Snakes On A Train

Donkey: There could be no denying that Transmorphers had upped the ante for Shitty Movie Night with production values that none of us had dreamed possible. A certain existential line had been crossed, as we had attained a level of knowledge not meant for the human brain. There was no going back. And like any junkie after their first hit, we were looking for more. We had spent a solid two weeks of sobbing ourselves into exhaustion while pondering how the hell someone has the fucking nerve to release a movie where you can’t hear half the dialogue, broken only by a futile attempt to fill the void with the tale of four assholes and their marvelous adventures in taint licking. It was then that Milobar found a movie that I had seen briefly on video store shelves some time earlier and had stored away in the recesses of my subconscious for future use…Snakes On A Train. The movie’s Hollywood inspiration, Snakes On A Plane, was a hilarious and outstandingly shitty movie in its own right, so we didn’t know how much lower this one could get. But never doubt, my friends. There is one rule that has been reinforced time and time again for us over the years; just when you think that you couldn’t possibly find something worse, you’ll always manage to sink to new lows. And like the song said, we had only just begun…

The Plot:

Donkey: Snakes On A Train is the tale of one night spent on a cylindrical metal tube-like method of conveyance separated into various subsections as it hurdled down a track, filled with similarly shaped reptilian creatures that represented various levels of venomous danger. I’m actually not sure what half of those words meant, so I could be wrong, but I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s a movie about snakes on a goddamn train.

This heartwarming tale belongs to Brujo and Alma, two illegal aliens from Mexico who have snuck across the US border in search of the same dream that so many of their countrymen flock to: meeting an uncle in Los Angeles that will cure Alma of a horrible Mexican curse that causes her to vomit snakes. Ah, that old story. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard it, I could buy and sell you all like the world’s third or fourth finest boxed wine. They manage to stowaway on a train headed to LA with a small group of other future gardeners and laborers, but tensions run high among the compatriots as the young couple can’t afford the same fare that the others paid in order to secure their safe passage. Despite a childhood friend of Alma’s named Miguel, who just happens to be on the same train, coming to their aid and paying their fee, the conflict eventually boils over when the others attempt to buy weed from them and discover Alma’s dark secret, forcing Brujo to use his Ultra-Mexican-Wizard powers to grapple with them. The distraction naturally sets up a series of events that result in Alma’s snakes escaping into the rest of the train. As those snakes begin to increasingly terrorize the scant group of fellow passengers, Brujo does his best to quietly gather them while working to prevent the train’s journey from being brought to a premature end. But time, circumstances, and elementary logic are not on his side, and eventually our fable comes to a horrifyingly ridiculous climax that will haunt the dreams of all those who dare to witness.

The Case For Greatness (aka The Lowlights):

Donkey: Snakes On A Motherfucking Train! This is a Mallacchi Brothers film, which therefore means that someone thought this film required a group effort. I can’t believe that two people are actually responsible for this.

Milobar: But only one vagina.

Donkey: Indeed. And their mother should be ashamed. Wait, hold on…I just looked this movie up on IMDB and it says that the movie was actually directed by “Peter Mervis as the Mallacchi Brothers”. What?! How the fuck can I take your movie seriously if you’re so embarrassed by it that you not only won’t use your own name, but need to further secure your anonymity by using two fake ones instead?

Milobar: The movie opens with Brujo dragging his girlfriend Alma across the desert. Man, I feel bad for these two actors. They didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.

Donkey: The shit we’ll make people do for a green card.

Milobar: People picking fruit manage to maintain more dignity than these two.

Donkey: As they trudge through the desert, the young couple reach a warning sign on a barbed wire fence, marking the US border. That’s it? That’s the US border? Maybe Lou Dobbs isn’t as big of an idiot as I had suspected. No, wait…he still is.

Milobar: The barbed wire is well spaced so it’s very easy to squeeze underneath it. Keeping the border safe, one illegal immigrant unable to crawl on their stomach at a time. After their daring dash across arbitrary national boundaries, Alma starts to get nauseous and they hunker down beside an old burned out truck.

Donkey: Brujo begins chanting and rubbing an ointment into Alma’s forehead, as well blowing smoke from a pipe into her face. I’m not really sure if this is supposed to be a bizarre healing ritual, or if he’s finally convinced her to try anal sex for the first time and is just prepping her up for a night of sand-filled ass loving by getting her crazy high.

Milobar: Come on, baby. Loosen up. It only burns like a bad rash the first couple of times. WINK. Of course her reaction, like most women I have propositioned with that exact same phrase, is to start coughing up green puke and… snakes? How the hell do you convince an actress to do this?

