Vipers (film)

Vipers
Teaser poster
Written by	Brian Katkin
Directed by	Bill Corcoran
Starring	Tara Reid Jonathan Scarfe Corbin Bernsen Genevieve Buechner Aaron Pearl Mercedes McNab
Theme music composer	Lawrence Shragge
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Producer	Mary Anne Waterhouse
Cinematography	Thomas Burstyn
Editor	Lisa Binkley
Running time	95 minutes
Original release
Network	Sci Fi Channel
Release	September 21, 2008 (2008-09-21)

Vipers is a 2008 American television film directed by Bill Corcoran and starring Tara Reid and Jonathan Scarfe. It premiered on the Sci Fi Channel on September 21, 2008, and was released on DVD on September 23, 2008. The name of the film was inspired by the Co/Ed softball team of the same name, playing games in the summer months throughout the Capital Region. It is the 12th film of the Maneater Series.

Universal Bio Tech Research Facility secretly works on enhancing horned viper snakes with poison C12 for their venom to cure disease. The enhanced venom cures a woman of breast cancer. The snakes, however, eventually destroy their cages and murder four people before being contained. Mr. Staffin shows up without notice, subdues the staff and orders his own men to load the snakes. Dr. Akim manages to shoot the glass of the tank, releasing the snakes, before Staffin shoots him with a sleep dart. The snakes kill everybody except Staffin, who escapes.

Dr. Vera Collins learns that there has been a break-in at one of the Universal Bio Tech facilities, where the snakes were enhanced without her knowledge or approval. She thinks that this was unethical.

The snakes repopulate at an increasing rate. Meanwhile, on the island of Eden Cove, a newlywed couple is murdered on a beach. The bodies are found by a young man named Cal Taylor and Hank Brownie, a local who notices a rental jeep with the doors wide open. They find the woman's wedding ring and take it to Sheriff Tom Hendricks. He walks in on Jack, who owns an inn, and Georgie, who owns the car rental, flirting and asks Georgie to check on the info for the jeep. He shows disdain for their tomfoolery because Jack is still only separated from his wife and Tom's friend, Ellie. Jack helps Cal check into the inn, but gets interrupted by Ellie and their teenage daughter Maggie. Maggie accuses Jack of sleeping around and says that she refuses to move and start over at a new school before running off. Meanwhile, Cal has come to Eden to see Doc Jim Silverton, bringing things from the latter's deceased son Joey. Doc mourns the fact Joey's remains cannot be transferred to the states to be buried. Sheriff Tom then calls, saying that Maggie broke into Nicky's place and smoked marihuana. When Doc and Cal get to The Garden, owner Nicky, Maggie, Ellie and Jack are arguing. Doc is retiring and Cal may take over for him.

Ellie and Nicky fight before they hear screaming outside from a woman named Emily Willis. Her child, Jake, was bitten by a snake. Nicky rushes Cal and Jake to the clinic. There, Cal injects Jake with antivenom, stabilizing him. Doc leaves town to take Jake to a hospital with Cal subbing in for him, and Nicky is taken to prison for growing marihuana. Meanwhile, Vera tells Burton that she only has a limited supply of C12, which will only immobilize the snakes temporarily. However, C12 will also kill humans. Burton says that she needs to examine Jake's bite and determine if it comes from one of their vipers, and to contain the problem on Eden if so. He then introduces Jon Staffin as his security chief and sends them out. On Eden, Jack drives Maggie back to the inn. She gets angry when Georgie appears and storms off. Maggie walks past Hank Brownie as he reels in a half eaten dead fish out of the water. Brownie mentions that he has never seen anything like it.

Sheriff Tom visits Cal at the clinic while he is patching up Ellie, who insists on pressing charges against Nicky for assault. Tom asks if she is overreacting, and Ellie accuses him of having feelings for Nicky, but he denies it. Doc calls Cal, saying that Jake is getting worse, and that the bite had an unusual amount of venom in it, and says that while they have no more antivenom, he will be back in the morning and they should be fine. When they get off the phone, Vera and Staffin ask to speak to Doc. Jack and Georgie, who have just had sex, are in the inn and Georgie is attempting to sleep while Jack showers. Georgie thinks that Jack is teasing her again, but is attacked by the vipers and killed. Tom takes Cal to examine Nicky, still in prison. They speak about Joey, and Nicky shows remorse about his death and the fight they had before he enlisted and left, ultimately leading to his death. Cal later exits, leaving his tools, which Nicky uses to escape. Brownie shows Tom the lake, full of half devoured fish carcasses. At the inn, Jack finishes dressing in the restroom and enters the room to find Georgie's body. Cal and Nicky stumble upon Jack in a panic state, and Cal saves Nicky from a viper. They carry Jack's body away because Georgie's body is covered in vipers.

