Uriah43
"Vic Rondelli" (Harry Hamlin) is the new Fire Chief for the small town of San Catalona and on the first day at his job a teenage boy is bitten and killed by a rattlesnake. Although the rattlesnake managed to escape Vic is surprised at how fast the venom took effect. Not long afterward six or seven rattlesnakes are found in the crawlspace of a new home but before Vic has a chance to examine any of them a real estate developer named "Max Farrington" (Jack Scalia) has them killed and quickly burned. Concerned about this sudden appearance of such aggressive rattlesnakes Vic attempts to take certain proactive measures but is thwarted at every opportunity by Max—even as the death toll rises. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that, although the plot greatly resembled the film "Rattled" which was produced three years earlier, this was a still a decent movie none-the-less. It had good suspense and some solid performances by Jack Scalia, Shannon Sturges (as Max Farrington's assistant "Mandy Stratford") and Harry Hamlin. Again, while this movie was hardly unique it still wasn't too bad and for that reason I rate it as about average.
drystyx
This is standard movie fare done extremely bad. Big rattlesnakes kill people, and the people who know how dangerous the snakes are can't get anyone to listen. The writers and director try to use every cliché to further their careers. The pity is that this usually works. We're also inundated with the all American look of every man having dark hair and every woman having blonde hair, a neo-Nazi trend used to glorify the Hitler Nazi machine by many movie makers. Again, there are so many rich neo-Nazis who insist upon this being "classic", that directors and writers who use this technique go rewarded with bigger and bigger budgets. And don't be fooled. This is a big budget movie. This is expensive work. Don't ever let someone tell you some of these movies are low budget, because they aren't. You couldn't get this much capital to make a movie, unless you are rich yourself. There just isn't anything good about this movie.
Paul Andrews
Silent Predators starts on a dark night somewhere on a lonely road in Southern Califonia where a flat bed truck is driving along carrying a wooden crate with the words 'Venomous Reptile - Handle With Extreme Care' stencilled on it in big red lettering (!). The driver (Dominic Purcell) stops & gives a lift to a stranded motorist (Paul Tessone), the motorist ask's what's in the crate & the driver says it's a huge snake. Shortly after a tyre on the truck blows & causes the truck to crash, after killing the two men the venomous snake escapes... Jump '20 Years Later' & the to the small American town of San Catalano & the new fire chief Vic Rondelli (Harry Hamlin) has just arrived to take over from his retiring counterpart George (Beau Billingslea). The town is holding some sort of fête so Vic takes the opportunity to introduce himself to the locals, while Vic talks lovers Lacey (Nathalie Roy) & Jake (Daniel Murphy) disappear into the nearby forest where Jake is bitten by an aggressive rattlesnake & dies almost instantly. More people fall victim to the deadly snakes that have been disturbed by housing construction as Vic & PR executive Mandy Stratford (Shannon Sturges) try to alert the town, however greedy property developer Max Farrington (Jack Scalia) & Mayor Parker (David Spielberg) want everything hush-hush to avoid bad publicity...Directed by Noel Nosseck I thought Silent Predators was average at best. The script by John Carpenter (if you can believe that), William S. Gilmore & Matt Dorff is as clichéd, predictable & strictly by-the-numbers as is possible. The character's for instance, the selfish businessman who wants to keep everything quiet because of his investment, the Mayor who fears for the towns economy, the unflappable hero with personal problems who nobody takes seriously at first, the blonde female who falls for the hero & just tags along for no apparent reason other than to be put in mortal danger so the hero can save & 'get the girl' at the end, the disposable character's who are there to keep the body count going but add nothing else whatsoever to the story, the scientist expert who happens to be a personal mate of the hero & knows everything about the creature/monster (depending upon film) & the central threat itself, in this case snakes, that pop up occasionally to kill someone. They're all here, present & correct. Everything you would expect to happen does, the nest being disturbed, a few deaths, the hero figuring it out, the female getting into trouble & the hero saving the day. Silent Predators doesn't have an original bone in it's body, having said that I found it sort of watchable on a really dumb level.Director Nosseck doesn't do anything special with the film, it has no real style or flair to it although it does look a little better than it's low budget made-for-TV origins would suggest. There is no gore, decent scares, excitement & the thing is rather flat. The film never uses the snakes to their full potential either, there is no tension during the infrequent attacks & they aren't scary. For some reason Silent Predators was shot in Australia even though it was an American produced & financed film supposedly set in America? Figure that out.With a budget that probably didn't amount to a hill of beans Silent Predators best asset is it's nice Australian locations, the photography is above average for a TV film & I suppose it's generally well made if extremely lifeless & flat. The acting isn't of a very high standard which should come as no surprise.Silent Predators doesn't do anything wrong in itself, it's just that it's so unoriginal & clichéd that you will have probably seen every part of this film or character somewhere else. Only worth bothering with if your absolutely desperate or can see it on TV (where it firmly belongs very late at night) for free. Oh, & one more thing why is this called Silent Predators when it features rattlesnakes? I mean rattlesnakes are probably the noisiest snakes ever, right?
