The early 1990s were a good time for action stars. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone
were coming off a strong action decade of the 1980s. Bruce Willis had the Die Hard movies. Lethal Weapon was an ongoing
franchise. There were Chuck Norris
movies, Steven Seagal movies, Dolph Lundgren movies, and Jean-Claude van Damme
movies. Other action stars and series
would come and go throughout this action hey-day, making for an abundance of
explosions, gunfire, and car chases.
Lower budget filmmakers wanted to get in on the action that
these blockbuster hits were a part of.
There were low budget action flicks churned out all through the
period. Laser Mission and Squanderers
came out of this era, putting Brandon Lee, Chad McQueen, and Don Swayze in
leading roles. The lead actor tended to
be someone related to a big star, or someone from a popular television show of
the time. It was an easy way to get some
sort of an audience.
One of the lesser known franchises to come out of that era
of action flicks was Snake Eater. The franchise followed Jack “Soldier” Kelly
through his various revenge exploits. All
of the revenge ended in violence and death.
Lorenzo Lamas took on the lead role, making the jump from his soap opera
background into the action world. Over
the three films, he would take on rednecks, drug lords, and biker gangs. He started with the rednecks.
Snake Eater began
with Soldier going undercover for a drug bust.
He and a woman both got naked to show that they weren’t wearing wires,
then her bosses came in and threatened Soldier’s life. He pulled some booby traps on them and got
them captured. Because of his
recklessness, he was suspended from the force.
It was good timing, since his parents were about to get murdered by a
group of rednecks. He would need to go
rogue to save his sister, who the rednecks kidnapped.
There were many low budget tropes present throughout Snake Eater that made the first film a
chore to get through. The rednecks lived
in the woods, which meant that there was a good chunk of time spent in the
woods. It wasn’t as bad as it could have
been because they were swampy woods, but they were still woods. There was a lack of proper lighting during
nighttime sequences, which made it difficult to see anything. Then there were the many extended sequences
of travelling. It was as though the
director wanted to show entire trips.
This is something that higher budget films tend to avoid unless it pushes
the story forward. Lower budget movies
do it to pad time.
Lorenzo Lamas was good as Jack Kelly, though. He was the shining beacon of something good,
and the reason to keep coming back to the franchise. Though the movie wasn’t good, he had a charm and
action presence that made his scenes stand out.
It was everything else that didn’t work.
He tried his best to make something fun and entertaining out of a dud,
and it almost worked. The sequels would
fare better.
Soldier was back, and like the beginning of Snake Eater, he was taking on the drug
trade. This one kicked off with
Soldier’s friend Speedboat (Larry B. Scott) running a community center and
witnessing some people overdose on drugs.
Soldier and Speedboat went, separately, to the hangout of the dealers
and shot the place up, killing everyone inside.
Speedboat escaped, but Soldier was arrested for murder. He pled insanity and got sent to a
rehabilitation center. He snuck out at
night after learning how to from the other people staying there and continued
his quest to take down all the drug dealers in the city.
One thing that put Snake
Eater II above its predecessor was the character work. It’s not that the characters were deep. Many of them were as surface level as could
be. This was particularly true of the
rehabilitation patients. One was a sex
addict, one was a pyromaniac, so on and so forth. There wasn’t too much to the characters. At least they were well defined and got good
moments to shine in their one note roles.
Speedboat was a solid buddy for Soldier to play off when he was outside
the rehab. The supporting characters in
the first film weren’t lacking their one-notedness. The difference was that their one-noted trait
was the same for everyone. Each
character in the sequel was well defined, though not deep.
Also helping was a boost in production quality. The lighting was better. There were nighttime scenes where it was easy
to tell what was happening. The sets
were better than the woods, with different homes and buildings that all had
individual looks and feels. The booby
traps were still there, though slightly more elaborate. The finale was also much better, with more of
a lasting impact because the production value was better than the conclusion of
Snake Eater. All around, the first sequel was a step in
the right direction.
Snake Eater III:
His Law
Going into the third Snake
Eater, expectations were a little higher.
The previous installment had been a solid low budget action flick. Maybe a little insensitive to people with
disabilities, but the overall filmmaking quality had seen an improvement. The third kept the filmmaking quality, but
maybe went a little too far in the oversexualization. That’s weird considering the franchise began
with two characters getting naked. It’s
the case, though.