Donkey: Considering this woman’s role is composed of puking up bright green shit and snakes for almost the entire film, I’m going to guess that this was simply a better alternative than going back to working the Drive Thru at a Taco Bell. As they’re prepping for a sodolicious good time, a white dude acting as their coyote shows up and they tell him that they need to get to Los Angeles.

Milobar: Coyote Jim, worried about being spotted by the Minutemen, yells at Brujo and stomps their fire out. Of course, if I were in his shoes, I’d be less concerned about the fire and more concerned about the very apparent spotlight shining in the background.

Donkey: The coyote tells them about a train that’s conveniently headed to LA and offers to put them on it for three hundred dollars, just as the snake that Alma wretched up moments ago is seen climbing up his pant leg.

Milobar: “Something bit me, goddamn it!” For a snake that small, the bite mark is huge, and we are soon shown why. The snake apparently slithered inside of him. I don’t think the goddamn Mallacchi Brothers actually know how snakes work.

Donkey: That’s…um…awesome. And about thirty seconds later, he’s dead. Wow. Those snakes work fast, especially considering that was only his shin.

Milobar: Of course, the next thing we see is the train, and the Mexican couple trying to sneak on to it to get to LA.

Donkey: I’d love to know how they got there, considering that Coyote Steve didn’t tell them where they were or in what direction they needed to go to get to this station before he dropped dead. So unless these assholes have a GPS, that’s some pretty good guess work. As they’re looking for a way to sneak onboard, the couple comes across one of our favorite recurring Asylum actors (whom we’ve already seen playing a character in the doomed strike force that was left for dead at the beginning of Transmorphers), portraying another illegal alien named Chico. After begging and pleading, Chico lets them board the car that he and a group of fellow illegal stowaways have paid to hide in. Brujo and Alma are then confronted by the two others, Juan and Julio (goddamn, these are some thoughtful Mexican names) demanding that they pay their way. All seems lost when suddenly this random dude named Miguel comes to their defense. Who is this dude?

Milobar: Mexicans stick together.

Donkey: Apparently only one out of every four stick together. The rest are ready to throw sick countrymen out to die. It turns out that Miguel is a friend of Alma’s from childhood. Isn’t that just an amazing coincidence? Really, what the hell are the odds of that?

Next the movie takes a moment to introduce the rest of this motley cast, beginning with the train’s lone conductor, a man with a sweet handlebar mustache that connects up to his mutton chop sideburns, as he walks around collecting tickets. That is some awesome facial hair. Apparently this is his last shift before be begins an exciting new career as a grizzled 1890′s prospector. He collects tickets from the various passengers as they board and take seats. There’s two single white people, a man and woman who appear to be in their late thirties. You can just smell the awkward romance that’s going to ensue between these two, and it smells like a mixture of reheated Kraft Dinner and unrealized expectations. Man, these two are so fucking white that I suddenly feel like I’ve been suckered into watching an extended illegal Mexican Gap commercial. And that’s just reinforced by the next group to arrive; a gaggle of three disgustingly stereotypical teen-aged boys. Radical! They’re surfers just looking for that perfect wave and someone who will put up with their shitty acoustic guitar skills. But before we can focus on our hatred of them too much, in stumbles a family, consisting of two young parents with a very small girl.These two are obviously trapped in a loveless battle of apathy with a living reminder of their neglectful approach towards birth control yapping around their ankles.

Milobar: Enter my favorite victim, and a true diamond in the rough, Sad Titties. She and her friend Summer are talking about going to LA to become actors. Suddenly a comedy routine by David Cross springs in to my mind. They’re most likely going to be totally unsuccessful, stumble into the only thing more shameful than porn, an Asylum film, and have their acting wishes perversely granted by playing themselves in a movie about two clueless women traveling to LA to start an acting career.

Donkey: As the two twenty-something year old girls sit down, Crystal (lovingly known as Sad Titties) starts freaking out about this “Middle Eastern” dude that’s been staring at them from the other end of the passenger car, like, you know, forever.

Milobar: He doesn’t even look Middle Eastern. He looks like a white dude with a tan.

Donkey: And let’s put this in perspective. These two girls got on the damn train about thirty seconds ago. That doesn’t really warrant that kind of freak out, even if he had been looking at them for that entire thirty seconds.. It’s not like he’s been leering at them for over an hour, for God’s sake.

Milobar: And at the last minute some random cowboy shows up.

Donkey: A swarthy motherfucker with a shitty hat? Perfect. Finally we have all our players in this shitty ensemble. Let the assault on the very foundations of our reality commence. And now that all of our players have arrived, the train begins its journey and the movie turns back to Brujo and Alma.

