Tag Archives: snakehead fish

Bring your hip waders for Snakehead Swamp on SyFy!

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Snakehead Swamp SyFy

I think I saw this dude riding the bus last week…


[adrotate banner=”1″]This year is the 10th anniversary of when SyFy (then known as SciFi Channel) aired two separate snakehead fish original movies in the same year: Frankenfish and Snakehead Terror. What better way to celebrate this anniversary than with another SyFy snakehead film, Snakehead Swamp!

Snakehead Swamp stars Ayla Kell(Make It or Break It), Antonio Fargas(Starsky and Hutch), Terri Garber(As the World Turns), Dave Randolph-Mayhem Davis (Heebie Jeebies and Ghost Shark), and Sloane Coe (Ghost Shark). It’s directed by cinematographer Don E. FauntLeRoy, who also directed Anaconda 3 and 4 and Bering Sea Beast. Writer Greg Mitchell (Official site) has only one other film credit, Amazing Love, but has several books for sale.

The plot:

The Big Easy gets a shake up when snakehead fish terrorize Louisiana’s swamp

Yep. Okay. As this is another Louisiana film, it will be packed with local actors you’ll recognize from all sorts of recent productions taking advantage of tax benefits. Perhaps the snakehead fish will be trying to devour that, in a metacommentary on film production. Or more likely they’ll just eat a bunch of random people, and that will be fun, too!

Snakehead Swamp premieres June 28th on SyFy!

via SyFy

Frankenfish (Review)

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Frankenfish


2004
Starring
Tory Kittles as Sam Rivers
K.D. Aubert as Eliza
China Chow as Mary Callahan
Matthew Rauch as Dan

Two Sci-Fi channel movies in 2004 explored the dangers of Snakehead fish becoming gigantic and devouring people en masse. The first reviewed here was Snakehead Terror, and now we move on the the second entry on the Snakehead Double Feature, Frankenfish. Instead of being normal Snakeheads, these snakeheads are big because of Genetic Engineering, thus giving the Franken- part of the title a double meaning. (Frankenfish is a common nickname for Snakeheads, as they can walk on land for a limited time.) The traditional Sci-Fi channel elements are proudly displayed here as well, though in different amounts as the literal deluge of movies forces them to rotate in and out a few of the elements to make the films less cookie cutter, the results being similar to adding different colored frosting to identical cakes. The better cake is the cake with the prettier outward design. Frankenfish holds up better than the competition, though it is a tight race. At the end, there will be a chart for easy comparisons.

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Snakehead Terror (Review)

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Snakehead Terror

Snakehead Terror
2004
Starring
Bruce Boxleitner as Sheriff Patrick James
Carol Alt as Lori Dale
William B. Davis as Doc Jenkins
Chelan Simmons as Amber
Juliana Wimbles as Jagger
Ryan McDonell as Luke
Snakehead Terror

In 2002, Northern Snakeheads were found in the wild in the Washington, DC area, in a pond near Crofton, Maryland. The Snakeheads are a non-native species with no known predators in the area, and are considered an ecological menace because they are pervasive carnivores and would decimate fish populations. Snakehead fish are not only predators that eat almost anything, but they can survive outside of water for up to a few days. The original hysteria died down after the lake was poisoned and drain, but the snakeheads have been popping up again more recently. This film plays off of the fears of the original, and turns it into the classic “Monsters Attack!” plotline familiar to Sci-Fi channel movies, as well as Science Fiction movies for the past 80 years. In fact, there are two(!) Snakehead movies running around on Sci-Fi channel, Snakehead Terror is joined by Frankenfish, which we’ll be going over next. (This film was the first part of the double feature) As can be imagined, there are many similarities between these two films. They both share properties with the tried and true formulas of the monster attacks movies, which most, if not all, of the movies produced cheaply by Sci-Fi channel give us again and again.
Snakehead Terror
In an actual neat-looking opening, news stories and newspaper clippings of the snakehead in the lake are glossed over, giving us a crash course background of information, or a refresher for those of us familiar. Then we cut to TWO YEARS LATER. A hunter and his dog (who I think is named Hunter) are in the Maryland forest, when Hunter comes across a mutilated bear. The dog Hunter sees the tail of a fish flopping away, and gives chase into the nearby lake. Old Hunter Guy (later named Ray Wilkins) follows, but he’s too old to keep up. Hunter the dog enters the lake, and is quickly chomped by something in the water. “BOOOO!!!” for the dog death! Hunter Ray Wilkins catches up to what’s left of his dog, and he’s soon chowed down upon as well.

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