Search - Carnivorous (Ws) on DVD

A really messed up snake movie

Nuisance | Miami | 05/23/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I don't know why I do it to myself with these crummy low budget horror flicks. I could say that this is the worst low budget horror movie in 2008 but I've seen some that topped this one. I need to quit being a glutton for punishment

Spoiler: Here is the whole movie in a nutshell: Paul Cade as a child steals a voodoo pen from a voodoo priest and drew a picture of a snake eating his father and the magical pen brings the snake to life and it does what it was drawn to do. Years later Paul grows up and is married and his wife is killed by a hit and run accident caused by brainless suburbanites that make those horny teens in all those Friday The 13th flicks look like geniuses. Paul draws the snake again and it comes to life trying to kill all those kids and everybody in it's path. Paul calls on the help of Nick(played by rapper DMX), the son of the voodoo priest whose pen Paul stole to stop what he started.

Opinion: This movie is such a wannabe of Anaconda its pathetic. Think about it. Anaconda is about a killer snake, this "movie" is about a killer snake and they both star rappers in them. The only difference is that Anaconda had some form of suspense and Jon Voight to steal the show. The acting here is atrocious. Everybody is so wooden that you want to slice them open and count the rings. Even DMX gives a wooden performance here and I didn't even think that that was possible! I cant blame him though. The script must have been written by overzealous tween-agers because it sure sounds like it was and the special effects are terrible as well. The CGI snake looks like dog droppings molded and shaped to look like a snake. Every aspect of this movie fails. If you like watching bad movies try something else. This is not even so bad its good camp. Its so bad its shameful camp and is bad enough to make you question your own existence. Don't waste 80 minutes of your life like I did. Learn from my mistake and try something else!

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Dark Man X versus the giant, snake, thing...

Horror-Fanatics.com | 06/28/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"There are bad movies like House of the Dead, and then there are BAD movies like Baseline Killer. Then there's Carnivorous, a low budget CGI-infested monster movie with a dull story, a lousy script and some horrendous acting. This is the kind of movie that would make Orson Wells cry. This Sci-Fi channel reject has to do with a giant snake that eats people... and an alligator head. Does any of this make sense at all? It was weird enough just watching the damn thing. I started to make judgments once the opening credits came up. On the title screen, it doesn't just say Carnivorous; on top of the title, DMX's name is there. So let me get this straight. Is the movie called DMX Carnivorous or does DMX play the monster? Now that's just confusing. All right I admit I'm just nit picking here. It's hard not to when a movie is this bad.

We open up with a kid alone in his room drawing pictures. Across the hall he can hear his parents fighting in the living room. The dad is obviously drunk and threatens to hurt the mom. When he tries to go into his son's room, he sees that the kid has fled through the window. The kid goes to his friend's house and they both decide to commit burglary. The kid ends up stealing this weird artifact that looks like a giant pencil with an alligator head tip. He uses this artifact to draw his next picture. What he ends up drawing is a snake, and it miraculously comes to life and eats the father. We flash forward years later and the kid is grown up and married. Sadly, he loses his wife in a hit and run accident in which a group of dumb kids (who just so happen to be on a camping trip) run her over without noticing.

So as you can imagine, the guy plots his revenge by summoning the monster again to get rid of the ones responsible for his wife's death. The main group of characters are obnoxious idiots who deserve everything bad that awaits them. They're lousy and uninspired characters. The group consists of two meat-heads, a nerd, a slut and a quiet yet attractive woman. I think the quiet one is the smartest of the bunch, and that's still not saying much. The other characters are generic property. It's lazy writing at its finest. Speaking of lazy, don't even get me started on the visuals. The film has a southern look and feel to it. Most of the action takes place outdoors where the giant alligator/snake hybrid picks off people for food. Later when all the characters cross paths, they turn to the only man who can take down the monster.

The only one who can apparently go toe to toe with the creature is DMX. That's when he explains to the group that the creature is a Voodoo god; a vengeful and ugly as hell Voodoo god. Known mostly for his music, Earl "Dark Man X" Simmons shows off his acting chops here yet again. We've seen DMX is some really entertaining films like Romeo Must Die, Exit Wounds and Cradle 2 the Grave. So I'm sure you can guess my next two questions; one: What the hell is he doing here? and two: Why is he producing it? It's a major turn for someone who's actually a decent actor. Not the best rapper-turned-actor, but he does have some talent when it comes to movies. Usually when there's a giant CGI monster involved, Coolio is one of the main characters. What is it with rappers and movies that belong on the Sci-Fi channel?

