You can’t argue with a good snake movie, especially one with the balls big enough to kill not one, but two innocent moppets before the opening credits are even set to roll. Producer Harry Novak’s slithering beast of an animal-attack movie, Rattlers, does just that.
In addition, it also has snakes kill a dog and a chicken. One farm boy takes a pair of fangs to the face. A screaming housewife runs through her abode, finding the scaly bastards in every room. Finally, a marble-mouthed herpetologist (Time Walker’s Sam Chew Jr.) and his ethnically mysterious companion stumble upon the snakes’ underground nest where, lucky for them, the reptiles have created tunnels big enough for humans to waltz through upright and freely.
Although the sheer pleasure of seeing a parade of stupid people get bitten becomes muted by a talk-heavy Act 3 and an abbreviated, anticlimactic ending, these Rattlers aren’t for show — they kick ass. Nonetheless, Rattlers marked the first and next-to-last movie for director John McCauley, who followed this up with an even more dangerous project: the Danny Bonaduce vehicle The Deadly Intruder. —Rod Lott