Silent Venom

2009 "The greatest danger to the mission is already on board."
3.2| 1h30m| en
Details

An American submarine traveling through dangerous territorial waters is put in even more danger when two scientists bring venomous snakes on board.

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

All Prime Video Movies and TV Shows. Cancel anytime. Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.
Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
djderka Yes, this movie in some aspects is better than Crimson Tide. Read below.The basic plot of Sea Snake (SyFy title)has two scientist breeding and studying snakes on a small remote island for the military. A decommissioned sub is on its way home when it is ordered to divert to the island to vacate the scientist and the snakes, because of impending Chinese maneuvers in the area.Now the action starts. The snakes some how become loose, don't they always? and threaten the crew and the sub.Now for Crimson Tide. It is a seemingly good thriller except for one fatal flaw. The constant arguing and bickering and power positioning of G. Hackman and D. Washington in Crimson Tide. I am so tired of bickering in the top staff. Sea Snakes present the military as it is. A chain of command and respectful interaction. For example, when Davies suggest to O'Neill, the Commander of the sub, that they run silent, the Captain says good idea. He did not ARGUE like Hackman would in that phony Crimson Tide. I liked their military cooperation and reasoning which is very real. In fact as a mariner I would serve under O'Neill before I would serve under the nutty Hackman Also, production values were great, good lighting, composition, steady camera, etc. Except for the ubiquitous cheesy CGI effects. When will Sci Fi producers get the message. I don't know. And the CGI was just as cheesy in Jurassic Park.Dr. Swanson, was played by Krista Allen, and although she is hot, she was not in a busty top and played the scientist with aplomb.Does every movie have a scientist that has to "make money on the sale of this specimen back in the real world". God, they are all over the place. Are there really scientist like that? He was the helper to Dr. Swanson and seems uncredited in IMDb. You know, "don't kill the ********, we could use it for further study even tho it is destroying everything in site" type scientist who is in every sci fi thriller.Did you expect a love interest somewhere on the boat as in most Hollywood epics? Guess what? Didn't happen. As it would not happen in real life.Kudos to a job well done by Fred Olan Ray, for a realistic portrayal of military protocol and a subdued performance from the actors and not the over hyped "fight club" acting style of most lead characters in Hollywood movies. He sure made the 2 million dollar budget go far.I thought they would flush the snakes out of a torpedo tube, but such was not the case.
Wizard-8 First, there was "Snakes on a Plane". Next, we were given "Snakes on a Train" by poverty-row studio The Asylum. Now, with "Silent Venom", we are given (thanks to notorious director Fred Olen Ray) snakes on a submarine! In fairness to Ray, this movie looks a lot better than a lot of his past cheapies. They actually got a decent-looking submarine set, for one thing, and it's acceptably photographed. But those looking for low budget horror thrills will be very disappointed. The movie is pretty dull in its tone, the movie moves very slowly, and there's very little blood. (Also, the CGI snakes look REALLY bad and are not the least bit scary.) The movie has a lot of stuff happen offscreen or is never explains (Just what is that mysterious substance that's found on a pipe at one point?) Perry looks aged, and Berenger fans will be disappointed because he's hardly in the movie. To sum up, it's incomprehensible that a major Hollywood studio would handle this direct-to-DVD release.
slayrrr666 "Sea Snakes" is a pretty decent killer-snake film with a few minor flaws.**SPOILERS**Arriving at a naval base, Commander James O'Neill, (Luke Perry) is informed a scandalous incident in his past will be dropped if he brings along a decommissioned submarine to Taiwan. Accompanied by crew Houston Davies, (John L. Curtis) Eddie Boudreau, (Anthony Tyler Quinn) Lozano, (Travis Dixon) Cab, (Oliver Rayon) Rhodes, (Haran Jackson) Kovacek, (Sam Scarber) and Kelso, (David Andriole) they set sail but are soon ordered to escort Andrea Chapman, (Krista Allen) and Jake Goldin, (Louis Mandylor) off an island to save them from an enemy attack. Getting them off in time, the crew suddenly starts dying off due to an unknown virus and they reveal they've been studying venomous snakes and brought them on-board only to have them get loose within the ship. As their presence draws enemy attention, they must find a way of dealing with the deadly snakes without giving up their position to be attacked.The Good News: This one had a lot of good parts that really helped it nicely. There's some nice snake-action in here, including the opening wrangling in the jungle, where it bites the local from inside the cage and slithers away before the jungle confrontation, set off quite nicely with the suspenseful rattling in distance continually getting closer before it appears from the watering hole in a nice shock. Their escape scene is handled quite nicely as well, with the dropped equipment and subsequent damaging, followed with a quick bite-attack and then shown slithering away, starts this with some nice suspenseful bits. That's carried out even further with shots of the snakes in the sub, mainly with continuous shots of them crawling on the floor or over submarine equipment, under doorways or the feet of unsuspecting crew-members. By choosing these types of scenes continuously, it makes it quite chilling as to when their attack will be launched. The number of quick attacks, from the strike while the crew-member is fixing the intercom to the engine room, is all good stuff, mixing the suspense with the action nicely. The follow-up