Imitating the success of a certain horror classic is quite easy. Everybody did it back in the early 80's. All you had to do was steal the basic concept of a great film and/or box office hit, add more nastiness and preferably some sleazy sequences as well, and you had yourself an insignificant but enjoyable horror movie. Ain't nothing to it. One thing that does require a lot of courage (and tasteless insanity, for that matter), however, is to simultaneously rip off TWO legendary horror classics even though their plots have absolutely nothing in common! The title of this shameless piece of 80's cheese reveals it all: we are dealing here with a cash-in of both "Jaws" AND "The Exorcist". How can you possibly blend the concept of animals on the rampage with satanic possession, I hear you ask? Well, you can't… Surely the first draft of the screenplay made this clear as well, but they went along and made the movie anyways. In a godforsaken rural town in Alabama, Satan suddenly and for no apparent reasons possesses a rattlesnake. Or maybe He simply just appears in the form of a virulent snake? Actually, that would explain why it suddenly turns into a King Cobra. I don't know, either that part of the script didn't get explained properly or I wasn't paying enough close attention. Numerous dead bodies, mutilated with giant gaping holes in their faces, have to pop before the local priest decides to come into action. He's a direct descendant of a family of Druids, so if anyone can exorcise this slithery venomous demons, it's him. In good old Jaws tradition the town's prominent council members also refuse to admit there's a problem, since they just opened a fancy dog-racing track and hope to lure many tourists with this attraction. "Jaws of Satan" is a delightfully inept and imbecilic low-budget horror flick, typical for the early 80's, with clumsy effects and laughable "stunts". This is the type of movie that wants us to believe one of the characters comes into face to face contact with a deadly snake, even though you can clearly spot the dirty Plexiglas that separates them. Another character, the female lead heroine, spends an incredibly long time on the bed with a snake whilst nothing happens. She calls her boyfriend for help, and even though he's in his motel room a couple of streets away and still needs to get dressed first, the snake patiently awaits his arrival before launching attack. There are a bunch of underdeveloped sub plots that lead nowhere, like a rapist biker chasing the heroine or a spiritual medium lady that can't even predict her own death. On a slightly more positive note, the snake-bitten faces of the victims are quite cool (although it's the exact same make-up repeated 6 times) and the rural Alabama filming locations are very enchanting. And yes, that cherubic little blond girl is indeed the future Kelly Bundy in her very first appearance.

(There are Spoilers) Almost dropping dead from fright Evelyn Downs, Diana Douglas, the president of the Green County Historical Society and part time Witch saw something in Father Tom Farrow's, Fritz Weaver, coffee cup that left her stunned and unconscious.Later the confused and befuddled Father Farrow is told by the Monsignore, Norman Llyod,of his church the horrible secret of Farrow's lineage. Father Tom's Great-great-great-great-great Granddaddy back during the middle-ages in jolly old England did a number on the local Druids who were in league with the Devil. For that his's family was cursed since then by the "Evil One" with death and destruction. Now it's his, Father Tom's, turn to pay for what his long ago ancestor in England did. The brood of snakes, Cobras and Rattle Snakes led by Satan himself, in disguise as a giant King Cobra attack, move with lighting speed and kill about a dozen residents of Green County. But when it came to kill their intended target, Father Tom, as well as the two co-stars in the movie Green County's hospital director Dr. Maggie Sheridan & Herpetologist Dr. Paul Hendricks, Gretchen Corbett & Jon Korkes,the snakes just laid down and seem to play dead. There was an incredible scene in the movie when Maggie is at home and takes a shower and then drys and puts on her nightgown and goes to bed. All this with a deadly Rattle Snake slithering around in her bathroom shower and bedroom within inches of her! Then for some unexplained reason the snake doesn't bother striking it's poisonous fangs into Maggie's body? It gets even more ridicules when Maggie finally, after what seems like a half hour, sees the snake and then calls her boyfriend Dr. Hendricks for help. Dr. Hendricks gets out of bed gets dressed runs to her house, which is about a mile away, and then after pinning the snakes head to the wall blows it's brains out! What was the snake waiting for all this time? For Hendricks to come to Maggie's rescue and kill it? Fritz Weaver looked like he would rather do something else then be in the movie. Weaver walks around during the entire film in a daze trying to figure how he ever ended up in "Jaws of Satan" in the first place. Maggie being a whistle-blower and trying to warn the public about the danger of the attacking snakes is almost kidnapped raped and murder by this psycho biker, Mike Smith the 34th. Smith the 34th was hired to stop her from letting the truth out by Green Country big business man Matt Perry, Bob Hanna. Perry has a lot to lose by the public being in fear and not venturing out with his dog track about to open with nobody showing up for the Grand Opening. This jerk was so determined to open the dog track that even after his 10 year-old daughter Kim, Christina Applegate, was bitten by a rattler at the track he still didn't want to have it closed down!Maggie is saved from the crazed biker by non-other then Satan himself wearing a King Cobra outfit. The movie "Jaws of Satan" comes to it's inevitable and non-surprising conclusion with Father Tom running to the rescue of both Maggie and Dr. Hendrick,who ended up trapped in the snake cave. Father Tom then does an Exorcism in both English and Latin causing the nest of vipers to catch fire and go back to where they came from.What makes the movie "Jaws of Satan" worth watching is to see the actors in it play their parts completely straight. Not realizing just how absurd the movie was until they actually saw it and by then it was too late for them to quit.

