Komodo vs Cobra (2005)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Cinetel Films

RUNTIME: 94 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: A genetically-engineered Komodo Dragon and King Cobra have become ginormous creatures hunting people on a remote tropical island. A small group of scientists must stop the creatures before they escape the island and destroy the rest of the world.

REVIEW: While Komodo vs Cobra seems to be advertised and constantly referred to as a sequel to Curse of the Komodo, it's actually more correct to look at it as a remake, despite being made not even a year later. It has the exact same plot, filmed in the exact same locations, complete with exact same military subplot with the exact same outcome of said subplot, beat-for-beat and pretty much word-for-word. If, like me, you've already seen Curse of the Komodo then you've already seen this movie, just replace some of the Komodo scenes with a Cobra.

There are only three differences - First, the group that happens upon the island in this one is a group of Environmental Activists instead of bank robbing fugitives. Second, the giant komodo dragon now has less screen time, as it's screen time is shared with a giant cobra as well. And third, the special effects aren't as good as they were in the first movie. Those three aspects aside, this is literally the exact same movie, even with cameos by some of the actors from the first movie, playing different roles this time around.

Also interesting to note, this movie stars Jeri from Season 2 of Survivor (and countless of the All-Star seasons), and she actually wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting her to be once I saw her pop on-screen. I think she needs to stop appearing one every other season of Survivor and get back into the B-movie game, cause she was quite the pleasant surprise here.

Despite being a direct clone of Curse of the Komodo, there's nothing especially bad in the movie, other then the CGI creature effects, and the only reason I don't like this is because I've just watched the other one and this is exactly the same movie. If it was the other way around and I had watched this one first, then I'd probably be preferring this movie to that one instead.


6/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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The Curse of the Komodo (2004)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Royal Oaks Entertainment

RUNTIME: 92 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: A genetically-engineered Komodo Dragon has become a ginormous creature hunting people on a remote tropical island. A small group of scientists must stop the dragon before it escapes the island and destroys the rest of the world.

REVIEW: After having watched some of his more recent work, I was in the mood to go back and watch one of Jim Wynorski's previous movies that I hadn't yet seen, and since I love creature features I figured Curse of the Komodo was a good one to start with.

Right off the bat I was pretty surprised that the military Special Ops team in the opening minutes were not the main characters like I had initially thought, and that the Doctor they were sent there to evacuate turned out to be the main character, and for once he was not evil, nor did he create the giant Komodo Dragon on purpose - It was a byproduct of his formula for growing larger super vegetables, funded by the military, and he's actually doing all he can to keep himself and his crew away from that thing (including a pretty cool Starship Troopers 2-style electric perimeter). A group of fugitives land on this island in the middle of the night, due to the severity of the storm keeping them from going any further, and I was once again left pretty surprised to see two of them being played by Paul Logan from his pre-Asylum days, and the main Chicky from Raptor, since I had no idea they were in this and I enjoy both of them (One for his acting, the other for her looks - ha).

The monster effects looked pretty decent, though I wish the creature had more to do other then just show up, stand there in one spot while they shoot at it some, then turn and leave - That's pretty much all it does for 90% of its scenes in the movie. Still, it looked cool all the same, and I actually like most of the human characters so I didn't mind spending some extra time with them. This movie also made me realize how much I really miss monster B-movies that take place at night and/or during massive rain storms. It adds a level of atmosphere that isn't there for daytime scenes, and most monster movies these days seem to take place entirely during bright day scenes.

This one was a definite surprise for me as I wasn't expecting much at all and ended up really enjoying my time spent watching it - only thing that could have made it better for me was some better Giant Komodo Dragon action.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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