Milobar: Alma, looking worse than the hooker bodies Blombo keeps in the trunk of his car, says that everyone has snakes inside of them. Brujo’s witty response? “But yours come out.” Okay, I’m about done with these two fucking morons.

Donkey: That’s so fucking deep that I’m reaching for my snorkel gear. Seriously, I need a wetsuit lest I freeze and drown in that goddamn philosophical lake of brilliance.

Milobar: Actually, if you believe that everyone has snakes inside of them, I would call that pretty FUCKING INSANE.

Donkey: While talking about how they’re getting to LA to meet up with Brujo’s uncle, it is revealed that they believe the uncle can put the snakes back inside of Alma and make her whole again. Before your brain melts and pours out your ears as you try to picture how that could possibly be done, let’s take a step back for a moment and think about that, because the very foundation of this conflict is just cocktastic. How is it that she throws up parts of herself that have converted into snakes and manages to live for more than thirty seconds? This chick has clearly been chugging along for what has probably been days. Hours at the very least. What internal parts of your body can you possibly lose and still live, even when it is just a part a time?

Milobar: Judging by the people in this movie, self respect, common sense, and shame.

Donkey: Well it’s not like you can puke out a large part of your liver and then just hit the town for a night of roller-disco dance fever. You’d be way more fucked up than this. And just to highlight my point, Alma goes into another gagging fit and again we see this chick throwing up more of the green Jell-O substance/snake combination. Seriously, how many times do we have to watch this?

Milobar: Glub glub glub! There’s always room for Jell-O!

Donkey: Sensing that there are Jell-O Pudding Pops to be had, our old friend Chico comes over to survey the scene. First he asks for weed for him and his men, believing Brujo and Alma to be dope smugglers. But once he discovers all the snakes that Brujo is toting along in jars, he freaks out.

Milobar: Our significantly less cursed Mexican friends seem to agree with us and decide to attack the snake lady, but Brujo blinds them by blowing dust in their face and then traps Juan and Julio in a conveniently placed cage that he secures with a magical rope covered in green vomit. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. If you’re a goddamn moron.

Donkey: Like so many of these shitty movies, they don’t even bother to address this in any way. I understand why Alma is puking up that shit, per se. But how the hell did he just throw that up? And why did it magically bind that rope? Are we not going to talk about this at all? Really? Fuck…fine. Moments later, Brujo chases down Chico as he tries to escape and they begin a dramatic fight scene between cars, as these loud, screeching images of the tracks keep fading in and overlaying the scene. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be symbolic, or some asshole’s idea of an artistic statement, but that’s just goddamn annoying. And after a very badly choreographed struggle, Brujo stabs Chico in the throat and kicks him off the train. So long, friend. See you in the next Asylum film.

Milobar: I’m surprised that Brujo didn’t have a catch phrase to yell out right then. Something like, “I guess this is your stop”, or “next stop, the ground!”

Donkey: With that situation temporarily resolved, our attention gets switched back to seeing the single white electrical engineer who keeps looking back at the only single white female in the passenger car. You can practically hear his thoughts out loud: how can I manage to show her my penis?

Milobar: There’s nothing like watching horribly awkward flirting on film.

Donkey: His great opening line is “do you have the time?” That’s a sweet move, and very true to real life, it’s followed by terrible and uncomfortable dialogue that’s not clever or interesting in the slightest. Put a gun to my goddamn head and end this. This isn’t funny or entertaining, and it’s not insightful into life or the human condition. It’s just goddamn frustrating to have to witness. If I want a goddamn touching romance between two idiots that closely mirrors real life, I’ll watch Dude, Where’s My Car? In the meantime, let’s get on to the fucking snakes with the bitey-bites. Finally, it starts to look a little more promising as the three teen-aged boys loudly enter the car and one of them has something that he can’t see slither past his leg. Of course, we don’t actually see anything either, as they don’t even so much as move the camera. There’s just a sudden dramatic blaring of music and we have to take his word as to why.

Milobar: Did that dude just say gnarly?

Donkey: Apparently these guys just rode in on skateboards from 1988. That’s rad.

Milobar: Bodacious!

Donkey: I’d like to take a moment to point out to our readers that by this point we can say with certainty that this train looks fucking nasty. Seriously. I understand that the rail industry isn’t doing very well but for god’s sake. This looks like it was just returning from Auschwitz when they stopped it to film a movie. Fuck, two of the four cars we see in this movie are full of garbage. What are they hauling? Where are they going? To the Los Angeles city dump? But with that tirade out of the way, the movie turns to the young family sleeping in their cabin, Mitch and Nancy along with their child, Lani. After Lani stumbles back from the bathroom, claiming that she saw a snake in there, Nancy tries to wake up Mitch and prod him to go check it out.

