Review of Silent Venom (2009) by Van R — 07 Jan 2010

SILENT VENOM is--no surprises here--essentially snakes-on-a-sub. The U.S. Navy has sold an old submarine to Taiwan and Admiral Bradley Wallace (Tom Berenger of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR) assigns Lieutenant Commander James O'Neill (Luke Perry of THE FIFTH ELEMENT) to skipper the sub.

It seems that O'Neill disobeyed a direct order and he stands to lose his retirement benefits as well as his rank, but Wallace engineers a deal that will save the Lieutenant Commander both his rank and honor.

Naturally, our hero does not care to sail as a skipper on an unarmed sub. Meanwhile, on an island, Dr. Andrea Swanson (Krista Allen of EMMANUELLE, QUEEN OF THE GALAXY) and her unethical research assistant Jake Goldin (Louis Mandylor of RENEGADE FORCE) have been conducting research on venomous snakes so that they can provide the Pentagon with anti-toxins for troops in chemical warfare situations.

The Red Chinese decide to stage manuevers and the Pentagon needs somebody to pick up Swanson. You guessed it. The old sub is the closest thing to transport so Admiral Wallace orders our hero to let them hitch a ride.

The catch is that Dr. Swanson can neither divulge the nature of their research nor that they are bringing snakes onboard a submarine. Furthermore, Swanson has only a few bottles of anti-toxin that has never been tested so she does not know if it works.

No sooner have Swanson and Jack settled into the sub than the snakes get loose. A curious sailor is the culprit. SILENT VENOM is reminiscent of a 1974 made-for-television David Janssen thriller FER-DE-LANCE.

The bigger snakes are clearly computer-generated-imagery while the smaller snakes appear to be real snakes. Veteran exploitation filmmaker Fred Olen Ray of HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS, knows his craft well enough to generate a modicum of suspense out of the formulaic screenplay by Mark Sanderson.

The best scenes show both the real-life actors handling the snakes. Luke Perry has to remove several snakes from the neck of Krista Allen. SILENT VENOM is strictly an exercise in boilerplate suspense.

The ending is clever.