Monster Crap Inductee: King Cobra (1999)

Monster Crap Inductee: King Cobra
30 Feet Of Pure Crap

1999

Folks, as a lot of you may not know……I like snakes. And as you know by my inductions…..I like monsters. So it should be real easy for me to like a movie about monster snakes…..right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, Hollywood has never had a good monster snake movie for me and obviously for many, they haven’t made a good one either. This of course makes me mad because of all the potential, but I guess you could ask what monstrous serpent movie has made me mad the most. The answer is quite simple and that snake movie would be………King Cobra.

Before I give you reasons, I should explain myself. As you all know, my name is Seth Drakin. My favorite snake in the world is a king cobra. I think Pat Morita (he is in this movie) is a terrific actor and was a rival of the evil Cobra Kai.

Strike First, Strike Hard, Show No Mercy

Also, I checked the credits and I have found that a horror icon is in this movie. Courtney Gains is in this movie (this is a guy not a girl). Now…..you may not know who he is. In fact, I didn’t know who he was until I looked at IMDB.com. Now I know they have had issues with upcoming movies, but they are really probably the best site for past movie credits. Anyway, as I was saying, you might know Courtney Gains as a certain child in a fantastic movie known as Children of the Corn as he played as…………

Malachi

With all of this awesomeness combined in the ring should have been enough to make this movie awesome….right? Right? Wrong, this movie still sucked and with combined awesomeness like that…..I can’t believe this movie would be as bad as it was. Several mistakes in research, as well as bad acting and ludicrous scenes make this movie bad. I also must add that the filmmakers and Trimark initially tried to sell this movie as Anaconda 2. That’s right….they were lying about it being a sequel. That was until the fine people of the Anaconda film sent them a cease and desist order. But enough with the top crust……it is time for the meat of this induction. Of course, it is time for the summary.

We begin with the Trimark Logo. Now if you don’t know what the Trimark logo is, it looks like this.

Now if you ever see this logo on a monster movie….Richard Pryor would say it best that you should…..

Run!!

We then get a quote that says…

The dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be he man or brute, can hear unmoved.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Now the sad news of this is they never mention whether this is Sr. or Jr. because if you check, there are two different Oliver Wendell Holmes. One (the father) was a poet, physician, and essayist while the other (the son) was a justice for the Supreme Court of the United States. Now I am going to guess they meant Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. only because Oliver Sr. was a poet, physician, and essayist. But this won’t the first factual confusion or error that this movie makes. Oh no…..not this one.

After all of this nonsense, we finally get to the movie where we start at a laboratory where Dr. Irwin Burns and his daughter Catherine are working along with a Japanese woman (Toshi) on an experiment. They talk about serotonin will make the experiment more aggressive. Now they are looking for McConnell, who we find in the bathroom taking serotonin as a drug via needle. Now as you can tell by the red hair, this is Courtney Gains. After the injection, he goes back to the lab and starts acting like a juvenile. Suddenly, there is an email for Dr. Burns so he leaves to receive it in his office. After he leaves, Dr. McConnell changes the code to the lock and creates a mutiny with Toshi. They decide to take an extreme risk and trap Catherine in the room. She tries calling out for her father. Dr. Burns hears her and tries to get in there, but Dr. McConnell and the Toshi’s risks prove costly as the lab explodes. They are both killed on impact, but Jesse has still survived. Unfortunately, she broke the glass holding their main experiment, which has a sign saying “Seth: King Cobra X Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake” As you watch later, you will find a huge problem with this in continuity.

Anyways, the sign (and the nearby hissing) tells us that Catherine is going to be killed and she does as Seth bites her. Dr. Burns finds Catherine, but he is too late as she is dead. Now if you look at where the top bite marks were (laterally on the cheek), I can only assume one thing. That Seth was French kissing Catherine. Hello Interspecies Erotica.