A carnival train lets loose a snake (or snakes) near a small Alabama town, which is just about to open a dog track as a hopeful economic booster. When people start turning up dead with strange bites, and others report seeing unusual snakes, most of the town can't put two and two together, but Dr. Maggie Sheridan (Gretchen Korbett) becomes suspicious (nothing gets by her!) that something weird is going on and wants to alert the town. She's excited enough about it that she'd also probably like to call in the National Guard, and maybe even nuke Alabama just to be safe. The Mayor, Grady Thorpe (Jack Gordon), and the dog track developer, Matt Perry (Bob Hannah), will hear nothing of it. Meanwhile, the local Priest, Tom Farrow (Fritz Weaver) comes to believe that the snakes just might be Satan, at least after the local witch looks at his coffee grounds. On the other hand, maybe it has something to do with that discussion he has with a church member about acid.Although I can find no literature related to the film to confirm this, it's virtually impossible for me to believe that Jaws of Satan (aka King Cobra) wasn't intended as a horror/comedy. Much of the dialogue and plot is simply too ridiculous to have been taken seriously. In any event, Jaws of Satan is a delight to watch, even if it is a poor film by traditional criteria. It was enjoyable enough to earn my coveted 5 out of 10 "so bad, it's good" rating.Within the first five minutes, director Bob Claver shows us what an amusingly confusing mess he has in store for us. Two men are on a carnival train that seems otherwise unpopulated. For some reason (either it wasn't stated very well or I was already falling asleep) one leaves to check on a crate. It moves in mysterious ways. The lock on the crate opens itself, and our carny is surprised to see a cobra appear. It bites him. Some invisible force then pushes him off the train (invisible forces are always a sign that you're in for a doozy or a film). Meanwhile, his buddy is bitten in the face by the same or another snake, or at least the snake bumps into the really dirty plexiglass they had in front of the camera, then the buddy dies on the spot. We cut to an outside shot of the train, which suddenly slows and stops. We're never shown the engineer or what happens to him, but presumably there was an engineer, something happened to him, and he stopped the train gracefully. Cue the audience jumping out of their seats.In an interview about the film, producer Bill Wilson said that the film was inspired by a true story circa 1955 that happened near Springfield, Missouri. A carnival train derailed, loosing countless snakes in the countryside. Many people were bitten and died. The way the incident is shown in the film is an indication of the kind of budget and technical finesse we're dealing with. Since Wilson and company obviously couldn't afford to have a train derail or crash, it simply stops, gently. We've only seen one snake up to that point, but within minutes, after just one more snakebite, Dr. Sheridan is ready to hit the panic button.Much of the film has the same non-sequitur logic and low-budget sensibility, making for some very funny scenarios. It should be clear from the title--and it's implied very early in the film--that Father Farrow ends up being right--Satan has something to do with the incidents (and there is a long, convoluted backstory about Father Farrow's family and some druids). However, the film's logic is so loose that it's never clear just how Satan is involved. Snakes that should be possessed are easily killed--often through methods such as blowing their heads off with guns. There are a number of different snakes, although not enough to ever create much suspense, and certainly not enough for the big blowout that you might expect for a finale. Is it a collective possession? We end up with a battle against one particular snake, so that doesn't seem to be the case, but then what was the deal with all of the other snakes in the film? It's best not to worry too much about this shady storytelling, and simply chuckle at the bizarre scenarios--such as an "assassin motorcyclist" who tries to chase down the whistleblowers to rape and/or murder them, or a mad chase through a cemetery where humans cannot outrun a slowly slithering beastie, or our heroes in peril because they have chosen to simply lie down, unbound, beneath the main villain in his lair, and so on. None of it makes much sense, but most of it is funny, especially when you add the consistently ludicrous dialogue.And yet, unbelievably, there