Silver Screen Age
"FEEDBACK VS. MEGASNAKE"
Reviewing MegaSnake on the SciFi Channel, and DVD.
Copyright © 2008, Glenn Walker
The SciFi Channel has a rather dubious reputation for their made-for-TV Saturday night movies. They are just not that good, sometimes even laughingly bad. But then again, compared to the average episode of the now-canceled "Painkiller Jane" or the new (and in name only) "Flash Gordon," they're pretty good, and they also keep folks like Casper van Dien and Colin Ferguson employed.
Now normally I avoid these movies just as I would avoid the aforementioned "Jane" and "Flash," but this past weekend's offering, MegaSnake, advertised something of interest - Feedback. The wife and I are huge fans of the SciFi series "Who Wants to be a Superhero," so much so that the Bride even tried out for the show. Naturally, seeing a movie that reputedly featured Feedback, Matthew Atherton, the winner of that series' first season held interest, so we taped it for viewing last night.
To quote Joseph Conrad, "The horror... the horror..."
More than a few of the SciFi Saturday night movies are from the same mold. Giant snakes. We've seen Boas and Pythons, and Boas versus Pythons, and any number of other such unusually large reptiles and amphibians - all badly computer-generated creatures not much beyond the sophistication seen on the old "Hercules" and "Xena" TV series of years past. Bad and outdated creatures all too obvious to anyone who has even seen a clip from any Roland Emerich/Dean Devlin blockbuster.
From the title of this one - MegaSnake - it should be obvious what we get this time out as well. Take a guess, go ahead. Bingo, a giant snake. In this case, one wrapped up in a shoddy plot and surrounded by even more shoddy acting.
The MegaSnake is a snake that has taken out almost an entire Indian tribe in times past and has been thus imprisoned in a magical jar. When someone inquires of the jar, the stereotypical mystery-spouting requisite Native American explains the jarred snake, along with a set of Gremlins-like rules. No joke, I was waiting for the don't-feed-it-after-midnight warning to pop up. Of course, the snake, which grows and grows and eats and eats, gets out of the jar - and hilarity ensues.
Not only was this the same old giant snake crap one could see almost any other Saturday night on SciFi but Feedback was only in this thing maybe three minutes tops. I think honestly he was in the commercials advertising this dog during any hour the previous week than he was in the whole movie. He had five lines. He showed the kids about electricity, said his tagline, poked the giant snake with a stick and then helped the kids get away. And then he ran away, never to be seen again.
In MegaSnake, Feedback is a superhero the same way Sir Robin is a knight.
Wow. I'm not getting these two hours back. And I'm never going to trust advertising on the SciFi Channel ever again.
Speaking of trust, I certainly hope this wasn't the movie Feedback was promised as part of his prize for "Who Wants to be a Superhero." On "Survivor" the winner gets a million bucks, on "Big Brother" it's half a million, but the prize for winning "Superhero" is the winner's own comic book from Dark Horse Comics and a movie on SciFi. Man, I hope MegaSnake's not it. If it is, Matthew, Comic Widows has a great attorney who'd love to talk with you.
This review appeared in a slightly different form at Welcome to Hell.