This thing proves interesting because Catherine is played Catalina Larranga, who has done several soft-core porn movies. Dr. Burns is forced to carry his daughter out of the incoming explosion as Seth has now escaped. We move to two years later…..okay, I have another problem. How does 30 foot giant snake that kills people only show up two years later? I would expect that snake would have bumped into someone two years from his escape. Anyway, we move to Seth’s point of view slithering in the woods. We then see a small girl singing “Row Row Your Boat” to her doll. Suddenly, she is scared by her brother who has a toy snake. She is not happy and tells her brother that she is going to tell Mom on him.

The boy goes over to pick up the doll and starts brushing her hair, showing that he might end up being gay. The boy then is seen by Seth, who shows up and we see the child in complete shock.

We go over to the mayor meeting with Dr. Brad Kagen. After that, we go to Deputy Jo Kiddle, who is having lunch while two women are whispering about her problems with the fact that her boyfriend, Dr. Brad Kagen, is leaving to work at a city hospital and that they are going to be four hours away. Deputy Jo leaves as we go back to Dr. Brad Kagen and the mayor and Dr. Kagen tells the mayor that he is fine, but his stomach might cause future problems. Before I continue, I must talk about the mayor. The mayor is played by Hoyt Axton, a famous country music and folk singer. Anyway, back to the movie, the mayor shakes off Dr. Kagen’s suggestion to lose some weight and talks about the town’s festival which is big and hosted by their famous brewery. When asked if he will be there, Dr. Kagen says he won’t. Their conversation is interrupted by a mom coming in with the boy we saw earlier. They say the boy is in shock and we see that he will not let go to his snake.

We move to the woods, where three hunters are hunting a rabbit. They successfully kill the rabbit. These scenes are extremely funny as they make these scenes out like war battles. After that, we go to an old man chopping wood. Now this old man chopping wood reminds me a lot of my grandfather, from my mother’s side, who I am sad to say, is more fit at 76 than I am at 23. Sad, but true. He calls out for his dog Corky. Unfortunately, it is pretty obvious that Corky is dead eaten by Seth. Seth comes up to the old man and the scenes cut back to Deputy Jo, who is preparing Dr. Brad Kagen’s stuff in boxes. Brad comes in and we get a nice conversation between Jo and Brad. She gives him a present and they both try unsuccessfully to get each other to go with them. Both give out long boring speeches that sounds like both of them might be in the corner, listening to My Chemical Romance when they are sad.

Anyway, a phone call comes in for both of them. Moving out into the wilderness, Brad and Jo get a call about the old man dead. In fact, they said he is “pretty dead”. They meet the sheriff and his partner, the black guy (Bud). They send Billy on a mission to see if he can find the dog while the other three look at the old man. We see the old man dead with an axe on his hand and Jo mentions that he smells funny. They don’t know what the smell is, but maybe the smell could be the dead guy in the room. They find his face pretty messed up. Meanwhile, Bud is looking for Corky the dog. Of course he never finds Corky, but he does find a gigantic snake skin, which falls on him. Back at the dead old man’s house, Brad finds his leg messed up and a giant fang lodged in his shoe. The black cop comes in and shows the rest the giant snake skin he found. Brad is back at home looking for antivenin for the unknown snake and types in his summary of the snake. Unfortunately, his computer goes off since the power guys think he is gone. Back at Jo’s place, she has a nightmare about Seth. Okay…..they never know if it is Seth yet she has a dream with him in it. What the hell? She wakes up to a phone call by Brad saying his power went off and he needs to use her electricity. We get a phone call between Dr. Burns (now sporting an eye patch) and some antivenin expert. The expert explains to Dr. Burns about the strange request he got.

