Leofwine_draca SNAKEHEAD SWAMP is a particularly poor monster flick from the guys at the SyFy Channel, shot on Baton Rouge to give it a little atmosphere. This one suffers from a weak storyline which relies too much on padding and repetition and a lack of fun cast members, an extended cameo from Antonio Fargas aside. A bunch of characters are harassed and eaten by some monstrous giant snake creatures, little seen and utilised and animated via the usual dodgy CGI effects. Sadly, for the most part this is tedious rather than fun - and that comes from somebody who's a fan of the genre.

TheLittleSongbird SnakeHead Swamp is not as bad as it could have been and SyFy have done worse. The opening is cool, the actors though with a fair share of hit and miss moments at least don't take the movie too seriously or try too hard with Peaches Davis particularly fun, there is some decent gore and there is a little bit of novelty comedic value. But like a lot of SyFy outings, SnakeHead Swamp is still not very good, mediocre at best and lame at worst. Some of the photography is enough to induce a migraine, a lot of the movie looks rather drab and the special effects are really laughable with the killer fish looking more ridiculously goofy than menacing. They're not much of a threat either, exuding little personality and you don't learn much about them, SnakeHead Swamp does try to explain the motivation of the killer fish but does so in a muddled manner. The script is riddled with clichés and vomit-inducingly inane dialogue where a few of the worst of them make for unintentional comedy. The story has a decent start but it slows down soon after and never picks up after that, some of it is repetitive with some parts recapping what happened 10 minutes ago and it was really unnecessary, suspense and tension factors are next to zero and it gets infuriatingly ridiculous to the extent that you can't even take it at face value(sure there are movies that do a worse job with this but that's saying very little). A lot of it also is very rushed and under-explained so the story doesn't feel very developed or cohesive, while the attacks are high on gore but also high on predictability and very low in invention and thrills. Despite the efforts of the actors the characters are never interesting or likable, the characters are basically stereotypes with mostly cardboard personalities and a tendency in being annoying(especially Ian, who's also irritatingly acted). The music is not very memorable and either is too obvious in the attacks or it doesn't always fit with the mood. The direction is competent but unremarkable. Overall, not awful but very murky and with too much bad to recommend. 3/10 Bethany Cox

wes-connors In a spooky and voodoo-like Louisiana, mysterious Antonio Fargas (as William Boudreaux) does something weird with a chicken. As his chicken drips blood, a truck full of experimental snakehead fish crashes. The truck contains canisters of the giant – possibly mutated – snakeheads, which escape. They are vicious and blood-thirsty. As you might be expecting, they have a taste for human blood. We meet our co-starring couple at an unrelated wedding. They are not yet a couple, but have obvious potential. Pretty blonde Ayla Kell (as Ashley) invites curly-haired Dave Davis (as Chris Hardin) to a party with some friends, on a small boat belonging to her obnoxious boyfriend Ross Britz (as Ian Davids). This makes the party of five potential bait for the escaped snakeheads...There is an interesting backstory involving Davis and his family, courtesy of writer Greg Mitchell. Worried ranger Terri Garber (as Carly) is Mr. Davis' mom, and she has a frosty relationship with father Anthony Marble (as Jim). Too bad Davis' brother wasn't tied into the "Blackbrier Curse" scenario in some definite manner. The whole plot involving Mr. Fargas is regrettable. He played streetwise Huggy Bear on the TV series "Starsky and Hutch" in the 1970s, but has lost touch with informants over the years. We are never really sure what made Grandma so angry. Possibly, some of what trudges through "Snakehead Swamp" as nonsense made more sense in development stages. There are a few funny lines – and deaf receptionist Peaches Davis (as Marge) is a highlight.**** Snakehead Swamp (6/28/14) Don E. FauntLeRoy ~ Dave Davis, Ayla Kell, Terri Garber, Antonio Fargas

Sean Jump Mutant snakehead fish run amok in a small Louisiana town. Not a bad template from which to craft a fun b-movie, but SNAKEHEAD SWAMP is anything but fun. The potentially entertaining plot is spoiled by sorry effects that never make the monstrous fish remotely believable, much less frightening. The director might have tried showing less of the snakeheads to build up suspense instead of throwing the silly looking monsters at us full on, but one gets the impression there was little intention to make a truly thrilling movie on any level. The script makes fun of itself at every opportunity, so much so that it goes way beyond camp and seems to actually wallow in self loathing, as though everyone involved realizes they are in a terrible movie and want you to know that yes, they know it too. The monster action is lackluster and even the explanation for what caused the outbreak of killer fish remains muddled: was it because a truck crashed into the river with unnatural cargo inside, or due to a voodoo curse, or both? The question is never really answered, and I guess the viewer isn't supposed to think about it too much. The main characters, which range from a crazy old voodoo guy who lives in the swamp to a gang of young people on a boating trip and a female park ranger, are uniformly bad and underdeveloped even by the standards of b-films. In defense of the cast, however, I think the utter hopelessness of the characters has more to do with how they are written (or not) rather than due to the talent of the actors involved, most of whom do a pretty good job with the material as it is. The same cast might have done quite well with a better script to work from, and/or a director with a better handle on things. Sometimes for all their flaws b-movies are tremendously entertaining, but SNAKEHEAD SWAMP never manages to be anything but a very slow, painful experience in dramatic futility.