Reviews. Maneater series. Eye of the Beast/Vipers. By Brian Kirst
I have a feeling acclaimed author Joe Hill might dig the Maneater series. After all, his short story ‘You Will Hear the Locust Sing’ (in the wonderful collection ‘20th Century Ghosts’) deals with a teen’s transformation (perhaps due to nearby chemical testing) into a murderous locust – a set of circumstances that is vaguely similar to the plotlines of such Maneater epics as Eye of the Beast and Vipers. Of course, Hill’s story has a poetic duality and a sympathetic psychology that these two torso flapping flicks could never hope to reach. Yet, I still can imagine Hill popping open a couple of Buds (or what have you) and having a little chuckle at these two li’l frisky fellows.
Eye of the Beast. James Van Der Beek and a lot of floppy rubber squid – what more could you ask for without being labeled too demanding? Yep as punishment, good ole rebellious James is sent to investigate a small town’s dwindling fish supply and discovers the reason is far bloodier than he ever anticipated.
Of course, this flick has the natural Jaws comparisons (with a female sheriff having had a youthful encounter and thus a life long fear of the rarely seen giant squid) but it moves along briskly and there are enough scenes of the locals getting shaken about in the suckers of the evil squid to rate this as a true guilty pleasure.
Vipers. Tara Reid’s growl strung vocals and wild child past actually give her performance in this accelerated snakes gone hungry flick a special poignancy. Here, she plays a misunderstood, ostracized florist like a proud yet wounded puppy. It is disappointing that all the snakes displayed look like obvious CGI creations. But there is still plenty of flesh flying, bloodshed to be seen ultimately making this one of the series’ goriest offerings.
Mercedes McNab (Buffy, Angel, Hatchet) also shows up as the mistress of the local jack-of-the-trades. Just like Reid she displays a wise sympathy, but she ends up spread n’ dead akin to Suzanne Somers in the popular telefilm Ants – proving that for television Blondes life can be very cyclical indeed.
