lost-in-limbo What could have been promising in a silly, entertaining manner ends up being rather mediocre rushed and seriously confined. "Spasms" is a daft, cheaply made creature feature shocker from the early 80's with two recognizable stars attached; Oliver Reed and Peter Fonda collecting their pay cheques, but delivering two extremes in their acting. Reed hauntingly hams it up "I really believe I'm bounded to it", while Fonda keeps it cool and collected. Outside of those two, there were some other familiar names involved. Director / co-writer William Fruet is no beginner to the genre with making films like "Death Weekend" and "Funeral Home" before this one. Cinematographer Mark Irwin shows up. Then you have the Tangerine Dream adding to the score. Although these curious inclusions don't add too much and it shows in the final product. A gigantic, deadly serpent is transported from a Pacific island back to the States and is kept boxed up at a university where Dr. Brazilian is hired by wealthy businessman Jason Kincaid to experiment on the telepathy link Kincaid shares with the serpent. However before doing so, it comes loose and goes about terrorising the community. The systematic plot actually starts of rather well setting up the mood, but it really does lose its way when it goes on the rampage becoming simple-minded, outrageous and ending on a very lousy, incoherent climax. Neither is it that fun when the rampage transpires or in its tackiness. Even the muddled script has a few story threads, which are incompatible and abrupt like the sub-plot involving a religious snake worshiping fanatic. Director Fruet's handling is cramp and rudimentary in its execution with lopsided pacing by lingering on many talky exchanges. Supposedly the production run-out of money towards the back-end and its shows by padding it out with recycled snake-vision shots that happened early on in the film. The attack sequences are too little and the ones that occur are vicious and jolting in an exploitative manner, but rather tensionless with the snake mainly staying off-screen and the victim being thrown around. We only get glimpses of the serpent, until it comes to the final reel when the rubber beast is fully shown. It doesn't look that great and you could see why the lighting was mostly dim. On the other hand blue-filtered serpent vision got a real work out and was well-done. The most memorable thing about this production would have to be the aftermath of the serpent's attacks, as the ghastly make-up FX was vivid in its depiction of the skin bubbling and blistering. Outside the two stars there were decent support from Kerrie Keane and Al Waxman."Spasms" has a poor reputation and rightfully so, but I was slightly entertained.

udar55 SPASMS tops my list for the best killer snake movie out there. Jason Kincaid (Oliver Reed) has this massive serpent captured and brought to the US because it killed his brother and he now shares some kind of psychic link with it (!). He enlists the help of psychologist Tom Brazilian (Peter Fonda) to study the animal and the mental connection, but they don't count on a group of snake worshiping Satanists (!!!) to complicate matters by accidentally setting the beast free. Amazingly, director William Fruet (FUNERAL HOME) gets the cast to play this entirely straight with Reed - who shot the snake themed VIPER (1981) the same year - really throwing himself into his crazy part (even if he seems to be whispering every line). The attack scenes are really well staged (a sorority house siege being the highlight) and DP Mark Irwin makes the movie look way better than it should. Dick Smith handled the gooey special effects; the bursting bodies are great 80s bladder effects but the snake is kept offscreen for the most part. Tangerine Dream supplied the "Serpent's Theme" for the soundtrack.

moycon The story in a nut-shell. Oliver Reed has a psychic link to a satanic super snake which emerges from hell every seven years and kills people on a tropical island. He can see through the snakes eyes when it kills! Obviously the best thing to do in a situation like this is to bring the snake to the US (Actually Canada filling in for California) Naturally the snake gets loose and continues doing what giant venomous satanic super snakes do best. BITING PEOPLE!!! Good stuff.The FX are done on the cheap. Lots O POV shots, inter-cut with VERY quick shots of a GIANT balloon-y snake head on a too thin looking body, inter-cut with screaming bloody people tossed around. The whole thing was done on the cheap for the most part. There is one well done super venomous bite that makes a guy break out a little. They probably spent half the budget on that one shot. You'll know the scene when you see it. If you like bad horror flicks from the 80's. You'll probably dig this movie. If the snake doesn't scare you, Oliver Reeds mustache will.

Maciste_Brother I had hopes that the negative buzz surrounding SPASMS would prove exaggerated once I finally saw it. I mean, how bad can this movie really be? The beginning starts off promisingly: the whole part with the natives summoning the snake is well made. I was impressed by the fluidity of the snake's POV shots (which have been copied in many movies since, like in ALIEN 3). But then the story moves to San Diego (or Toronto, in this case) and the whole thing fell apart. It actually has one good moment, the one that takes place at the cult which venerates snakes. The music and the mood were effective. But then the snake escapes from its box and the film becomes worse and worse by the second. The scene at the sorority is remarkably exploitive and gratuitous, and it's one of the most over-directed moments ever caught on film. It's fun to watch because it's so over-the-top silly and exploitive that you can't help but laugh at it all. But the whole moment doesn't add anything to the movie and they could have spent the money that cost to shoot that fun but useless moment on a better ending or a better snake. After the scene when Al Waxman is killed in the van (the scenes before his death are long and pointless), SPASMS suddenly becomes a one-man show: we only see Oliver Reed overacting and walking around, with flashbacks of all the POV shots of the killing or attacks the snake had made previously. The flashback scenes of the snakes POV shots are PADDING and the producers needed to extend the movie for a little longer before the stupid abrupt conclusion because they ran out of money. So for almost 10 long minutes, we see Reed walking about like an imbecile, the whole moment intercut with the flashback scenes, which are useless because the initial scenes were still fresh in my mind. The sub-plot with the snake cult is completely forgotten. Except for a few seconds at the very end, Peter Fonda is nowhere to be seen. Everything and everyone disappeared for a big chunk of the movie because the producers ran out of money and they seemingly only could afford Oliver Reed for the ending, which they had to wrap up quickly. The result is truly deadening. The snake fx at the conclusion are laughable. The whole thing stinks!!!Except for a good beginning and some nifty POV shots, SPASMS is as jaw-droppingly awful as everyone says it is.