Silent Predators (1999) - Jaws with snakes

First of all, let me say how much I loved the 80s version of 'Clash of the Titans.' I don't care how cheesy it is, it was still a childhood favourite.  However, it's star - Harry Hamlin - certainly fell off the radar as far as I was concerned.  I'd never seen him in another film, until now.  Yes, the title 'Silent Predators' certainly says 'B-movie' and for a good reason - it is one.

Its plot effectively is a load of nasty snakes gets loose in a small town and starts picking off random nobodies you won't care about.  Meanwhile, Hamlin plays the local fire chief who suspects that the snakes are the cause of the recent fatalities and desperately tries to warn the authorities - unsuccessfully.  What you get is - effectively - 'Jaws,' but with snakes with the local powers that be not believing the threat until it's literally biting them on the a...

When it comes to horror B-movies and snakes, I kind of expected something like 'Anaconda' (which is truly great fun - if you like your cheesy B-movies!), i.e. a giant computer-generated monster-snake devouring people hole.  What I got was real snakes, generally slithering towards the actors until a prosthetic version of the reptile was shoved in for the 'kill shot.' I know it's a small thing, but if you're going to make a film with such a low-brow, simple premise as killer snakes on the rampage, you really should lean into it and make it fun.  The problem is that these snakes just aren't scary.  We've probably all seen large-ish snakes in the zoo and, while impressive, they're not as terrible as other movie monsters.

'Silent Predators' isn't a bad film, but it's hardly memorable.  It is indeed a B-movie and hits all the beats you'll expect for a film of this genre.  Good people tend to fair better against murderous snakes, while those with low morals almost always get what's coming to them at the end of a pair of fangs.  If you find this film on a streaming service, there are certainly worse out there, but you probably won't remember it for anything other than the 'first appearance of Perseus' in nearly twenty years.

5/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)