At the lake, Tom finds more vipers, and unknowingly tells everyone to run for the hotel, however Maggie runs the wrong way and does not reach the inn. The snakes intrude the lobby, where everyone is hiding, but Cal scares them off with a fire extinguisher. Against Tom's orders, Ellie leaves to find Maggie. She finds her, but they get surrounded on the bridge. Tom appeats and saves Maggie, who cannot walk, and locks her in the safe room at the sheriff's office. The snakes kill Tom, and Jack saves Ellie. They get cornered outside the office, but Cal and Nicky once more use the extinguisher to deter the snakes while they all hide in a van. Cal jumps out of the van and uses the extinguisher while rescuing Maggie and returning to the van, but Cal gets bitten in the process. The van refuses to start and they have to run a café's back entrance, but Ellie gets attacked, and Cal barricades himself, Maggie, and Nicky into the backroom of the cafe using ice, inferring that they do not like the cold. Meanwhile, Doc, Staffin and Vera reach the island and find snakes eating dozens of corpses. En route to the inn, they use grenades of C12 to subdue the snakes. Jack, who is alive, finds Maggie, Nicky and Cal and takes them to the inn also. One of the men with the rescue, Simpson, is killed by a snake, and Vera is repulsed by Staffin's order to move on.

Everyone meets up at the inn, but rescue is not coming until morning. The townspeople are restless and try to leave using the boat Bio Tech arrived on. This leads to a fight in which Jack gets shot. The townspeople leave the inn while Maggie has to be pulled away by Cal. Many are attacked while attemptting to reach the boats. The remainder retreat back to the inn. Jack succumbs to his injuries despite Cal's efforts. The snakes later try to get in. Doc kills one, and they try to barricade the doors. One of Staffin's men, Lewison, cracks and tells the truth, that they were not there to rescue the town, they were sent to gather vipers and take them back, and that aircraft were coming in the morning to gas the entire island, killing everyone left by then.

Cal, Doc, and Vera plan to lure the snakes off the boat, call off the airstrike and escape. Staffin secretly scolds Lewison for revealing plans and reveals that there is a contingency plan. Maggie guides everyone downstairs to where her dad stores a truck, and they attach any heat sources they can to it. Cal tells Maggie to help Doc get to the boats so he can call off the airstrike. Lewison drives the truck while Cal, Staffin, Nicky, Vera and Brownie attract the snakes with heat and guide them to the greenhouse, where Cal plans to trap and kill them. Doc guides the rest of the townspeople to the boats and tries to get ahold of the truck over the walkie talkies, but does not get a response. Maggie takes off but Doc cannot chase after her and departs with the boat. The truck succeeded in guiding the snakes to the greenhouse, and they rush inside. Lewison is bitten, and Maggie appears with more C12 to temporarily subdue the snakes, saving Cal. Vera uses fertilizer and gasoline to create bombs while the snakes weaken the glass until they eventually get in. Staffin gets bitten and, when he dies, they realize he had a radio on him the entire time. He was planning to escape by himself and leave everyone else to die. Vera demands Burton to call the attack off, but he thanks her for her scientific sacrifice and turns his radio off. Cal tries to radio Homeland Security, but they say that Eden is under quarantine and the radio gets jammed by Bio Tech. Brownie accidentally shoots and cracks the glass roof and the snakes begin climbing in, killing Brownie.

Nicky and Vera use flares and propane tanks to ignite the greenhouse, causing an explosion. They see the aircraft coming, but realize that Doc got through when they do not gas the island. Meanwhile, Burton is giving a speech about Bio Tech's profits to interviewers when his walkie talkie conversation with Vera admitting his plan to kill everyone to cover himself is played over the intercom. Burton is arrested. Cal made the recording and was playing it over their speaker system through his computer. Burton is out on bail and gets into a vehicle while on the phone making plans to make everything disappear when he is killed by a snake hiding in his car.

• Tara Reid as Nicky Swift
• Jonathan Scarfe as Cal Taylor
• Corbin Bernsen as Burton
• Genevieve Buechner as Maggie Martin
• Aaron Pearl as Jack Martin
• Mercedes McNab as Georgie
• Claire Rankin as Ellie Martin
• Michael Kopsa as John Staffen
• Jessica Steen as Dr. Collins
• Don S. Davis as Dr. Silverton
• Mark Humphrey as Sheriff Hendricks
• Ellen Mcgillveray as Body On Bridge

Dread Central said, "Vipers is the sort of nature gone amok movie that if it had been made 20-30 years ago, we’d be looking back on it today saying it may not have been a very good movie but we enjoyed it anyway."^[1]

• Official website
• Vipers at IMDb
• Vipers at AllMovie