Milobar: “Mitch. Mitch!” Look asshole, Mitch is asleep. Okay? After being violently extricated from dreamland, Mitch groggily informs his spawn that there are no snakes on this train, and then asks how she thinks they would possibly get in. What do you mean how would they get in? It’s a goddamn train!

Donkey: Last I checked, this train was connected to the ground and it comes to stops for significant periods of time. It’s not a goddamn space station in orbit. An industrious snake could crawl up there on its own, even if you discount the very distinct possibility that it’s someone’s missing pet who brought it onboard and then lost it.

Milobar: Being an excellent father figure, Mitch ignores his daughter, rolls over to go back to sleep, and gives us a sweet shot of his tighty whities. Fuck, thank you for that.

Donkey: Sweet skid marks there, dude. Nancy gets up and checks the bathroom with their daughter, and after they leave, we get what is supposed to be a shocking and terrifying shot of a snake as it starts coming out of a roll of toilet paper. Fuck, how big do they think a roll of toilet paper is? There’s no way a snake could hide in there without you seeing most of it hanging out the other side.

Milobar: “Hey guys! If I didn’t know better, I’d say this roll of toilet paper was a snake.”

Donkey: Now as they’re settling back down to bed and the scene is about to cut away, we see that a snake is slithering under the covers into daddy’s bed. Ominous.

Milobar: After that dramatic and touching scene, Brujo takes a moment to finally reveal what is wrong with Alma. She’s been stricken with an ancient curse called… “The Snakes.”

Donkey: That’s insanely creative. He explains that she was originally supposed to marry a wealthy man but instead decided to run away with him, so her enraged family put this curse on her.

Milobar: Now admittedly, I’m not Mexican, but I think that might be a bit of an overreaction.

Donkey: As Brujo is revealing this intensely unbelievably premise to Miguel, Julio and Juan, who are still trapped in the cage which is being bound shut by the puke rope, taunt them from their cell. Rightly so, as these people and their goddamn story are about as worthy of respect as a child rapist, but if I were in a cage that was being held shut by a dude’s puke while his girlfriend is throwing up snakes every couple of minutes, I might just keep my goddamn mouth shut.

Milobar: I personally wouldn’t be trying to get out of that cage. They’re probably safer inside it.

Donkey: With that terribly insightful scene over, we turn back to Crystal and Summer sitting in the dining car, as Crystal is explaining how a guy named Mark, who is presumably one of their ex-boyfriends, gave them five thousand dollars to take something to a friend of his in LA. What it turns out that she’s carrying is a rather substantial package of coke in her purse. Not wrapped or hidden. Just sitting in her purse. I know that trains probably aren’t the pinnacle of security, but come on, you really thought it was a good idea to just try to carry that in your bag next to your lip liner? The scene ends with them noticing that the Middle Eastern dude is still following them, and then a random snake slipping by Summer’s boot. So in summary, these two have an intellectual capacity that barely keeps them from constantly drooling all over themselves. Thrilling.

As we turn once again to our Mexican friends, Miguel tries to convince Bujo to take Alma to see a doctor, as “they might be able to do some x-rays or something.” Yeah, because this is a very common ailment that any doctor can treat, one step down from the clap. A little penicillin and she’ll be fine.

Milobar: “Guts turning into snakes, eh? I’ve seen this before a hundred times. You just need a little bit of Robitussin and some warm milk.” Meanwhile the two Mexican dudes who were tied in a cage all of five feet away, have managed to escape without anyone noticing.

Donkey: Now that’s pretty fucking sneaky. Perhaps like people in so many other shitty movies, those guys have the famed ‘Ninja Teleport’ power. We catch up with Juan and Julio as they are looking at a bag that they stole from Brujo. Wait…they escaped AND managed to steal a fucking bag? Without being noticed? Fuck, these two would make better covert operatives than Remo Williams. As they riffle through the bag which contains the pipe that Brujo had been using to blow smoke into Alma’s face, they crack into a tin that they’ve pulled out, thinking that it’s weed. Of course, it actually turns out to be snakes. And naturally, one immediately crawls into Juan’s wrist.

Milobar: And there goes snake number two into Juan’s heterosexual life mate’s wrist.

Donkey: And in the great Asylum tradition, the audio for this scene, like some many others, is shit. The two of them are screaming and it is so loud that you’d think they had discovered a way that they could both deep throat the boom mic at once. Even at the lowest volume, it still seems like your television’s speakers are about to catch fire.

