Curse II: The Bite (1989) (Italy/USA/Japan)

aka Blood Biter/The Bite

⭐️⭐️1/2

This plot sounds like it was written by a fucking child. A radioactive snake bites a man on his hand and the man’s hand turns into a venomous snake head that kills people and the man is also filled with snakes which he spawns and those snakes are also murderous and anyone he meets ends up dead because his hand is a lethal snake and he also has snakes in his body which kill. He also has a girlfriend who he runs away from so he can protect her but she loves him and wants to save him. See what I mean? That’s some fever dream logic that a child would come up with to explain to their aunt why they can’t take a bath while their parents are out for a much-needed date night. Needless to say, my kind of plot. So, Clark Newman (who is surprisingly not the love child of Bruce Abbott and Scott Bakula but did star in the Olsen Twins masterpiece To Grandmother’s House We Go) has a really bad snake problem and it’s proving to be a bigger problem for any poor sucker he meets along the way which has the local sheriff and his deputies hunt down the monster to put an end to all the terror while his girlfriend Lisa (lovely Jill Schoelen) just wants her beau back even though his diminishing health and mental stability has really put a damper on their relationship. Jamie Farr, (sadly not in drag) is an extremely helpful traveling salesman who knows a thing or two about snakes. It has nothing to do with 87’s The Curse which is fine by me because that movie ain’t all that great and did not have a snake/dog hybrid, Sydney fuckin’ Lassick as a squeamish hotel clerk or Bo fuckin’ Svenson as a podunk sheriff with a grudge. A wonderful dumpster monster movie exists here but there’s a hell of a lot of nothing you have to deal with because it always seems that these late 80s Italian co-productions forget to lean into the elements that make for a good time. Even more frustrating when those elements are blatantly there… I mean, a fucking snake-hand rips a doctor’s jaw off and one of our heroes is a guy who is trying to save the day because he really doesn’t want to get sued. Come on. That’s great. Damm shame the rest of the movie couldn’t be like the final ten minutes.