King Cobra (1999)

To me, this movie is perfection.

That was an excellent one.

Thanks for the memories!

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

If you're a herper, get all your herping buddies together, pop some popcorn, put this lower-than-B-grade movie on, and get ready for a laugh a minute. From a story about cobras playing dead to lure their prey to "African king cobras" and mambas that can put their fangs through someone's hand, every single thing they say about snakes is so wrong that it's howlingly funny.It's less funny for non herpers when you have to explain the joke, but I'll try. Cobras do not play dead (Hemachatus and Heterodon do, Naja and Ophiophagus don't). King cobras are not from Africa. Adult black mambas (which are from Africa) have fangs from three to maybe six millimeters long. I'm estimating here, but I open a lot of mamba mouths for veterinary and research purposes. Elapid fangs are teeny weeny things.More laughs to follow. Holding up a shed skin of this supposed rattlecobra, and the shed includes the rattle. The whole notion of a king cobra and an EDB breeding in the first place. But hey, they do say it's done by gene splicing, which gets around the fact that introducing a rattlesnake to a king cobra would not have good results for either snake. I guess they also spliced in the genes for being 30 feet long. What did they throw in the mix, a telephone pole? Our biggest king cobra weighs eleven kilos (under 25 lbs), is a bit shy of 15 feet in length, and is no thicker around than a man's arm. Doubling that would be an impressive snake, but not exactly a man-eater. King cobras are partially arboreal, especially as juveniles, and they are small and light-bodied by design. Toss Crotalus adamanteus in the mix via hypothetical gene splicing (VERY hypothetical indeed), and you'd get a heavier bodied snake. But still not what was depicted in the movie by a long shot.The king rattlecobra does all kinds of stuff throughout that no snake could or would possibly do, increasing the laugh quotient considerably. The giggle factor is also helped along by the endless horse puckey being spewed by Pat Morita's character. And that laughable snake hook, and the ridiculous capture setup. Which is a bit of a shame, as "Haash" is an obvious homage to Bill Haast, right down to the injections of king cobra venom and the 167 bites.Possibly the funniest faux pas of all is the notion that this mythical cross between a king cobra and a rattlesnake would be the most aggressive animal in the world. Or that any herpetologist would kill this animal once it was captured. Talk about a prize specimen! I'll gladly take a breeding pair for my collection. Alas, they exist only in the realm of imagination.

This is a pretty bad killer-snake movie. Mad scientist fooling around accidentally creates killer snake. It's a fairly slow-paced movie, but there is an interesting cast with Pat Morita and an amusing cameo from Erik Estrada playing a gay festival organizer. There are also some lines that are derivative of "Jaws," (i.e., "We're going to neeed bigger guns") and the movie is on the whole quite similar to "Jaws," except of course with a killer snake. The special effects are ordinary, and even though it's a horror movie the directors seem to take extreme steps to avoid showing violence. There is only one good reason to watch this movie, and that is the beautiful Kasey Fallo, who plays the deputy sheriff. She does a good job, and as in her other movie "Pinata: Survival Island" she is scrappy and finds a way to survive in the end. Basically, two scenes stand out in my mind. 1) When Kasey Fallo tries to get the Scott Brandon love-interest guy to stay in their small town (prior to Seth the Snake's rampage), he goes on a tirade about how he hates the town and wants to be a big-shot city doctor. And he does so with all the passion of a guy who's reading a telepromptor. 2) Pat Morita starts questioning the scientist about why we wanted to cross-breed two deadly snakes, and the two look as if they're about to get into a throw-down brawl. Then Pat puts on his "Karate Kid" hat and spends the next five minutes talking about "respecting" the snake. I would give this movie a 3, because it's pretty bad, but the lovely Kasey's appearance motivates me to move it up to a 4.

Is this a low budget movie?: YESIs the acting bad?: YESIs this movie a bad one?: NO DOUBTBUT, is this movie entertaining?: YES, but only in limited periods of time. If you want to enjoy "King Cobra", you have to block out all expectations of this being a great film, and just erase your memory of great films you've previously seen. Only if you do that, there's a possible that it will entertain you. One thing that helps a bit, it that the special effects doesn't look that bad. But since this is really low-budget, the big snake hasn't that much screen time. And for the opening scene, just forget that it was part of the movie, because it has to be one of the worst scenes that I've seen. Ever.

It's true. Pat Morita ("Happy Days;" the "Karate Kid" series) plays a herpetologist* recruited to help capture a genetically-engineered reptile. Why genetically engineered? Well, Joseph Ruskin plays a biochemist trying to find a neurochemical cure for hyperviolent aggression (like that exhibited by serial killers, I guess).But, he can't experiment on humans, right off the bat. And, normal wild animals aren't aggressive enough (unless, of course, you cruelly provoke them). So, he creates Seth. And, here is where the zoological accuracy goes out the window even worse than it did in "Anacondas!" The Eastern diamondback is a genuine species of rattler . BUT, THERE IS NO SUCH SPECIES AS THE African KING COBRA!! Oh, the scientific name (Haemachates haemachatus) was pronounced, correctly. That belongs to a _very_ aggressive species of South African spitting cobra known as the "ringhals." The proper scientific name for king cobras, however, is Naja hannah. AND, THEY ARE NATIVE TO SOUTHEAST ASIA! So, was Seth's biological daddy a gene-spliced hybrid, himself?Perhaps. In any case, before you become a professional snake handler (like Dr. Hashimoto), maybe you should take out a life insurance policy with Mutual of Omaha. *Herpetologists, btw, study reptiles _and_ amphibians, in general. A zoologist who specializes only in snakes is technically an ophiologist. "Here endeth the lesson." (Sean Connery, "The Untouchables")