Milobar: Brujo arrives to save the da-HOLY SHIT! Did he just rip out that dude’s heart with his bare hands? Who the fuck is this guy? The Mexican, non-union equivalent of Superman?

Donkey: The amount of shit that this guy can do, with no explanation as to why, is getting fucking ridiculous. Once he’s collected the snake from Juan’s heart, he then uses a knife to retrieve the other one out of Julio’s forearm. Now that’s just goddamn neighborly of that snake to have stayed there, rather than traveling to his heart, seeing as Juan and Julio both got penetrated at about the same time. Speaking of which, a gradual ache in my lower intestine is really causing me to feel like this movie is penetrating me. And while Juan drifts off to whack that giant pinata in the sky, Brujo leaves Julio to suffer his fate, insinuating that now that he’s been violated by a cursed snake, his insides will make the same unholy transformation. Wait, if that’s true then why did Coyote Frank just drop dead? Why didn’t he end up being infected with ‘the Snakes’?

The movie once again returns to Crystal and Summer, who are arguing over the large bag of coke. When Summer demands that Sad Titties ditch the stash, Crystal reveals that she can’t get rid of it or give it back because she’s already spent three out of the five thousand dollars they were given for this. Why would you tell your friend that you were given five grand if you’ve already spent three of it? Why not just say that you were given two?

Milobar: Because she’s a fucking idiot.

Donkey: After undoubtedly leaving heaping, clogged toilets in the bathroom and taking part in an awkward exchange with Hoover the Cowboy, the girls sit down at a booth in the diner car only to have Julio stumble up to them, mumble something in Spanish, throw up a bunch of black shit, and wander out. Fuck, that will ruin your dinner.

Milobar: The lunch lady picks up the phone and says “Mr. Jenkins, he’s coming your way.” Who’s coming my way, Gladys? What the fuck are you talking about?!

Donkey: The only other sentence that the lunch lady says to this Mr. Jenkins is that she’ll keep her eyes open until the police come. What? Did someone call the cops in the last fifteen seconds that I just didn’t notice? Because I was pretty sure that no one’s done anything yet. But before the scene ends, Hoover the Cowboy plops himself down with the two young women and identifies himself as a cop.

Milobar: And it’s time to take Sad Titties for a little mano e breasto chat.

Donkey: Just before he takes her away, Summer says, “You don’t look like a cop, you look like a dealer.” Why, that’s a valid point you’ve got there, Summer. Gold star for you! Because no undercover cop has ever looked like a grease ball before. They all wear freshly pressed slacks, sport a cop mustache, and rock out in a hat that says “Undercover, bitches”. Well done. Have a cookie. But while we leave Summer to undoubtedly continue her groundbreaking research into Quantum Physics, the movie turns its focus back to our flirtatious single white people. As they regale each other with enchanting tales of their failed life skills, the conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Julio, stumbling around in his cursed condition.

Milobar: I wish somebody would interrupt this movie with something worth watching. But I guess a Mexican shaking like a crack head and puking up green Jell-O will have to suffice.

Donkey: The conductor puts Julio in a seat and then goes to call for help, as the two single white people look on in very typical ‘white’ fashion. “Golly gee whiz…someone should help that poor man. Fuck, not me, but someone should”. I love the fucking camera angles in this scene as the conductor is on the phone. It jumps from looking up at him upside down from under his chin, or down from directly above his head. What the fuck is that? There’s absolutely no way that I can concentrate on what he’s saying when I’m looking at him like this, not that he’s saying anything even remotely relevant anyway.

I’ve had about enough of this, and the movie agrees as the scene transitions back to Alma, who’s looking pretty damn rough as Miguel is trying to comfort her.

Milobar: What the fuck is he doing? He’s spraying deodorant on Alma and has wrapped her head up like she’s got a goddamn toothache.

Donkey: As Alma is beginning to realize that there is no way that she’s ever going to make it to LA alive, she declares that she doesn’t want to be thrown off the train. If she’s going to die, she wants to do it here. Really? Your’d rather die here on this rundown shitty train than outside in the fresh air and under an open sky? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be moved to some place even more luxurious, like a fucking garbage barge, or a pile of AIDS infested medical refuse?

Milobar: Fuck, if I were on that train I’d want to die too. Fuck this movie’s so goddamn boring. Seriously. However, the one redeeming scene this movie contains is coming up.

Donkey: Yep, the big pay off.

Milobar: The movie that created the legend. The legend that started a revolution! But before we get there, Brujo the Mexican samurai has decided to make his way to the engineer’s booth via the roof of the train to make sure no one stops this locomotive.

