Snake Creek has no budget, but It’s not really supposed to. Styled and executed like a movie from a long-expired era, it’s not the lack of money that bogs down the quality.  It’s also not the cinematography. There are some lovely shots of the river setting and environment. It also has one of my favorite, all-time terrible-looking practical snakes. So where does Snake Creek go wrong? And where did it surprise me?

• Directed and Written by: Charlie Steeds
• Starring: Adam Bash. Jared Hasmuk. Lukas John

The Plot

Like most survival movies, Snake Creek follows a standard formula: a small group of friends end up in a perilous situation due to their own poor decisions. Since the core cast is small, the script needs to introduce additional characters to up the body count and pad out the story.

With a lean cast and a simple story—in this case, man vs snake—the details have to be razor sharp and engaging from the beginning. There’s no room for error. And the fewer people your audience is spending time with, the more they have to be relatable, not likeable. There is a difference. The problem with Snake Creek is that most of these characters either have no personality or are deeply unpleasant to spend time with.

I’m sure they have names; they use them multiple times. And yet, I had to look them up to write this. Kevin gets bitten in the face at some point and that becomes his main characteristic. Bill gets shot in the arm. He’s also not the bravest or most outgoing of the group. Patrick is an asshole. This whole trip is his idea as part of some grand plan to recapture his youth and glory days.

These aren’t characters. They are stereotypes loosely assembled for the purpose of making artificial conflict. The asshole and the coward fight even before the snake starts eating people. What really bothered me is that there is a hint of something genuine in Patrick’s character.  He’s the man-child trying to escape responsibility for every part of his life, and his choices would probably be familiar to a lot of people.  When I say bothered me, I do mean in a good way. I recognized this man, and I deeply wanted him to be eaten.

The Beauty of Indie Horror

There isn’t a lot of logic in this kind of movie. If you’re looking for solid, tight narrative and internal consistency, or even mild scientific accuracy, this is going to cause you some problems. If you want some good, old-fashioned evil redneck stereotypes mixed in with your giant snake movie, you’ll probably be pretty satisfied.

There are some rather humorous nods to Deliverance, a clear inspiration to some of the characters here. The director clearly knows what kind of movie he’s making. This isn’t high art or a political statement. But, there are some interesting moments, nonetheless. See, in addition to Deliverance, there’s a healthy amount of Texas Chainsaw Massacre here, too.

The Inspiration

In fact, if you leave the snake out of this, there’s a lot to compare to TCM. The hillbillies are a family with a dead way of life who are holding onto something they need to let go of. Woody, the main hillbilly we see, keeps repeating, “This is just how we do things out here”.  

Based on the clothing and styling, Snake Creek looks like it could also take place in the ‘70s or early ‘80s.  It could be later, but the prevalence of super short shorts on the men kind of leads me to that era. While this wouldn’t be as significant as the post-war era of TCM, it deficiently roots Snake Creek in a turbulent economic time. It would also make sense for the years of isolation and the decline of the traveling circus that was part of the hillbilly’s lineage. In short, both movies are about families forced to contend with dying ways of life through brutal methods. One is a classic, and the other has a giant rubber snake.

Is It Good?

Which is not to say, the giant snake movie isn’t worth watching. The end is much better than the beginning, and at just over an hour it’s easy to get in and out of. Bill gets a real character arc, and Patrick gets what he deserves.  If I was actually going to complain, I would say that the only female character getting no dialogue and getting eaten in the first like ten minutes wasn’t the best for me. But that’s a minor quibble.

Final Thoughts

If you watch a movie called Snake Creek, you’re pretty sure what you’re signing up for. Maybe more people could have been eaten by snakes. Maybe the snake could have looked better. Would these things have changed my appreciation of what they made? Maybe. But it also would have changed the spirit of what was being made. This is an exploitation movie, and it’s important to view it as such.  In short, the dialogue is cheesy, the effects are practical and homemade, and it’s a total labor of love. I’ll always be a fan of that.