Creatures
Giant Komodo Dragon
Giant King Cobra
Giant Leeches

Alternate Titles
KvC

Country
USA

Director
Jim Wynorski

Writers
Jim Wynorski
Bill Munroe

Story

“After being fed a growth formula by the military, the native komodo dragons and king cobras grow to giant size and begin devouring everything on their remote island home. Determined to cover up their mistake, the military plan to bomb the island, unaware that a team of environmentalists are trapped inland with the remaining scientists.”

Cast

• Michael Paré – Captain Mike A Stoddard
• Michelle Borth – Dr Susan Richardson
• Ryan McTavish – Jerry Ryan
• Renee Talbert – Carrie
• Jerri Manthey – Sandra Crescent
• Ted Monte – Ted
• Paul Logan – Major Frank

Creature Connections

• Amphibious 3D – Michael Paré
• Camel Spiders – Jim Wynorski
• Dinocroc vs Supergator – Jim Wynorski
• Dinosaur Island – Jim Wynorski
• Copperhead – Phillip J Roth
• Gila! – Jim Wynorski
• Jersey Shore Shark Attack – Ted Monte
• Mega Piranha – Paul Logan
• Piranhaconda – Jim Wynorski
• Raptor – Jim Wynorski, Ted Monte
• Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre – Jim Wynorski
• Silent Venom – Ted Monte
• Super Shark – Ted Monte
• The Curse of the Komodo – Jim Wynorski, Ted Monte
• The Wasp Woman – Jim Wynorski
• Venomous – Ted Monte

Gallery

Review

Guest Reviewer: Cineraptor

Komodo vs Cobra is a creature film from 2005. Directed and co-written by genre veteran Jim Wynorski (Gargoyle, Raptor, Curse of the Komodo), KvC proved to be one of the first in a long line of creature vs creature films. Since release KvC has gotten bad press because of its poor use of CGI, poor scripting, dodgy acting and bad plot. As such many wouldn’t even give it a second glance, but I believe it ranks up there with some of the best creature features and I’ll tell you why:

A group of animal rights activists hire grumpy sailor (played by B-movie hero Michael Paré*) with the hope of exposing animal testing happening on a small (military) island. Upon arriving the group find the island deserted (basically a way of saving money during production). They finally come across a Dr. Richardson who explains that everyone on the island is dead, thus leading us to a full blown explanation (including badly filmed flashbacks) of what happened. Basically they were developing a compound to make edible plants grow to a super size (I think to solve world hunger but I’m not sure) when the military intervened and used the compounds on Komodo Dragons and King Cobras (because these are apparently the best creatures to use as weapons?) Of course all went wrong and the beasts escaped and ate pretty much everything on the island (including the humans in the underground bunker which has corridors far smaller than both the Cobra and the Komodo). Now begins the team’s desperate attempt to escape the island alive (baring in mind they got all the way to the labs without even seeing said ‘giant’ creatures, I’d have said their chances were pretty good. But who am I to say).

Throughout their journey off the island the group of course end up bumping into both creatures, independently until the climax of the film when they face off against both creatures at once (kinda). The CGI on the creatures is appalling, it is easily some of the worst I’ve seen (possibly even worse than Python II and that is pretty bad….). A great example of how bad it all is is from their first encounter with the Cobra. It kind of just appears from behind a small bush (it confused me slightly but I went with it) and decides it’s going to eat a member of the group. When it goes in for the kill the man just stops and looks up. We (the audience) can clearly see that they have just taken a still image of the man allowing the poorly animated snake to just slot it’s jaws over the top of him. It looks really bad. The other great example is the end battle between the creatures of the title. During this battle (and the rest of the film to be fair) Michael Paré just stands and fires with his guns with infinite ammo (well they may not be infinite but I lost count when he had fired 132 shots from two pistols without reloading). This battle is the one that most who have heard of the film may have seen on YouTube where the video simply is uploaded as a way of trying to say the movie is the worst movie ever made (which it really isn’t).

With the CGI being so awful, you’d have thought the acting would also be terrible. You’d be right. everyone in the film is awful except for Mr Paré. He holds the film on his back much like the titan Atlas holding the world on his shoulders (just on a slightly smaller scale). If you asked me who any of the other actors were I couldn’t honestly tell you, they were just there to die really. The script doesn’t really help matters but to be fair I don’t blame the script, I just think the actors were bad.

The number of bad things go on and on but there is one really good thing….. The score. I really liked the musical score for the film and even if it felt out-of-place at a lot of times it was good enough to distract from the bad acting.

So…. This is where I’m meant to tell you all to stay away from this film…

But I’m not…

I really enjoyed the film because it is so incredibly bad. Many creature films are ‘bad yet good’ but this for me is up there with the best. I think in all honesty the main reason for me loving the film so much is the fact that it has Michael Paré. I think he is a great actor and he looks like he is having so much fun in this film. He is enough to save this film from being plain bad. When people say that this is the worst film ever (I’ve heard many a person say this) I can’t imagine what they would have been expecting. If you go into a film entitled ‘Komodo Vs Cobra’ expecting to see another ‘Citizen Kane’ then I can see why you’d be disappointed (but who would do that? Honestly) If you go into it expecting what it is, a lower level (opposed to high budget features like ‘Tremors’ or ‘Arachnophobia’) ‘Creature feature’ I can’t see how you’d be disappointed.

I say if you like this sort of film you should watch it. It’s fun and reasonably fast paced.

*It’s a shame Michael Paré’s career never went much further than B-movie greatness. He really is a great actor……. Check out ‘Streets of fire’, it’s one of his first films and also one of my favourite films of all time……