are flashes of brilliance in the film. Cinematographer Dean Cundey finds a number of beautiful, symbolic shots. That probably had something to do with his extensive experience--prior to Jaws of Satan, Cundey had already been a cinematographer on films such as Halloween (1978), Rock 'N' Roll High School (1979) and The Fog (1980); he's understandably had a long, successful career since. Weaver is a delight as Father Farrow, being humorously irreligious as he tells off-color jokes, drinks, smokes and regularly refers to his faith as "a bunch of superstitious nonsense".I'd certainly recommend Jaws of Death, but only for fans of low-budget cheese and unintentional humor, despite its few intentional highlights. It's obvious that the producers were trying to cash in on a combo of two popular 1970s genres--religious (and especially possession) horror and nature run amok films. Obviously, there are many better examples of each genre to watch from the era, but none may be quite as funny as Jaws of Satan.

SPOILERS.I don't really know how it's possible to "spoil" this movie or two give two figs about it.Let me see. The plot. Okay. A rash of odd and lethal snakebites begins turning up in a small town, much to the puzzlement of the doctor played by Gretchen Corbett, looking mighty slim and much cuter than my doctor. Nobody else seems particularly bothered though, despite the fact that all the deciduous trees are bare and all good snakes should be comfortably hibernating. Never mind, though. The priest (Fritz Weaver) is losing his faith or his confidence or something. He boozes it up and doesn't seem to be having a lot of fun. No joke to be unpopular in a small town. Maybe it's partly because, although he seems to be Catholic in that he lapses into Latin at a critical point, he says the mass facing in the wrong direction. At any rate his ontological Angst seems to have drawn Satan to his little town, with Weaver as the bullseye. The original snake, a cobra, arrives by train. (Don't ask.)That's the Exorcist part of it. The Jaws part has to do with one of those money-mongering venture capitalists who wants to open a dog-racing track and doesn't want to alarm any visitors with all this talk about crazy snakes. How dumb can you get? He could have solved the entire problem simply by opening a mongoose-racing track.Oh, there's one of those expert academicians drawn in from the outside to provide us with herpetological knowledge that the other characters (and the audience) don't have. He really doesn't add much, in the way of herpetological expertise, plot development, or character. He's only needed once, to rush in and save Corbett from a beautiful specimen of the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, Crotalus adamanteus. I know. The snake seems to have changed from a cobra to a rattlesnake. This happens to be a rather wise rattlesnake, having followed Corbett into the shower and peeked at her, but it's a rattlesnake nonetheless. But then there are a LOT of different kinds of snakes used here. The, um, "king cobra" seems to have roused all of them. I spotted a common and harmless gopher snake among the mess. The herpetologist's curiosity isn't aroused by the presence of cobras, native to Asia and Africa, in a small American town, or what an Eastern diamondback is doing so far out of its range in the southeast US. At least one of the snakes is visibly killed on camera, which is pretty rotten if you ask me. The target should have been the screenwriters.But the plot is so full of holes that it's not really worth going into. Speaking of holes, the cobra accosts the priest in a graveyard and while he's trying to run away he falls into an empty freshly dug grave and can't get out. The cobra, it seems, has this thing about crucifixes. What would have happened to Weaver if he'd been a rabbi and pulled a Mogen David we can only speculate about. At one point, Corbett, wearing a neat red dress, is lying down in a cave full of snakes presided over by the Satanic Elapid. I don't know how she wound up on this rock altar. It's done offscreen. The priest shows up, waving his cross, removes the supine Corbett, which is a pity because she really looked very sacrificial, lies down in her place wearing a surplice, kisses his cross, encants some Latin mumbo jumbo, and the snake disappears in a pillar of flame. If he'd have done that at the beginning he could have saved all of us an hour. Oh, by the way, the little girl -- there always has to be a kid to naive to recognize danger signals -- is played by Christina Applegate.