attack in the kitchen is really good, with them surrounding food and slithering around before attacking. How they're dealt with works nicely, and the aftermath sets up future events as well. The search for the snakes throughout the ship contributes more suspense, due to the claustrophobic setting of the sub as well as finding the snake-skin, which leads to a nice attack. Since the tactic used, drawing them to a heated place, is both original and quite entertaining, this segment is really good. The action returns to the film in several big scenes, including an attack in the torpedo room, where the surrounded-victim begins clanging on the pipes with a wrench, drawing attention before encountering the giant snake and the ensuing attack, which is really good. The scenes of them retrieving the stolen anti-venom is just golden, where they fight off the giant snake only to find an army of snakes on the floor between them, and the attempt to acquire it results in being swarmed. As they're blocked by snakes in the escape hallway, the rescue later on finds them willingly becoming a Buddha statue of snakes, and the removal and eventual gunfire escape is great. The battle with the snakes in the com room is full-on chaos, and the later encounter with the giant one is purely-awesome all around. Aside from that, the encounters which make it feel like a true submarine-movie are really good, with believable battle tactics, several different attacks from others, and their continuous presence makes for a realistic scenario, and it mixes some nice action as well. The torpedo launch is especially good, and the different battles employed are a lot of fun. The last good part is the use of real snakes for the swarming scenes, which is quite nice and appreciated, since those snakes have a mass to them during these moments missing elsewhere. These are the film's good parts.The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot here that didn't work. One of the main issues here is the fact that there's the ever-present cliché of the greedy associate on the project. The individual chosen to portray that character is just painfully obvious from the get-go, the motive is the same thing done every time this is presented, and from the initial stand-point, the amount of cluelessness that must be present to ignore the danger is just astronomical to think that anything like this couldn't happen, which just makes the film that much harder to get into when dealing with so many of the different clichés in the genre. Another big flaw here is the fact that the snakes are a complete after-thought in the finale, handled just once and then forgotten about quickly, dealing with the other areas instead and just making them seem like a joke to have been handled so easily and then dismissed despite being the centerpiece for the majority of the time. It's quite disheartening to see that done, and it really takes a lot of fear out of the creatures. The lack of kills in here is something else to get over, since the original plot line dictates few chances for any blood or gore here, as their method of attack doesn't leave a lot of opportunities for that, and the body count is surprisingly-low for a film of this type. The last flaw is the ever-present CGI for the snakes, which is painful and again quite common, so it is a necessary evil here. These are the film's problems.The Final Verdict: While not completely flawless, this killer-snake film has enough going for it that it manages to become somewhat better-than-expected and wholly enjoyable. Recommended mainly to fans of these kinds of films, Sci-Fi Channel creature-feature enthusiasts or fans of the cast, while others should heed caution.Rated R: Violence and Language
zardoz-13 "Silent Venom" is--no surprises here--essentially snakes-on-a-sub. The U.S. Navy has sold an old submarine to Taiwan and Admiral Bradley Wallace (Tom Berenger of "Sniper") assigns Lieutenant Commander James O'Neill (Luke Perry of "The Fifth Element") to skipper the sub. It seems that O'Neill disobeyed a direct order and he stands to lose his retirement benefits as well as his rank, but Wallace engineers a deal that will save the Lieutenant Commander both his rank and honor. Naturally, our hero does not care to sail as a skipper on an unarmed sub. Meanwhile, on an island, Dr. Andrea Swanson (Krista Allen of Emmanuelle, Queen of the Galaxy") and her unethical research assistant Jake Goldin (Louis Mandylor of "Renegade Force") have been conducting research on venomous snakes so that they can provide the Pentagon with anti-toxins for troops in chemical warfare situations. The Red Chinese decide to stage maneuvers and the Pentagon needs somebody to pick up Swanson. You guessed it. The old sub is the closest thing to transport so Admiral Wallace orders our hero to let them hitch a ride. The catch is that Dr. Swanson can neither divulge the nature of their research nor that they are bringing snakes aboard a submarine. Furthermore, Swanson has only a few bottles of anti-toxin that has never been tested so she does not know if it works. No sooner have Swanson and Jack settled into the sub than the snakes get loose. A curious sailor is the culprit."Silent Venom" is reminiscent of a 1974 made-for-television David Janssen thriller "Fer-de-Lance." The bigger snakes are clearly computer-generated-imagery while the smaller snakes appear to be real snakes. Veteran exploitation filmmaker Fred Olen Ray of "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers," knows his craft well enough to milk a modicum of suspense out of the formulaic screenplay by Mark Sanderson. Indeed, Ray has called the shots on over an hundred of these direct-to-video movies. The best scenes show both the real-life actors handling the snakes. Luke Perry has to remove several snakes from the neck of Krista Allen. "Silent Venom" qualifies as strictly an exercise in boilerplate suspense. The ending is clever.Tom Berenger doesn't have a big role, but everybody does fine.

Similar Movies to Silent Venom