Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent (2008)
In the countryside, the boy Alan and his friend Becky steal a creepy wooden box with a powerful voodoo stick inside from his voodooistic neighbor. When the boy draws with the stick, his drunken father is attacked by a snake and vanishes. Years later, Alan and Becky are married to each other; while planting some flowers to celebrate the death of Alan's mother, Becky finds the box buried in the garden and she keeps the stick in her pocket. Meanwhile, five friends are traveling in a monster truck, drinking beer. The driver accidentally runs over Becky, but believes he had hit an animal. When Alan witnesses the hit-and-run and sees his wife dead, he uses the stick seeking revenge against the youngsters.
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The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
This is a re-release of the film "Carnivorous" in an attempt to get the 10 people who purchased the first one, to buy it again. The opening of the film looks and feels like a "Creepshow" episode, and the film should have been shortened to that length. Five inattentive young adults and a stole-away hit and kill a woman (Lisa Arnold) along the road on their way to Kurt Stanley Camp. Alan (Louis Herthum) the husband of the dead woman uses his long buried stolen voodoo pen or "Kulev stick" to create a giant snake to devour the occupants of the vehicle that struck his wife while zipping down the down. He managed to get a good look at all the passengers, so he could draw each one individually, while none of them saw his wife.It then becomes a snake vs kids movie with a hip-hop sound track that didn't add anything to the film. Bad acting, bad script, bad to non-existing special effects. DMX shows up at the end to help hunt the snake. Not worth a $.99 rental.Parental guide: F-bomb, sex, strip tease (Victoria Vodar bra/panties), no nudity.
I guess I'm the only person here who enjoyed "Carnivorous," also titled "Lockjaw: The Curse of the Kulev Serpent." Not that it was great or even really good but it delivered pretty well as an entertaining Grade-B creature-on-the-loose flick in the "Friday the 13th" mold (Jason was definitely an infernal creature btw or he at least became one as the series progressed).THE PLOT: A serpent-with-an-alligator-head is released in rural Louisianna via a Voodoo pen that's formed into a serpent/alligator with red glowing eyes. This is unique, but the main plot is the same as most creature features based on "Friday the 13th": A group of youths go out to the boonies to party while the creature takes 'em out one by one. The kids who have sex die, the ones who don't live. So, although the way the monster is released is original (and nigh incomprehensible), the main story is standard.I should also point out that rapper DMX appears as a black Rambo-type, but it's not a significant role until the 3rd act.You'll note that everyone else here only gives the film a very low rating so they all obviously think it's a total piece of excrement. However, despite this being a low-budget monster flick it delivered quite well in a handful of requisite areas: The film was shot in the cane fields of rural Louisianna; any time you get a modern flick of this ilk shot anywhere other than B.C. Canada it's a plus.Most here comment on how unlikable the youths are, but they act precisely as youths would act on vacation at a party cabin in the sticks. Most of us acted this way when we were that age, at parties anyway. Regardless, at least two or three of them aren't obnoxious in any way that I can detect.The heroine of the tale, Lauren fain who plays Sam, is good. She's not ultra-sexy or anything but she's likable with a uniquely pretty face.Victoria Vodar, who plays Ashley, is the sexpot in requisite skimpy attire. She has a dance sequence that's worth the price of admission. One reviewer referred to this sequence as "exceptionally poor;" all I can say is he has no eye for exceptionally gorgeous women or tantalizing dance sequences.The first half of the film highlights a married couple (Louis Herthum & Debra Arnott) who genuinely love each other and clearly show it. This is so rare today, particularly in these types of films, that when you observe it it's not only pleasant, it's actually shocking.The CGI creature isn't seen too often but it's serviceable, if not remarkable.WHAT DOESN'T WORK: As noted above, some aspects of the plot concerning the voodoo creature are nigh incomprehensible, but you'll get the gist of it. (What I was wondering is: What if the person with the occultic pen drew something other than a big serpent-creature killing the people? Would the curse still work or does s/he HAVE to draw a serpent-like creature? If so, how did the little boy at the beginning acquire this knowledge?).The film's not all that compelling; the storytelling could have been better.The absolute worst part of this picture is the hit-and-run scene where the kids hit a woman in their vehicle IN BROAD DAYLIGHT and NOT ONE OF THEM EVEN NOTICES! They dismiss it as possibly hitting an animal or something. Why sure! This sequence is so bad that there's no way I could possibly give the film anything above 5/10 Stars (for what it is) in good conscience.The film runs a short-but-sweet 76 minutes.BOTTOM LINE: With the exception of the lame hit-and-run sequence the film delivers pretty well as a fun low-budget creature-on-the-loose flick, nicely shot in the cane fields of Louisianna. Lauren Fain is a solid heroine with a uniquely attractive face and Victoria Vodar's awe-inducing scenes are worth the price of admission.GRADE: C+
well nobody will ever read this review, but WOW worst movie ever! This film might be studied by archaeologists in the far distant future. It would serve humanity right for it even being possible to finance this "film." The most vapid bunch of frat boys and their bowhead cohorts I have ever seen disgrace celluloid. You can feel the stupidity bubbling from the swamp it is set in up through the "actors" and right on up to (hopefully) the ruined careers of the director and producer. The subplot involves a man whose wife is killed in a hit and run accident by the idiot cast. He finds them to exact revenge, but 10 minutes later one of the sorority girls is yelling at him because he is bumming her out by not being overly concerned about his wife's killers being bumped off one by one. Everyone involved in this travesty really needs a giant snake to eat them to make sure they can never again waste the money that a film student with any talent at all could have used better
A group of bratty, narcissistic kids venture into the deep swamps of West Bumblef&%k to go camping. These morons wind up running over the wife of a guy (whom we saw in the prologue mess around with a voodoo stick and unleashes a demon snake with an alligator head that killed his father) So after the jerks do their little hit and run, the guy,in a fit of rage, draws the snake/alligator thing eating the SUV they're in. So naturally the demonic thing attempts to kill them one by one. Thus making the film longer then it needs to be. Oh yeah and DMX is in it very sporadically. Despite top-billings it's merely slightly more then a glorified cameo.Part killer snake flick, part "Pukinhead", ALL bad. I haven't been this bored or this mad at a so-called 'movie' in quite some time. This one has absolutely no redeeming values, bad wooden acting, atrocious special effect, the lamest dialog you're liable to hear in quite some time and an incredibly anti-climatic ending. It left a really horrid taste in my mouth. I've seen so many killer animal films and can safely say this was one of the worst.My Grade: F DVD Extras: A meager stills gallery (almost half of it devoted to DMX and his bazooka); trailer for this film; and trailers for Dark Reel, Baseline Killer, & Ghost Month