- Directed by Dustin Ferguson
- Written by Josh Price and Lee Turner
- Stars: Mel Novak, Brinke Stevens, Dawna Lee Heising
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
- Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13352012/?ref_=tt_mv_close
Synopsis
We start in the desert, where we see a rattlesnake nest. We then move to a man going on a peaceful walk in the desert with his camera. He finds the rattler nest and leans in closer for a better photo, but then he falls in as credits roll.
Mike and Jessica make out in a tent and we get a view of the tent from outside in “rattler-vision.” Mike gets a phone call and leaves the tent. The snakes kill the man, and Jessica calls the cops before she dies too.
The young cop doesn’t believe Jessica’s story about a swarm of rattlesnakes, but the grizzly old sheriff remembers forty years ago when it happened before. We get a flashback forty years ago to a couple of kids playing in the desert. It’s actually re-used footage from the 1976 film, “Rattlers.” The snakes are chemically altered by the government.
The sheriff goes to talk to the Commissioner who wants to cover the whole thing up, and we get another flashback as the rattlers kill all the farmer’s livestock… and the farmer. A woman calls the plumber to come out and fix her water heater, which isn’t working. He crawls under the house to get to work, and well, you know. Meanwhile, the woman takes a bath (with no hot water) and, well, you know. A couple of soldiers get a flat tire on their Jeep and get out to fix it, and well… Then we switch to a guy shooting at cops and a general and then he starts throwing grenades for crazy reasons. We finally switch back to the present, and the Commissioner wants to cover it all up. “I’m sure it was just a random attack,” he says.
The deputies interview a herpetologist. Could the CT-4 mutagen be at work here? It’s supposed to degrade after ten years, so it couldn’t still be that, could it? Meanwhile a woman takes a bath and the snakes invade again! A group of five herpetologists go out to the desert to search, but they can’t find any snakes. The sheriff goes to a construction site. There are some issues, but it’s all been cleared through the Commissioner.
It’s the Fourth of July, and it’s time for fireworks! Everyone goes out to the field and puts down their blankets to watch the big show. We see the rattlesnakes swarming and attacking all the visitors to the park. The excavation along with the methane leak has caused the CT-4 to mutate into CT-5, which is obviously much worse! They decide to gather some explosives and blow up the source.
They all head out to the nest to blow it up, but that goes badly. Will anyone survive?
Commentary
The trick of incorporating a film from the 70s into a modern film has happened before with “Moon of the Blood Beast” also from Dustin Ferguson. It feels a lot more appropriate here, as the old film is used as flashbacks, not simply filler on a character’s TV set. The variations in the visual quality of the two film makes it obvious what we’re seeing, as the new footage is all clear and sharp digital video, and the old film is, well, old film.
There’s a lot of the same elements and actors here as in other Ferguson films, but this one does feel like it’s a step up from the others as his style evolves. If you’re looking for a fun low-budget film, you could do a lot worse than Rattlers 2.