Donkey: Once they take those few moments to demonstrate that the people who made this movie clearly have no idea how hard it would be to navigate along the top of a moving train, we finally get to one of the greatest scenes in the movie, as the cowboy has sat down Crystal in a car all by themselves. “Are you going to arrest me?”, she asks. You’re carrying around almost a kilo of coke, you moron. What the fuck do you think he’s going to do?

Milobar: I’m hoping for a foot massage.

Donkey: But of course, Hoover offers to avoid pressing charges and make her file disappear if she gives him the money. Which she does…and then he’s suddenly making out with her. What the fuck was that? But it’s clear by the look on her face that this isn’t something anyone should be doing.

Milobar: She’s clearly disgusted. And yet she still lets him take her shirt off to give us all a peak at what we will forever know as “Sad Titties.”

Donkey: This is the worst type of nudity scene ever in the history of film. It clearly looks like she’s actually under duress the entire time she’s taking her shirt and bra off. There is obviously no acting involved here at all.

Milobar: She’s embarrassed and ashamed of herself. That’s so sexy.

Donkey: Once we all finish running off a batch of baby batter, we need to examine this from her point of view. It’s one thing to take your top off in a major Hollywood motion picture in the hopes that despite doing something you might find degrading, there’s a chance you might be noticed and be able to build a career out of it. But this is a goddamn Asylum movie. Other than us, there may be about a dozen other people who ever see this. So you’re putting yourself through this for absolutely nothing. And this so fucking awkward. She looks like she’s about five seconds away from bursting into tears and running off the set.

Milobar: Now that the Sad Titties have been clumsily fondled, it’s time for Middle Eastern Man to make an appearance. Who is Middle Eastern Man you ask? A more important question might be: Who the fuck cares? Because the writers of this shitty movie sure don’t. And as the tensions run high on the sexual molestation car, the movie cuts to an external shot that is quite obviously nowhere near the same train.

Donkey: I think if we actually paid attention and looked back at them all, we’d discover that every external shot in this movie is a different train. Once again we now turn back to the single white folks, as they watch Julio writhe in pain, still doing nothing themselves to actually help.

Milobar: Generic white chick, while watching Pedro Mexicano in his death throes, incredulously asks the conductor if he’s getting a doctor. We’re on a fucking train that’s IN MOTION. Do you think I have a doctor in my back pocket? Get the fuck out of here.

Donkey: What a great fucking scene. Goddamn this movie is entertaining. We return to Brujo the Mexican Merlin attempting to prevent the train from stopping, as we first see the engineer of the train that is…smoking crank? Fuck, what?!

Milobar: He’s toking that shit out of a light bulb. He’s all fucking angry as shit, even before the Mexican Witch Doctor shows up. Brujo, confronting his arch nemesis Retarded White Guy on Crack, jumps down and firmly asserts, “this train can’t stop!” To which Crackhead McDoogle’s response is: “wrong bitch!” At least he didn’t claim to be the Juggernaut.

Donkey: This is so fucking random, and so AWESOME. This guy’s shaking and tripping out. He takes one swing at Brujo, Brujo pulls his knife, and then without being so much as touched, the engineer just passes out on his own. And as Brujo is smashing one single piece of equipment (how exactly does he know which one to smash?), they flash a random shot of the engineer’s belt buckle, which is a badly painted picture of a puppy, and then to a photograph of him and another dude standing together without shirts on. Wait…WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? A few moments later, after the conductor discovers that the engineer is passed out with smashed equipment and tries unsuccessfully to call for help, the movie starts to ratchet up the action as the group of young punks begin to notice some of the many snakes that are on the train. As two of them are standing there looking at a snake slithering out from between two seats, the one asks the other what that is.

Milobar: What do you mean what is it? It’s a goddamn snake!

Donkey: Apparently he thinks it could be a goddamn iguana.

Milobar: How do you not know what a snake looks like? How do you confuse a snake with anything else? What goddamn country is this moron from? As the single white duo and the young punks flee to another car, they come across the babbling conductor screaming “Runaway Train!” Yeah, you said that eight times already: Fucking runaway train, we fucking get it.

Donkey: Suddenly a man-sized snake that I believe is supposed to be what Julio transformed into, attacks and kills the conductor. As the others flee in terror, one of the young punks runs into another a car all by himself, where we can assume that he meets a violent end, as we see him turn around to the sound of a snake hissing, only to see bright red food coloring splattered across a wall.

But just as the movie starts to warm up to the point where one might actually think to look for a pulse, it dies again immediately and goes straight back to hell, as it turns our attention to the Middle Eastern man, who has taken Hoover by gun point back to the same car that all the Mexicans were hiding in to begin with. The Middles Eastern dude, apparently named Barat, puts Hoover in the same cage that was used to hold the others captive with puke rope and tells him to strip so that when the others walk into the car, they’ll see how gay he is. What? Where did that come from?

