high-stakes nature of it and a really great atmosphere with the other denizens of the location, to the look of the town and the whole setting of it, nothing in it looks new or modern and even the mini-gun appears to be from that time. There's even some fun to be had from the staple of the Westerns, the gunfight in the street of the town, and this one in here scores as well. As well as being a fun scene that manages to entertain in it's frustratingly-brief time, it's also fun in that it sets-up later events as well, providing an important part of the story in addition to being a fun action set-piece. The film also does well with it's main action scenes, which here are just plain fun and entertaining. The initial swarming of the town, where the creatures appear at the saloon and proceed to worm their way through most of the townspeople, leading to a furious gunfight to get rid of them that incorporates some fun spots into the action and a real sense of urgency and suspense, make it a great one, as is the later scene where they put the main part of their defense against the snakes into action. Featuring a great plan, nice execution, a few surprises and a ton of action, it steals the show as the big set-piece and gets a lot of what makes the film so fun. Beyond hand-held guns and rifles, gasoline-fueled fire-filled trenches, machetes, a perilous rope-swing mere feet above their leaping ability and a mini-gun are used to full effect on them, and that a couple are taken out just makes for some great scenes. Using it as a precursor to the trap in the hotel is all really good, and it makes the frantic chase all the more intense. The final fights with the giant snake are just as solid, featuring some innovative tactics and a lot of realism that brings it down nicely. All of these, as well as the multitude of confrontations in the film, give this one a really fast pace and a lot of action to keep it interesting. The last plus to this one is the fact that it features a rather high body count, despite their not being a lot of really remarkable kills. Most here are gunshot-victims or succumb to the snake-bites, so we don't get a ton of gore, but it's still the fact that it decides to knock off as much as it does, which is the main point. All of these elements make the film enjoyable.

The Bad News: This one here only had a few really noticeable flaws to it. One of the biggest is the fact that there's a really obvious cliché present in the film, namely the appearance of a giant snake after spending most of the film dealing with numerous, regular-sized creatures. The film had been enjoyable dealing with the smaller creatures, yet it shoehorns the big one in just because it has too, and it's seen coming from a mile away since these always manage to have a larger one. That about twenty minutes before the ending it knocks off the little ones is a sure-fire sign that it's going with the it, and you have to deal with the cliché. That there's not even an explanation for it's size is another one, as it's improbable that something that big existed back then and yet nothing is uttered about how it got to be that size. Anything would've been fine, but nothing is wrong. The last flaw is the usual atrocious CGI used for the creature, but like so many others from the Sci-Fi Channel, it's par-for-the-course and doesn't really seem all that big of a deal to criticize this one, just point out the fact that it follows the form of the others. None of these, though, are that detrimental to the film as a whole at all.

The Final Verdict: Not a whole lot of wrong stuff here, which is the norm for these kinds of films, and one that is really good. Highly recommended for those who have an appreciation for the Sci-Fi Channel's killer snake films or of these films in general, though those who aren't big fans should heed caution.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language

Let's face reality: most made-for-SyFy movies the past few years have been not only formulaic to the max, but pathetically scripted, acted, and cg'd. So to find this movie, which has some typical SyFy flick flaws but otherwise was fun, well then it's a gem among rocks. First is the intended or unintended visage of the protagonist lead character, because he looks more like an actor picked for a Western movie role than an authentic Old West character, so that starts us off on a fun note. The next best feature is Billy Drago as the antagonist -- he chews up every scene he is in and it is pure delight to watch his now-aged face and listen to his perfected southwestern drawl. And the movie builds tension remarkably well for a TV production. Of course the protagonist and antagonist end up in a cliché gunfight, but that's O.K. because by now we, the audience, WANT to see it! Without giving everything completely away here, let's just say that neither is killed but Billy Drago rides out of town but his little gang is left behind. The next sequence is, of course, the bigger event of the massive invasion into the town by zillions of deadly Copperhead snakes, and how the townspeople and remaining gang prepare for and deal with it. This is where the viewer is forced to focus on how a production and set designer can make a western town look dusty and authentic while being at the same time woefully low-budgeted so that the constructed town is perhaps too tiny overall. Now there are some real CG problems with the snakes, and some special effects problems such as where the hits are from a Gatling gun, but then there are some good (probably too few) splatter and snake-chopping effects. When Mama snake shows up, there's some real fun. What disappoints is that after the major snake encounters, Billy Drago doesn't show up to finalize his score with the lead character, which he had promised to do. In fact, the ending seems to have been a bit contrived to cover for that plot problem. But any time the good guy gets to ride off into the sunset (literally here), it's been a fun ride.