Friday, August 31, 2007

Una cobra de grandes dimensiones*


As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch tv. I’m not like those people who say “I don’t watch tv” and what they mean is they don’t watch tv except for PBS and the History Channel and The Daily Show and CSI Miami and Studio 60 and ... No, I really don’t watch tv. I never turn the set on. I rarely go in the tiny tv room. So for Mel’s happiness challenge I decided to watch more tv. I turned it on last night and flipped through the channels, pausing only when I happened upon the made-for-tv movie, MegaSnake (also known as Mega Snake).

I missed the beginning, which apparently introduced us to a cult of snake handlers and showed how a crisis of faith led to a gruesome death for the hero’s father and a well-justified fear of snakes for the young hero. Fast forward twenty years and we find the hero’s brother shopping for snakes at the local tattoo parlor/black market reptile emporium. He sees a scary-looking little snake in a jar and learns that it’s the only surviving member of a race of supernatural snakes OF DOOM!!! However, the snake’s awesome and evil powers are held in check as long as you never ever let it out of the jar and never ever let it eat anything alive.

The hero’s brother steals the snake in the jar and what do you think happens next? YES!!!!! The little snake slithers out of the jar, chugs the cat, and rapidly grows to become, as the eponymous title suggests, a 70-foot-long writhing and voracious reptile OF THE APOCALYPSE!!! MegaSnake terrorizes and snacks on the inhabitants of what is supposed to be a small Tennessee town, but is actually Bulgaria. Local redneck-types with pick-up trucks and intermittent southern accents try to end the carnage, but they are no match for the wily MEGASNAKE!!!!!! To divert themselves from these tragic events, the townspeople decide to hold a fair. Unfortunately, the fairgrounds turn out to be the SECRET LAIR of MegaSnake, who quickly transforms the bucolic scene into a carnival OF DEATH!!!

Way back before the brother stole the snake, the snake store owner had told him “You must not fear the heart of the snake.” This advice comes in handy during the climactic final scene, when our snake-fearing hero allows himself to be swallowed whole by MegaSnake, which then suddenly dies amid a great deal of shuddering and thrashing. When I saw the hero using a knife to cut his way out of the snake’s belly, I changed the channel. I feel happier already.



*I have no idea why the promotional picture shows MegaSnake crushing skyscrapers while being strafed by fighter planes. It does look kinda cool, though.

17 comments:

LawMommy said...

Niobe,

Part of me wants to believe you are making this up.

But, a much larger part of me thinks that if you, Niobe, were going to make up a plot for a movie, even setting out to make up a plot for a BAD movie, it would be...um...better than MegaSnake. Which leads me to think you are NOT making this up...which leads me to weep for humanity...sigh.

G

The Oneliner (Christina) said...

i don't think that's going to make you happy. turn the channel.

DD said...

Isn't that the same premise as Gremlins?

Man. No wonder you don't like to watch TV. What's wrong with a little "What Not To Wear"?

niobe said...

Don't get me wrong. I loved the movie. I couldn't stop laughing. In fact, I was hoping I could buy some MegaSnake-themed products.

DD: Yes. It was even more, uh, derivative of Gremlins than I made it sound.

MB said...

Ohhh-kay. Really? You watched that? There's better TV...honest. Ew.

Anonymous said...

Hahahahahahaha, Gremlins! Oh. My. God. Do you have any idea how old I am? I saw Gremlins in a movie theater.

ON A DATE!

S said...

ooh, you used "strafed," one of my favorite words.

there are better things to watch on TV. but i think you know that.

Ruby said...

This reminds me why I don't watch t.v.

Unless, of course, its 24.

Christine said...

this whole post made me laugh! i GOTTA see MegaSnake!

Mrs. Collins said...

I'm going to try to find this movie and show it to Critter if he ever wants to get a snake. Then he'll view this cautionary tale of a boy and his snake. Glad I'm not the only one who saw the nod to Gremlins.. which my husband sometimes quotes when I eat late at night. I bet you wonder even more why people watch TV.

meg said...

Really, no TV? No CNN? No movies too? Not even Seinfeld?

You aren't missing much with not watching TV, but there are a few worthy things to watch. This movie, however, sounds like utter crap!

niobe said...

Meg: I've certainly watched far more than my share of tv over the course of my life. But over the last year, it's just come to seem like too much trouble. I know, you're thinking: how lazy is Niobe anyway? How hard is it to watch tv? But that's really the best way I can explain it.

Doughnut said...

I agree with you niobe. There are so many other things to do besides watch tv and once you are away from it for awhile, (at least for me)I rarely even think about tv. I usually only watch the Packers play (yeah - a guy thing!) or an espiode of Law & Order. Otherwise I never turn it on. I don't think it is being lazy. I actually think it is the opposite.

Phantom Scribbler said...

OF DOOM!!!!

(I just had to say that.)

Antropóloga said...

Whoa, what a thing to watch. Wow. Definitely would be better off not bothering at all.

We don't watch very much ourselves. Better that way.

Lori said...

Well, for your brief foray into the TV world, you sure picked a doozy of a movie to watch!! I know you will find this as comical as Megasnake, but I could never watch even a ridiculous movie like that. It would still scare me! I'm not kidding!!

Oh, and Leroy... at least it is easy to catch a Law and Order episode whenever the mood strikes you since there is always one on somewhere in TV land pretty much 24 hours a day it seems!

painted maypole said...

ha ha ha! nothing like a little quality programing to lighten the mood, eh.

And Studio 60. You were missing some good stuff there. But now that it's off the air you're probably best to keep the TV off.