Milobar: Who in their right goddamn mind is going to walk into that train car?

Donkey: Now that Barat the Middle Eastern Sensation has Hoover pinned in a cage, undressing, and has declared that he’s going to send him to Hillbilly Heaven, he moves his gun right up to Hoover’s face and fires. Of course, even from less than a foot away, he somehow manages to only shoot him in the cheek, grazing him at best. Shit, my jaw!

Milobar: Unexplained Middle Eastern Man will fuck up the way you eat breakfast, BELIEVE IT.

Donkey: As Barat saunters away, quite pleased with his obvious shortcomings, he runs into Miguel and Alma. Apparently they were cowering in a corner of the room the whole time and just weren’t noticed. That seems pretty fucking stupid, but I don’t think it would really be fair to expect any different at this point. As Barat raises his gun to take out the witnesses, Hoover slumps out of the cage and shoots Barat in the neck, who stumbles around to return fire. Hoover slumps, but you can’t be sure if that’s because he’s been shot further, or if he’s in the process of shitting his pants. Was that supposed to have hit him?

Milobar: No, I’m pretty sure that he just died of shame. I know I’m pretty fucking close. I’m seriously considering not posting this review.

Donkey: Once Barat and Hoover have finished emptying their guns and mercifully managed to kill each other, we see that they have unwittingly unleashed all of Alma’s remaining snakes.

Milobar: And Sad Titties is still just sitting in the sexual molestation car, waiting for The Groping Cowboy to make his triumphant return.

Donkey: And now that shit has really hit the fan, it’s time for a bunch of quick shots of the action. First we see Nancy, the young mother, as she tries to wake Mitch, pulling back his blankets and discovering that he’s dead and is apparently cuddling with the snake murderer. That’s just touching. But then of course, snakes attack Nancy and she’s killed. Next we cut to Summer, as she hears a shriek and discovers Crystal in a passenger car just fucking surrounded by snakes. She throws her jacket over one of the snakes and Crystal jumps over it, escaping all too easily.

Milobar: Brujo discovers that Alma is missing and that even more snakes are loose, so he runs through the train trying to gather up everything as Alma continues puking up lime Jell-O and snakes everywhere.

Donkey: And this scene just keeps going and going and going. Fuck, we get the point. He’s looking for snakes. Fast forward…

Milobar: After watching both her parents being devoured by snakes we see the little girl huddling in fear by herself.

Donkey: Just when you think that witnessing her parents die is the worst thing that you could possibly subject this girl to, suddenly a giant snake appears and starts to devour her, with blood fucking spraying everywhere. Jesus!

Milobar: It’s basically just swallows her whole.

Donkey: And legs first at that, so that you can hear her scream in horror the entire time. That’s fucking brutal. I think that’s one of the most vicious things I’ve ever seen.

Milobar: Women screaming, a Mexican Dude covered in snakes and puking up green shit everywhere, a twenty year old girl who has been coerced into a rough tit fondling; it’s like a night out on the town with Blombo. Excellent.

Donkey: Finally the movie cuts back to Brujo discovering Miguel and Alma. He kneels by Alma to comfort her and check on her condition, only to discover that it’s too late. Alma has grown fangs for some reason and has gone past the point of no return. They start to have a rather pointless and unimaginative discussion about heaven, all the while Miguel is standing a few feet away, facing off again the giant snake that used to be Julio. He’s just hitting the snake with a frying pan over and over as it just looks at him, and taking it seemingly without complaint. This is goddamn ridiculous.

Milobar: This dude is awesome. He’s still just smacking that snake in the face. But seriously, I really want to know how much you have to pay an actress to stuff a snake in her mouth.

Donkey: Judging from this movie, not much.

Milobar: They probably pay her with a goddamn bologna and processed cheese sandwich.

Donkey: And now the movie turns into pure insanity. Alma turns into a massive snake that immediately turns on Brujo, eating him whole. Once it swallows that greasy, burrito flavored lump, it smashes out the wall of the passenger car and manages to escape outside. The next shot shows it moving along the roof of the train, and for some reason the snake is now fucking huge. The very next shot shows the snake about to attack the train and, you guessed it, the Alma snake has now grown to the size of a fucking entire fucking train. Sweet, mercifully Robert Urich! I don’t know how much more of this I can take. But just as I think that my cries for mercy have been heard, another staggeringly blow reigns down. The snake STARTS TO EAT THE FUCKING TRAIN. Beginning at the front, it just chomps away and swallows the whole thing, car by car. Screaming in terror almost as loud as our laughter, our survivors somehow realize enough about what’s going on to run through the train, heading towards the back as it’s being devoured. Once they make it to the end and open the rear exit door into the night sky, they start arguing about whether or not they can jump off the back to the ground below.