Soldier was back for his third adventure. He was suspended from the force once again
and took on a private investigator job.
A family’s daughter was kidnapped by a biker gang for an extended
period, and when she came back, she was a completely different person. She was willing to sleep with any man she met
and be treated like a sex slave. Soldier
teamed up with Cowboy (Minor Mustain) to take on the biker gang that caused
problems for the family.
The story may have been strongest in the third outing. There were layers to it that weren’t present
in the first Snake Eater. There weren’t the offensive tangents of what
was going on in the rehab from the second Snake
Eater. It was one main story that
had different parts to it, which all added up to create a whole. The suspension, the teaming up with Cowboy,
the search for answers, the protection of a stripper, and the full on assault
of the biker gang’s hideout all felt like part of the same story. There were different parts to the story that
made it feel like more than the “Suspension, abduction, attack” that the first
film was and whatever the second film was.
Good writing on that part for Snake
Eater III: His Law.
The only real downside was how sexualized it was. The sex was a major part of the overall story
with the biker gang sexually abusing the daughter of the family Soldier was
working for. She constantly offered her
body to people, including multiple times to Soldier. There was the confrontation at a strip club
that led to Soldier taking the stripper away for her own protection. There was Soldier’s own relationship with his
girlfriend, which had some sexy time.
There was probably a way to tell the story without using the female body
so much, but the movie was going for some unnecessary nudity. So that was that.
Action movies on the level of the Lorenzo Lamas films are
still out there today. Many of the older
action stars are in lower key action movies.
That’s where you’ll find Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven
Seagal now. They’re alongside people
like Steve Austin, Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, and Dominic Purcell. They’re the lower tier action stars who are
doing a bunch of work outside of the standard theatrical fare. They’re making the Snake Eaters of this generation.
And it’s a movie world that needs to exist.
- Lorenzo Lamas was in the Sunday “Bad” Movies before, showing up in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190) and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (week 300).
- Squanderers (week 245) and Laser Mission (week 139) were mentioned in this post.
- Ron Palillo was in the first two Snake Eater movies.
- Neil Kroetsch popped up in Snake Eater and Snake Eater III: His Law.
- Both Alexander Chapman and Michael Scherer were in Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster and Snake Eater III: His Law.
- Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster saw the return of Larry B. Scott, an actor who was in Iron Eagle (week 90).
- Walter Massey made an appearance in Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster. He did some voice work in How the Toys Saved Christmas (week 158).
- Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster also saw Harvey Atkin turn in a performance. He was previously seen in The Stupids (week 188).
- Wrapping up Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster was Richard Zeman, who could be seen in Timeline (week 222).
- Moving onto Snake Eater III: His Law, there were a couple of three-timers in there. The first was Mark Camacho, who was in How the Toys Saved Christmas (week 158) and Nine Lives (week 228).
- The other three-timer was Jason Cavalier, who was in Nine Lives (week 228) and Battlefield Earth (week 275).
- There were two more Battlefield Earth (week 275) actors in Snake Eater III: His Law. They were Michael Berron and Alan Legros.
- Another actor from Nine Lives (week 228) was in Snake Eater III: His Law. He was Serge Martineau.
- Matt Birman came back to the Sunday "Bad" Movies with Snake Eater III: His Law. He was previously seen in Exit Wounds (week 93).
- Finally, Mike Mitchell played a part in Snake Eater III: His Law as well as Catwoman (week 174).
- Have you seen any of the Snake Eater movies? What did you think of them? Let me know in the comments.
- The comments and Twitter are good places to let me know if you have any suggestions for what I should be checking out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies weeks. I’m always interested in seeing things I don’t know about.
- There’s an Instagram account for the Sunday “Bad” Movies now. Check it out. It’s @sunday_bad_movies.
- I also share clips of bad movies on Snapchat when I’m watching them, a lot of the time. Add me (jurassicgriffin) if that sounds like your kind of thing.
- There are a few suggestions that I want to get to coming up, but next week isn’t going to be one of them. I want to go back to a studio I’ve been neglecting for a few months since I have a bunch of their DVDs and Blu-rays. That’s why next week’s movie will be Atilla. It’s from The Asylum and I don’t know much about it, so that’ll be interesting. There will also be a belated anniversary post for Wild Wild West out sometime during the week, since I need to get that done too. I’ll see you soon for those posts.
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