We move on to a scene between the beer maker Jurgen and Bernie. We find out that Bernie is played by Erik Estrada. God, I will never look at Ponch in CHiPs the same way again. Bernie and Jurgen are talking about the festival and Jurgen is more concerned about the beer while Bernie is more concerned about the presentation. We then get scenes of Fillmore Lager preparing to make beer. Now if you ever want to see beer being made this is the film for you, but no one else cares. At the mayor’s house, the sheriff, Brad, and Jo try to convince the mayor and Brad’s dad to cancel this festival. Unfortunately, the mayor won’t close the festival or even move it. Dr. Burns enters and talks about the giant snake.

Next, we move to a pair of drunken Mexicans playing Hide and Go Seek. They also decide to lose their clothes, well almost.

The guy is in his shoes and underpants with his pants restricting his movement. The girl has on a bra and panties. The guy finds the girl and they make out until they are attacked and killed by Seth. Now if you are watching this movie, you might be looking at the Mexican guy as someone who is familiar. Well, you would be correct. In fact, a few years later, he would play a dork named Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite

At the autopsy of the old man, Dr. Burns and Brad are talking about the snake. Dr. Burns blames his lack of people skills for the accident. In the woods, the sheriff and Billy are looking for the snake. They have rifles of course, but unfortunately cannot find Seth. Seth however enters the basement of a house. Back at the autopsy lab, Dr. Burns is certain that it is Seth and says he will call a snake expert to deal with this.

And who is the snake expert they call, Dr. Nick Hashimoto. He is played by Pat Morita who is training an assistant in dealing with a snake when he gets the call. Back at the house where Seth entered, we find that the house belongs to Brad’s dad, Pat Kagen. Pat enters the basement, sees the mess, and blames his cat, with whom he can’t find. Pat fixes the mess and decides to get a beer. He goes back upstairs and goes to watch TV. But when he sits on the couch, he sees the reflection on the TV screen (Seth looks like a totem poll).

He turns around and is killed by Seth. We transition from Seth’s tail (a rattlesnake’s tail) to some maracas as we find that the festival has begun. Brad tries to call his dad and he only gets an answering machine. While this happens, we see the cat hiding while Seth is eating Pat.

It is night now and Jo sends a few drunken strangers away from the woods. Brad comes in and says he is still looking for his dad. Jo decides to check in on Pat and does not find him. She does though find the house broken into. The house has now become a crime scene and Brad arrives. The mayor tries to console Brad by saying they haven’t found his dad so he might be still alive, but Brad is pretty convinced his dad is dead. The mayor decides to close the festival now. Unfortunately, the rednecks who killed that poor rabbit earlier plus one more are preparing to hunt the snake. Back at city hall, they are telling Nick about the attacks. He of course, is wondering why the hell someone would make a snake like this. Dr. Burns explains that they wanted the most dangerous snake. He goes into an interesting dialogue about the snake. He talks about an African King Cobra. Now I have to stop here. I have checked and there is no such thing as an African King Cobra. In fact, the only king cobra is located in Southeastern Asia. That’s right there is no king cobra in Africa. He continues his talk with no more errors…..for now. Back in the woods, the rednecks (Billy, Jesse, Buck, and Conrad) are still hunting for the snake. They find the snake skin and make the decision that they need bigger guns. In another part of the woods, Nick, Jo, Dr. Burns, and Brad set up a trap for Seth. They have a pipe machine with gas in it that can kill it, the have a goat in which Seth can eat on. They have razor wires for some reason. Oh and one more thing, Nick brings out stuff he uses to catch a normal snake. They mention to him the size of the snake, but he says that the snake still acts like a snake so he doesn’t need any bigger equipment.

Good Luck With That One, Old Man

Brad has the nice idea of shooting it, but Nick forces him to try on a tree. He tells him to shoot him in the head, but the he confuses the guy. Nick rides a bicycle further up the hill and takes Brad with him. At a dirt road, the sheriff and Deputy Bud are looking for the snake.

