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.

Wuchak RELEASED TO TV in 2014 and directed by Don E. FauntLeRoy, "SnakeHead Swamp" chronicles events at Blackbriar Park in the Louisiana bayous when a truck carrying modified snakeheads crashes, unleashing the killer fish, which is linked to a voodoo curse on the swamp. Dave Davis plays the male protagonist while Terri Garber & Anthony Marble play his soon-to-be divorced parents. Alpha male Ross Britz emerges as a semi-antagonist while Antonio Fargas plays the great great grandson of the voodoo woman who cursed the bayou almost 200 years earlier.The plot's hackneyed and the CGI snakeheads are more laughable than scary, but the movie otherwise works for what it is. Winsome & curvy Ayla Kell materializes as the heroine and shines in the role. Melissa Cordero & Sloane Coe are also effective as nubile maidens. You can't beat the authentic Louisiana bayou locations and I valued the warmth of the main protagonists as the story develops. The voodoo angle is also interesting. This is noticeably superior to similar Grade B flicks like "Frankenfish" (2004).The film runs 86 minutes and was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. WRITER: Greg Mitchell.GRADE: B-

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

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.