Spasms (1984)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Boring

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The ultimate in cheesy monster movies, this low-budget oddity is blessed with a better-than-average cast for the genre, but otherwise it falls mostly sub-par. It's a slow-moving and often boring mess, with long passes of dialogue about nothing in particular, an unintelligent script which often repeats the same words and passes, and direction which shows absolutely no flair for visual art. Its also one of those movies which ran out of money during production, meaning that at the end we get lots of padded footage from earlier in the movie which doesn't make much sense being inserted where it is. The simple storyline involves a giant snake being transported to America where it escapes (of course – the film wouldn't exist if it didn't) and wreaks havoc on a university campus.The best and most hilarious part of the movie sees the snake invade a sorority house, where it stalks the screaming naked girls like an ultra-cheesy Michael Myers impersonation. Here's a film which utilises a dated 'snake cam' (often used since in monster movies and such), where we see the bloody deaths through the snake's tinted blue vision. The sappy Tangerine Dream theme song only adds to the weirdness of the proceedings. For the blood and guts fan, the film reaches about an average level of grue, with some bloody snake bites and attacks and at least one bit of fun, rubbery special effects which shows a victim swelling and disintegrating as a result of a snake bite! The snake itself is a cheesy, papier-mâché type model, but it serves its purpose well and at least looks fairly imaginative.Heading the cast is Peter Fonda delivering a typically bland, laid back turn as an investigating doctor. However, his character hangs around in the sidelines and doesn't actually achieve much as a hero. The heroine is also extremely bland, so its left to our favourite ham Oliver Reed to deliver the performance goods. From trancing out in a static box to slashing at the venomous serpent with a knife come the abrupt (but powerhouse) climax, he's in control and he makes the movie. The only other cast member of note is Al Waxman, typecast as a slimy villain, who hams with gusto. Aside from a few fun performances, a handful of decent action bits, and some slimy special effects, however, SPASMS is an unusually bland movie and for the most part a disappointment.

A gigantic serpent from hell is captured on a remote island and shipped to an American college for some sort of scientific experimentation.An American scientist played by Peter Fonda tries to help wealthy Jason Kincaid(Oliver Reed),who has some kind of telepathic link with ghastly serpent.Snake called N'Gana Sunbu escapes from scientific laboratory and promptly begins killing people.It's up to Fonda and Reed to stop satanic snake from hell...I must say that William Fruet did some great exploitation thrillers like "Death Weekend","Funeral Home" or "Trapped".On the other hand,"Spasms" is his stab at animal attack sub-genre.The special effects are cheesy and the snake looks ridiculous.Still there is enough campy fun and bloody violence to satisfy any self-respecting fan of 80's horror cheese.7 serpents out of 10.Vastly enjoyable piece of trash.

Unimaginably lame and cheap 80's movie that has Oliver Reed (in his, hands down, worst performance ever) obsessing over some kind of gigantic serpent he's inexplicably connected with. He arranges the animal to be sent over to university professor Peter Fonda's laboratory, where it naturally escapes and goes on a rampage in the nearby park and housing estate. This crap movie won't appeal to fans of grotesque creature features, nor will it to lovers of typically cheesy 80's horror. The inventors of the story were stupid enough to use an unreal snake-species, so don't expect to actually see the creature as nobody knows what it looks like. Instead, the screen turns blue when the events are supposedly seen through the snake's eyes and its victims just try to look terrified as the camera rapidly approaches them. William Fruet, who's actually a personal favorite horror director of mine because he made the very competent "House by the Lake" and "Funeral Home", totally messes things up here, as he never manages to create any tension and completely fails to make the viewer emphatic with the characters. There wasn't enough money to finish the film, so they seemingly also cut back on lighting and set pieces. The whole thing is extremely dark and lacking decors. I bet Peter Fonda is still wondering to this day what purpose he served by accepting this role, as he adds absolutely nothing at all.

An astonishingly inept monster/slasher movie, in which the monster is just a reptilian version of Jason ("Friday the 13th") : it runs around (and runs faster than a jaguar), killing people with no reason. The film is irredeemably bad and no sane person will want to waste 86 minutes of his life with it.