Sand Serpents is set in the remote Afghan desert where Lieutenant Richard Stanley (Jason Gedrick) & his small troop of marines are escorting engineer Captain Jan Henle (Tamara Hope) to a sapphire mine to assess whether it's still operational & worth taking control of, while at the seemingly abandoned mine the marines are attacked by hostile Taliban soldiers & are taken hostage. Awaiting their fate the marines are surprised to find everything go very quiet & the Taliban soldiers to have completely disappeared, the marines soon discover that the fighting & explosions above ground have woken giant 100 foot long ancient prehistoric worm like monsters that like to eat people. Stranded in the Afgahn desert at the mercy of the Taliban & giant mutant worms the marines have to figure out a way to get to safety...
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Jeff Renfroe & is yet another original Sy-Fy Channel creature feature that could have been great but ends up falling way short, Sand Serpents is a sort of mixture of Tremors (1990) with it's huge underground mutant people eating worms & Black Hawk Down (2001) as a group of marines are stranded at the mercy of the Taliban & left to fend for themselves until help arrives. I know those two films are world's apart & it's difficult to imagine such a mix but here it is, it's called Sand Serpents & it's not every good. As expected little or no explanation for the mutant worms are given & oddly the script actually spends more time on the conflict between the US marines & the Taliban & relegates the Sand Serpents to a sub-plot, the Sand Serpents are nothing more than one more obstacle to overcome in order to escape & don't really get much screen time or do anything other than cause the ground the rumble a lot & eat the occasional soldier. The war aspect of the script is hardly great either, although more time is spent on it the usual broad clichés are brought up like countering the idea that Afghanistan should just be nuked without remorse or the assumption that every Afghan is a terrorist. There are no deep political or social statements here, the character's are flat & you don't care who lives or dies & in fact at the end when the Lieutenant sacrifices his own life for no apparent reason (the whole flag waving patriotic heroism of the US & it's soldiers is the clear message) I couldn't have cared less. At a little under 90 minutes long Sand Serpents does drag at times although the pace isn't too bad, I think focusing on the Afghan war aspects & somewhat ignoring the giant mutant worm monsters was a mistake. Then again if I'm being cynical less giant mutant worm monsters equals less expensive CGI computer effects to pay for...
The film looks nice enough as far as Sy-Fy Channel flicks go. The desert looks like, well, a desert I suppose & the marines uniforms & weapons look authentic enough too. As already mentioned the Sand Serpents themselves are somewhat neglected, all they ever do is pop their heads out of the ground & sort of sway around a bit. As it was made for television don't expect any blood or gore as there isn't any.
With a supposed budget of about $1,800,000 & filmed entirely in Romania the production values are decent, the special effects are alright actually & it's quite well made for a film of it's type. The acting is OK from a cast of people I have never seen or heard of before.
Sand Serpents is not that great, it's better than many original Sy-Fy Channel creature features but that ain't saying much, an awkward mix of monster & war film that doesn't quite come together as it has too much clichéd war drama & not enough giant mutant worm action. Hard to recommend.
This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Jeff Renfroe & is yet another original Sy-Fy Channel creature feature that could have been great but ends up falling way short, Sand Serpents is a sort of mixture of Tremors (1990) with it's huge underground mutant people eating worms & Black Hawk Down (2001) as a group of marines are stranded at the mercy of the Taliban & left to fend for themselves until help arrives. I know those two films are world's apart & it's difficult to imagine such a mix but here it is, it's called Sand Serpents & it's not every good. As expected little or no explanation for the mutant worms are given & oddly the script actually spends more time on the conflict between the US marines & the Taliban & relegates the Sand Serpents to a sub-plot, the Sand Serpents are nothing more than one more obstacle to overcome in order to escape & don't really get much screen time or do anything other than cause the ground the rumble a lot & eat the occasional soldier. The war aspect of the script is hardly great either, although more time is spent on it the usual broad clichés are brought up like countering the idea that Afghanistan should just be nuked without remorse or the assumption that every Afghan is a terrorist. There are no deep political or social statements here, the character's are flat & you don't care who lives or dies & in fact at the end when the Lieutenant sacrifices his own life for no apparent reason (the whole flag waving patriotic heroism of the US & it's soldiers is the clear message) I couldn't have cared less. At a little under 90 minutes long Sand Serpents does drag at times although the pace isn't too bad, I think focusing on the Afghan war aspects & somewhat ignoring the giant mutant worm monsters was a mistake. Then again if I'm being cynical less giant mutant worm monsters equals less expensive CGI computer effects to pay for...
The film looks nice enough as far as Sy-Fy Channel flicks go. The desert looks like, well, a desert I suppose & the marines uniforms & weapons look authentic enough too. As already mentioned the Sand Serpents themselves are somewhat neglected, all they ever do is pop their heads out of the ground & sort of sway around a bit. As it was made for television don't expect any blood or gore as there isn't any.
With a supposed budget of about $1,800,000 & filmed entirely in Romania the production values are decent, the special effects are alright actually & it's quite well made for a film of it's type. The acting is OK from a cast of people I have never seen or heard of before.
Sand Serpents is not that great, it's better than many original Sy-Fy Channel creature features but that ain't saying much, an awkward mix of monster & war film that doesn't quite come together as it has too much clichéd war drama & not enough giant mutant worm action. Hard to recommend.