Milobar: The camera shot makes it look like it’s a huge drop, but it’s just a fucking train being swallowed by a giant snake. How high could it be? What the fuck am I talking about? Why would I expect this movie to start making sense now?

Donkey: I really don’t understand how high up they’re expecting us to believe that these people are. But still, they’re exclaiming no, it’s too far. They can’t do it. But finally, as the Alma snake is bearing down on them, they manage this massive leap just in time for the train to finish being consumed.

Milobar: Acting fast, the lone surviving Mexican, who spent most of the film stumbling around in the background and being useless, uses a glowing amulet to summon a fucking vortex, which sucks the snake up into the sky on a magical trip to the land of Oz.

Donkey: What, are all goddamn Mexican peasants wizards? What the fuck is that? There was nothing at any point in this movie that pointed to Miguel having any kind of magical knowledge or abilities. And as we watch that giant snake soar higher and higher into the air, all I can think of is a middle class white family in Iowa, sitting down outside for a nice family picnic as a long cylindrical shadow begins to form over all of them, gradually getting larger while they stare up in complete confusion.

Milobar: The experience that is Snakes on a Train ends with the survivors standing on solemnly on the train tracks. As they wearily begin their slow walk towards safety we see a shot of Sad Titties’ leg, and we are very ominously shown that she has been bitten. As if to suggest there might be a sequel. And that’s it. That’s the end. That was fucking ridiculous.

The Verdict:

Donkey: I don’t understand this movie. It’s based on a Hollywood film with a very simple plot: a witness is on a plane, heading back to give incriminating testimony, so the criminals load that plane with poisonous snakes to make sure that he never arrives at his destination. Simple and easy to do. Compare that with this fucking ridiculous mess. A Mexican chick with a curse that causes her to puke up snakes as she gradually becomes one herself. Not only is that so fucking stupid that the film should be mandated to wear a helmet at all times, but it’s far more difficult to actually pull off. When you’re dealing with a budget that is best measured in pesos, why the fuck would you complicate your lives like that? That’s like someone seeing their neighbor make their own slingshot and deciding that you’re going to one up them by building an atomic warhead in your garage using Silly Putty, an irregular can of pineapple chunks, and love. And if you’re going to do it this way, at least make it somewhat entertaining. The first seventy minutes of this movie is absolute tedium, redeemed only by the last twenty minutes that made me laugh so hard that I almost puked coat hangers. Still, that’s a high price to pay. I give this movie three and a half handlebar mustaches out of five Mexican wizards.

Milobar: Let’s get something straight right now: people do not have fucking snakes inside of them! That statement alone is so goddamn crazy it makes me want to punch myself in the ear for listening to it. That being said, it’s hard to believe someone had the balls to write this piece of crap, let alone commit it to film. So there’s an ancient curse called ‘The Snakes’ that transforms a person’s inner organs into, well, snakes. Those snakes in turn, upon biting other people, pass on the curse and then the cycle repeats ad nauseum. I’d love to show a few people at The Asylum a graph of exponential growth because, barring the off chance that some random Mexican has a magical amulet that can send all the snakes to Utah, you’ve pretty much just fucked yourself. Although I do have to give them some credit for the titties. I’m sure it wasn’t easy convincing some random chick to take her shirt off for thirteen dollars and a granola bar. I give this one 8 awkward sexual situations out of 12 children devoured whole.

What We Learned:

Milobar: Are you fucking kidding me? What haven’t I learned from this movie? Every Mexican is a wizard. Train engineers? Crack heads. Some women are so desperate to be actors they’ll give you two thousand dollars AND let you awkwardly fondle their breasts. If you ever get cursed with ‘The Snakes’ you better have an uncle in LA or you are fucked. But most importantly, all it takes is a big heart, a little luck, and a ridiculously and conveniently placed magical amulet to save the day.

Donkey: I’ve never understood how the extreme right wing of our North American society managed to justify their fear and hatred of outsiders. Now I know. They’re apparently looking at something like this as an educational film warning us of the dangers that can rise from the south. Way to go, Asylum. For your next movie, why don’t you just try to convince everyone that Latvian immigrants are all thieving lepers who will stop at nothing to give our daughters a fatal urinary tract infection.

Don’t forget to check back every Tuesday for a new fresh review! Next week shittymovienight.com presents: The THRILL of Gymnastics, the KILL of Karate, GYMKATA!

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