New Alcatraz

An escape-proof prison has been built in Antarctica to house the most dangerous prisoners of the world, the theory being that should anyone escape, they would freeze to death before they made it to civilisation. During part of the construction, engineers drill into a rock that is hollow inside. Without their knowledge, there was something living in that hollow rock in the form of a giant snake. The snake now has a new food source in the form of the guards, engineers and the six trial prisoners and goes on a killing spree. On top of avoiding becoming the snake's next meal, they have to contend with getting out of the prison, the one thing the prison was designed to stop.

"My men are guards, not big game hunters"

A husband and wife are sent as part of a rescue team to kill the snake. The couple are said to be experts in the field of reptiles of the area. Due to it being the depths of winter, they only have twelve hours to do this before the fuel freezes on the plane, leaving them stranded there until summer.

Well where do I start? After about ten minutes of this film I was cheering for the snake and hoping it would kill the cast as quickly as possible. I know a lot of people don’t rate Dean Cain as an actor but I truly thought he may be the saving grace here - he wasn’t. He does play his character quite well but his character is of a similar standard to all the other characters – a waste of space. The script is atrocious and the acting is some of the worst I have ever seen, more wooden than my coffee table. The snake truly looks fake, but is more real than any of the characters on show. I tried to make it fun by guessing who would be killed next, but I got to the stage where I was hoping it would be me. There are so many holes in the plot, although plot is such a strong word where this film is concerned. There is one scene when they are on the plane heading for the prison and it is quite obvious that the actors are rocking in their seats to simulate the plane’s movement, it truly is amazing.

It appears the budget for this film was used on the salary of Dean Cain, the computer graphics for the snake and for the explosions. The sad thing is that there was a budget for this film in the first place. Perhaps this is down to Phillip Roth producing, directing and writing this piece of garbage. Mr Roth, if you need to get rid of a truckload of money then I will gladly give you my bank account details. How can I get back the hour and a half of my life that I spent watching this trash?

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and not 16x9 enhanced, this transfer is truly awful. Shadow detail is terrible and grain is pretty much a constant. Artefacts are also a constant in the form of white flecks and these are truly annoying. Colours are over-saturated, which luckily matches the over-acting. The snake is quite possibly the only thing that looks remotely real in this one, that's how bad it is. There are no subtitles on this one but that’s a good thing, you shouldn’t have to read it as well as watch it.

The two tracks available here are Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1. The better of the two would have to be the DD 2.0, but both are bad. Dialogue varies from poorly recorded to dubbed and makes no effort to hide the transition between the two. Separation is all over the place. Dialogue seems to switch across the front speakers, not kept to the centre as is the norm, and the rears are only used when they are least needed. The subwoofer got a little action, but that could have been me snoring. Audio synch is up and down, mostly due to dubbing. One of the worst audio tracks I have heard.

All that we have on offer here is a Theatrical Trailer. Why anyone would want to sit through this as well as the feature is beyond me. Running for 1:12 and in full frame, the audio for the trailer is in DD 2.0.

This awful film doesn’t even fit into the category of so bad it’s good. Some of the action is a real joke, but it’s doubtful that it will keep anyone amused for long. If you are really into self-punishment, then rent Santa With Muscles and be done with it. With so many films screaming to be released on DVD, how does rubbish like this ever make it into retailers? Smell something funny? It's this film, it stinks.