The soundtrack feels out of place. The mixture of hip hop, R&B and alternative rock really doesn't fit in the movie. A more traditional score would have been more fitting for the film. Then again why would you want to hire an orchestra for a low budget monster movie? It doesn't even have the balls to show any nudity. Amazing isn't it? Now if a low budget B-movie doesn't even have the decency to show any breasts, then there's really something wrong. At least we don't get to hear lines like "You have perfect nipple placement" or "Your tits are stupendous." Even without dumb lines like those, the movie still does have some fun stuff. Most of them come from the characters making the dumbest decisions. I actually laughed quite a bit. Making fun of the movie was a blast. However, I don't recommend seeing it at all. Watching it will only waste your time."

DMX AND HIS TRUSTY SHOULDER ROCKET LAUNCHER

Robert F. Powers | Quincy, Ma USA | 06/01/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I wanted so badly to slice and dice this film but the movie pretty much does it on its own. A blatant rip-off of "Pumpkinhead" this time the avenger is conjured by a voodoo vengeance pen instead of a really ugly 7 foot creature. Draw a picture of a victim-then an avenger of choice(a really big snake) and the victim is soon a "lunchable". The voodoo vengeance pen is lifted from a voodoo priests home by a 12 year old who wants to off his bully of a dad. Cut to many years later and the young boy is now a middle-aged, balding married man. When his wife is run over by a carload of drunken teens who take off, the husband draws a picture of the car with 5 teens and the snake devouring the car. The usual happens as the snake claims its victims one by one. When the contrite husband tries to reverse the curse....well see Pumpkinhead and u get the picture.

The movie stars the crapper, sorry rapper DMX and the snake(the snake is prettier) and I suspect he must be one of the producers since his name appears 3 times in the opening credits. The funny thing is DMX has a very small role presumably filmed between prison time. To pad his appearance, he hacks his way through some not so tall grass and weeds with a machete and this scene is shown repeatedly. The other cast members glide through the same grass and weeds without a problem and I suppose the machete was used to show Mr DMXS' street cred.

The screenplay(?) is credited to four writers with another writer credited for "revisions".

See this movie if u have a fondness for drunken teens, voodoo vengeance pens, machetes, DMX and his shoulder rocket launcher and "Pumpkinhead" played by a snake. And if you want gore, there isn't any."

Incomprehensible... and that's the best thing about it.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 06/23/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent (Amir Valinia, 2007)

A week ago, I had never heard of Amir Valinia. Now I've seen two movies by the man, and I'm ready to crown him the next Tibor Takacs. The next Uwe Boll. The next Ulli Lommel. Yes, based on the two Valinia movies I've seen over the weekend, Amir Valinia really is that bad a filmmaker. Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent (originally released under the title Carnivorous) defines the term "vehicle", in its film meaning, perhaps better than any other movie to which I've heard it ascribed. And yet it also does so worse than any other movie etc. Which may sound like a contradiction in terms. Stay with me here.

The almost incoherent storyline has to do with a supernatural snake, the Kulev Serpent, that has the head of an alligator. (A bit more money was used on special effects here than was used in Amayo Uzo Phillips' classic of stupidity The Python. Not much, though.) The stick that calls the Kulev Serpent is controlled by Alan (The Mist's Louis Herthum), who found it as a kid and seems to have used it to get rid of his drunk, abusive stepfather. I think. In any case, Alan grew up and married his childhood sweetheart Becky (Ruffian's Lisa Arnold), the only other person on the planet who knows about the Kulev Serpent. I think. So all is going well until a passel of kids driving a monster SUV accidentally hit Becky, killing her. The driver, who wasn't watching the road, doesn't even notice he hit anything. So Alan calls the Kulev Serpent out to take his revenge. But then feels bad about doing it and decides to help the kids kill the snake. I think. Which brings Alan and the surviving kids into contact with the local arms dealer, Nick (DMX). I think.

First off, can someone explain to me how a guy in the middle of rural nowhere has a local arms dealer? I mean, let's think about this. You've got a black guy with a lot of tattoos in the middle of whitebread redneck America, and the small-town hick cops are just letting him import rocket launchers? Even if the answer to that question runs you up seven stereotypes and back down eight, that's the kind of foresight that went into the writing of Lockjaw, which, as I alluded to before, was seemingly made as a vehicle for DMX, who was (and maybe still is) trying to mainstream his movie career. Since DMX is the only person in the entire cast you've heard of unless you're an obsessive film trivia buff, this would certainly qualify as a vehicle. Except that DMX actually gets maybe ten to fifteen minutes of screen time. His sole appearance in the first two-thirds of the movie is in a disconnected scene that sets up his profession. Which makes me wonder why he didn't hold out for a better script. Be that as it may, the most tactful one-word summary of this movie I can come up with is "incompetent". Do yourself a favor and avoid it like the plague. *
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