These Guys Are Just Walking Targets Basically

Billy finds Seth and sees that he is not moving. He thinks that Seth is dead and yells at his buddies that he killed him. Unfortunately, Seth was only playing dead and kills Billy. He leaves as Buck, Jesse, and Conrad see Billy’s dead body. Oh, we see the back of the snake and I found out that the back of the snake is an Indian Cobra, not a King Cobra. Basically, the people who made this snake have done little research on the King Cobra.

The rednecks decide to split up again. Conrad is the next one to go as he trips and falls when he finds Seth. Seth proceeds to spit venom at Conrad blinding him. Wait a minute, that is the traits of a spitting cobra, not a king cobra. Conrad is immediately killed off and Jesse comes to attack Seth. He is next killed by Seth as Buck watches on. Buck decides to run for it. He gets away and runs into Nick & Brad, who found Seth’s crap and piss. He tells them what happened and they send him on his way. Back to the dirt road, Bud decides that he needs to take a piss. His piss is of course interrupted when he sees Seth. Bud runs into the car and tells the sheriff to go. The sheriff won’t leave because he wants to kill it. Not that they could leave now because Seth pops the tires. Seth then proceeds to pick off Bud and the sheriff.

Back at the site, Nick is injecting himself with snake venom so his antibodies can counteract the snake bites. He says that he needs to inject himself so his antibodies slip. He mentions that a bite with a black mamba. A black mamba is the second largest venomous and one of the most poisonous. The mamba bit through his entire hand. Afterwards, Nick decides to head to bed as Brad and Jo seem to be falling deeper into love. The next mourning, the plan is set as Nick reveals he has a vibration machine in which he buries so Seth can feel it. He explains his plan to Dr. Burns, Brad, and Jo.

His plan works and Seth arrives. We then see the snake’s face and he looks like he has a grin. In fact, after watching all of this, I think Seth has some pimp tendencies. I mean think about it. He French kisses a porn star and he has the grin. Dr. Burns decides to get in a shot with his shotgun, but Nick doesn’t like this and tries to stop him. In the tussle, the shotgun goes off and Seth now knows they are there. Dr. Burns and Nick argue as Seth goes into hiding. They decide to split up and Dr. Burns is bitten in the leg by the snake. Basically the snake took out his leg. That is typical gangster method which adds more to my point that Seth is a cobra pimp. While Jo and Brad tend to Dr. Burns, Nick goes face to face with Seth. Nick decides to use his tools on Seth which don’t work. As I am watching this at this point, I am basically just asking for Nick to use the crane technique on Seth. He doesn’t and Seth kills him.

He Succeeds Where Cobra Kai Fails

Seth then decides to go after Brad and Jo. Seth corners Jo and almost kills her until Brad comes in and performs a slow drop kick. I kid you not. Brad drop kicks the snake. Basically, you are telling Chris Sabin could take this snake.

Brad then runs into the tube gets Seth trapped in it. Th turn on the gas and Seth is thought to be dead. In a dream sequence, Seth comes back at the brewery to attack Jo and Brad. Brad and Jo wake up in a hammock and everything is happily ever after…..or is it. We go back to the tube and we find out that Seth is still alive as the movie ends.

This would end up being the last movie for Hoyt Axton (who played the mayor) as he died a couple months later of a heart attack. We all know that Pat Morita has also passed away. We all know that Efren Ramirez (who played the Mexican guy) went on to play Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite. But there is one thing you did not know. Scott Hillenbrand (who played as Brad), acted, directed, and wrote the script to another bad movie with his brother that I have inducted.

I am not going to lie. This movie sucks. They make little effort in researching the snake which insults king cobra enthusiasts like me. They give us crappy acting, crappy dialogue, crappy monsters, and a crappy script. With all of the good things that this movie had, they could have done a much better job, but instead they wasted our time. They even used my first name as the snake, which I am honored. When you piss off the man who writes this stuff, you have a definite shot at getting inducted. If I were this snake, I would do one thing………

Either ask for my money or pimp bite them.